Filed under: Advertising, Futures, innovative education, Innovative stimulus | Tags: positive posters
On the 10th November Positive Posters announced that Christopher Sousa Ebels from Australia was awarded first place in their 2011 Positive Posters competition. Christopher’s entry, “The Real Carbon Tax”, was chosen by the panel of judges as the winning poster out of over 2,500 entries. Second place was given to Dee Choi from Australia with “McVegetables” and third place went to Anita Wasik from Poland with her entry “Corporate Abuse”.
For those of you who haven’t heard of Positive Posters it’s a not for profit group started by two Aussies wanting to make a difference with design. Check ‘em out.
A new ad for Google’s analytics suggests a closer look at how difficult we make it for consumers to shop with us. Quite amusing.
For those of you in the marketing / advertising industry, another little in-joke <<just for a change>> . It’s a santa joke that’s come a little late but worth a look nonetheless. Put together by the clever folk at Quietroom a UK communications agency, it made me chuckle so I thought I’d share it with you.
You can download it here Santa StyleGuide
Enjoy friends.
Filed under: Advertising | Tags: pocket bar, pocket optimism, surry hills
Has anyone been to Pocket bar in Surry Hills Sydney? I haven’t but was surfing the net having a nosy about when I came across this cute little promotion they’re doing for pocket optimists. I wonder whether they’re relying on the fact that many people don’t respond to things like this [the averade direct mail response rate used to be about 3% I think] or whether they’ve been inundated with parking offenders. I did recently receive a parking fine the other day and considered taking it down to Pocket Bar for just a moment but then . . it felt kind of rude to just rock up to a bar that I had no relationship with and present my parking fine. I wonder if anyone has taken them up on their offer? Either way, it’s certainly an usual promo idea…
HP has launched a campaign for small and micro-businesses with the theme of “the office tool”. The idea is that small and micro-business owners and employees often escape certain stereotypical colleagues that are common in large businesses. The cartoon portrays an example of this – the annoying guy that takes credit for your work and brags about it to the boss, portrayed as the “tool” you don’t need. So, what is the tool you do want? Well, in this instance, it’s the HP Officejet Pro 8500 printer.
Here’s a link to the cartoon “The Office Tool“
What the?
I assume they’ve created it as something that can be passed around to get down with the peeps who run their own businesses and might be in the market for a new printer. They obviously don’t know those peeps very well. This has to be one of the worst executions I have seen in a long time. Not only is it really simplistic, they also explain it to you just in case you’re too dumb to get the joke.
The irony is that it’s so crap I’ll probably pass it on. Or not.
Filed under: Advertising, Social media | Tags: My RB Opportunity, Reckitt Benckiser
Quite some time ago I received an email from a lovely account executive over at Shiny Red in London about a new social media campaign they’re developing for Reckitt Benckiser.
As a part of said new campaign they have developed an integrated social media strategy to raise awareness of the global opportunities that exist at the company. At the centre of the campaign is a new blog, ‘My RB Opportunity’ which aims to offer a window into the world of work at the company. The blog is written by nine graduate trainees from Reckitt Benckiser’s offices around the world, who are sharing their thoughts and experiences to offer prospective employees a real understanding of the diverse environment and reflect what it’s like to succeed in the company.
If you don’t know Reckitt Benckiser, they make all kinds of products like Detol, Veet, Strepsils etc. I understand from the email I received that “this campaign has been created in order to demonstrate Reckitt Benckiser’s commitment to engaging with social media and that the blog is one part of an integrated campaign that encompasses everything from Linked In, to Facebook and Twitter”. I also assume that the email was sent to me so that I could review the blog and perhaps post on it. So I went to the blog and I checked it out.
My first question is: Why?. My second question is: Who?. Why does it exist and who do you think is going to read it? I know that there are countless reality shows on cable at the moment which chronicle the lives of interns at Vogue or Marie Claire, young guns attempting to crawl up the Master Chef ladder or become the next apprentice. I guess the factor that makes those shows work is entertainment. Great script writing or strong polarising characters or great filming [and editing].
We do want to watch the interns at Vogue scratch eachother’s eyes out over who gets to go to the latest fashion show because they’re bitchy New Yorkers and that’s funny. We love Master Chef because it has some moderately big names and who doesn’t love cooking? And just maybe, we imagine that it could be us one day. We love to watch the Apprentice and others like it. But who would want to read the musings of a real intern at a large multinational corporate?
They’re not going to write anything too interesting or be doing much except towing the line because they have jobs they want to keep. If they had hired a comedian or a particularly articulate journalist to write the copy, maybe I would read it. But as it is now, it’s a big black hole of corporate commentary about nothing much in particular. I appreciate that they’re trying to do something different and commend them for that. I’m just not sure what the point of it is.
Anyone>?
Filed under: Advertising | Tags: advertising industry, BBC Four, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe
A healthy sense of both scepticism and humour is required for those of us who work in the advertising industry or used to or occasionally dabble in it from time to time like a sneaky habit. Here’s a rather amusing video, check it out.
Filed under: Advertising, creativity, Emergent media, Geek stuff, Innovative advertising, Nike | Tags: Nike
Speaking of Nike [see James Jarvis post below] and newfound blogger Bud [see post below], here’s another great example of Nike digital advertising. If other companies took a more considered thoughtful approach to digital conversation rather than literally attempting to “take over” our pages while we’re surfing [hands up who thought the page takeover was ever going to be a positive consumer interaction?] the digital advertising world might just move towards the personal, interactive, conversational medium it promised to be. Check it out. Bloody great. ps. thanks Bud.
Filed under: Advertising, banking, Digital culture | Tags: citibank, generation forward, MySpace
Citibank recently launched a new credit card in partnership with MySpace targeted at young adults which it terms “Generation Forward”. It’s launched a sexy ad talking bout this generation, offering some reward type arrangements for good behaviour and offers an interest rate reduction for paying on time.
The idea has been slated by many already as an empty promotion that not only offers a complete firfy if you read the fine print, but that the “generation forward” positioning is actually at odds (in philosophy) from how Citibank itself operates.
The idea of a bank rewarding younger people for responsible repayments is a nice one. The idea of putting a line in the financial sand between the generations which caused the financial crisis and the new generations coming up the line is also a nice one. All in all it seems to be another marketing program that didn’t quite hit the mark due to it’s inability to deliver any real change beyond a sexy campaign.
On the banking scene,I wonder if anyone will build on the idea and do it for real? I wonder if a bank could actually take the positioning and deliver on real savings for younger people as a loyalty exercise? If they could find more innovative ways to provide value and earn more coin for themselves, whilst providing a genuinely responsible and transparent credit plan for young people in the process…Now that would be impressive.
If you’re interested, here’s a little more commentary on the topic:
Filed under: Advertising, FMCG innovation, Innovative promotions | Tags: confectionery, have a break, innovative promotion, kit kat, Marketing
Check out this new website from Kit Kat. Following on from their famous and fabulous ‘Have a break campaigns, here they present us with just that. A complete and total break. A break from Twitter from Facebook from email from being bombarded with advertising messages, banner ads and Flickr boxes. No widgets, no downloadable icons or message boards. No forums, no email newsletters no avatars no handles. A complete and utter break.
And that’s not the best bit . . at the bottom it reads, ‘If you detect something happening on this website, it’s probably a bug and we’ll try to fix it’.
Love it.
Check it out
Thanks to Stephanie Branston for the pointer
