Ad Rants featured this story on Jeep.
Like Ikea, Adidas, and several other advertisers who have got it –that engaging your brand is more powerful than a bland ad– Jeep took product demonstration to new heights, as you can see from this photograph.
Communications
Bloggers as conversationalists.
It’s nice to hear a new blogger reflect on the business of PR and blogging. Michael O’Connor Clarke of Mansfield Communications makes an important point about marketing Communations. Referring to Cluetrain’s Doc Searls’ line that ‘markets are conversations’ he has this to say about why blogging hapens.
So marketers should be conversationalists. Explains why so many PR pros have ventured into blogspace. We’ve come here looking for the conversations – and hoping to start some.
No sex please, we’re American
Interesting how British advertising seems to be going off in a direction that is a no-no in the U.S.
Take this ad for Amstrad’s videophone. Shows how to make a serious product in an age of cameraphones look interesting, by focusing on the unexpected benefit of a videophone. Viewer discretion advised!
Voting sites know their sh**t
Unlike the official campaign sites, which are still stuck in the nineties, the sites urging people to get out the vote seem to have got it.
November2.Org does a good job of making the act of voting sound urgent, and interesting.
“Set the alarm early and loud. Wake the nation. Fill the car with neighbors. Drive to the polls. This is it. Now is here. We decide” says one ad
Other sites such as RockTheVote.Org and CitizenChange.Com featuring P. Diddy and Maya, are more provocative. (T-shirts have ‘Vote or Die’ slogans.) However, they take on even boring topics like ‘know your voting rights’ etc with captions such as “KNOW YOUR SHI*T”
Advertising quotes worth remembering
MarketingPower.com the Web site of the American Marketing Association, featured this quote from Jeremy Bullmore yesterday
Who’s he? First read the quote:
“Consumers build an image [of a brand] as birds build nests. From the scraps and straws they chance upon.”
Jeremy Bullmore
Then, consider this from another heavyweight:
“Brands are out of juice.”
Kevin Roberts
Bullmore was the former chairman of J. Walter Thompson Co.
And Kevin Roberts? Chairman/CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi.
Parting quote:
For the poor ad agency clients, it’s like when you were a child and went to the doctor’s. There was the nasty doctor who just shoved foul-tasting medicine down your throat. Then there was the nice doctor who empathised with your anxiety regarding the foul taste and had a nice sugar cube handy for you. Either way, you still got the same old medicine.
Mark Wnek
Tomorrow, a quote from (Sir) Martin Sorrell.
39 mattresses for Ikea
Interesting execution of this ‘sign’ hung by Ikea in Paris, at some major railway stations.
See the story here.
Kevin Roberts: A man with a plan for brands
If you haven’t heard of Kevin Roberts or that odd concept called Lovemarks, you’ve not been in advertising long enough!
Roberts, CEO of of Satchi & Saatchi, is a prolific ideas person, pushing the boundaries of advertising and creativity, and saying provocative –but true– things about branding. (Who’s to contest that “brands have run out of juice?”) His book, Lovemarks, is a very unusual book. Good-looking, terrific ideas, but awful in terms of layout. The Lovemarks site, however, is much more valuable. Plenty of community involvement, etc. To make things more interesting, the site awarded a Toyota Prius to the best Lovemark story, in August this year. (There’s another offer, for a KitchenAid mixer, going on.)
JotSpot gives Wikis a good name
Take a look at JotSpot, the company offering a free beta Wiki product. These features are remarkable. It appears that the Jotspot founders have thought through how to solve the techy issues that frustrate most communicators. For instance, they have this feature that allows you to send an email to every page of your Wiki. Imagine that! No manual ‘posting’ unless you really have to. Just “cc” an email you are sending your team/project mates, and it gets automatically posted.
If you want to try it out, go here, and fill out some basic info.
I should have mine up in a few days. I am already working on an article on Wikis, and by the time it is published, I should be up and running with a great collaboration tool.
Imagination at Work –on your desktop
GE, the company that’s running an ‘imagination at work’ campaign has a terrific idea, online, to support the claim – a white board and a few thick markers. Clicking on the ad, opens a window, which then prompts you to ‘pick up’ a marker –by clicking and dragging your mouse.
It works just like the white board application in Windows, but is even more fanciful. It allows you to write or draw anything.
I checked out the GE site, by Googling ‘imagination at work’ and the page loaded with the same tool. What’s neat about this site is that it is free of text and hype you’d expect about the company’s ‘imagination’ claim. As any art director will tell you, white space is a beautiful thing!
A few simple clickable boxes allow you to change the color of the page, change the color of the ink in the marker, choose the thickness of the tip, or see a preview of your doodle/masterpiece –which redraws your creation. Messed up? Wipe the page and start again! When finished, you can send that page via email to a friend or yourself. I can see this developing into a tool for all kinds of educational ends.
Madison and Porn, Virgin style.
Excuse the overblown headline, but with the rush to integrate advertising and entertainment a la Madison and Vine, it had to go this way. Virgin Atlantic Airways, as noted by Stuart Elliott, the New York Times Media and Advertising columnist, has embarked on a risqué advertising gimmick using LodgeNet, the video-on-demand service in hotel chains.
The 10-minute porn look-alike flick is listed among the other adult titles, with no hint that it is a piece of adver-tainment. Of course, it is free. It was created by Miami hotshot ad agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky.
Hoipolloireport 
