The first time I watched this video for Skittles I did not follow instructions and place my finger on the screen:
Big mistake! It's kind of a creepy, but it works. When the kitten is liking your finger, it almost feels like it's actually liking your finger. When beardy-cat comes along, this ad gets infinitely creepier with his eye expressions.
The others in the Touch campaign are pretty hiliarious:
Here is another ambient ad from South Korea. I like OOH that gradually changes with time. The disadvantage is that people who see the advert before the transformation takes place don't get to see the full effect of the message, but it's usually pretty impressive.
To raise awareness on "Bear Farming," the practice of caging bears to extract their gall bladders for medicine, this floor poster was made. Adhesive tape would slowly pick up passerby's foot prints, exposing the caged existences these bears live in.
This is a campaign from France for AIDES awareness. Oh warning, this is from Europe and commercials are more sexually daring over there.
I do like this PSA's old-school animation with Joan Jett blaring in the background. But I think the last AIDES Paris commercial where there is focus on using protection was more effective:
I prefer the "Graffiti" commercial over Smutley the cat. The animation is really clever, and the anthromorphsized penis is interesting in how it moves throughout the scene. There is a definite focus on condom use*, whereas, Smutley just resorts to a tagline to make the point... "He's got nine lives. You've only got one. Protect yourself" and he continues to just bang every animal in sight.
There have been some crappy viral campaigns coming out, like this "press conference" with Ford ... and Doug the puppet?
The first time, I got to 1:33 before I found something better to do. The jokes were pretty awful. Viral cannot be forced. It gets worse with the one-on-one interview with Doug and pretty pants. And apparently... there are going to be a whole series of webisodes with Doug. Unfortunately...
And then there was the LOSS protests for GE appliances.
This advert seem really tasteless considering very serious and very real protests happening around the world. And at the end, "NOTICE: ... "You, on the other hand, understand this is an elaborate joke. We hope it makes you chuckle. Or chortle. Or both." Interesting way to get around legal copy copywriters, but it draws attention to the fact 1) the suspension of disbelief has been broken 2) if you have to say it's a joke, it's not funny.
Last one, and I actually like this one. But I have a soft spot for nerdy boys. It has the right percentage of hokey. It is a little too long, but of course it's a "music video." And they brought back the Kid n' Play...
It just works for me, until the faux tour when they walk into the "viral video" department. That just kills it.
People like schwag. Revised statement... people like to get stuff for free. People will take your schwag, but the odds they'll end up tossing it at the end of the conference or trade show is pretty high. Who wants to lug around lame schwag when there's a booth passing out better schwag. Or that person will come to the realization that this is something they'll never use in their lifetime, so they chuck it. And all the branding efforts of putting your organizational contact information is wasted on garbage fodder.
So mostly I don't like schwag because it's pretty cringe-worthy, but I kind of like this one from Cape Town, South Africa for the UCT Graduate School of Business.
The Tea Chest and Travel Tea Box are used to illustrate the "Full Color Thinking" of the PossibilitTEAs with an education at UCT Graduate School. The fact that there isn't an obvious link from tea to a business school is overlookable with the cool packaging and concept. An argument can probably be made but ... it isn't overtly apparent or applicable to most business school students. The idea of PossibiliTEAs is a little hokey, but it is light enough where it's not off-putting and is actually pretty comical. I'm a hard-core caffeine gal, but if I saw this I would probably drink these teas.
This is a billboard from Dallas for pest control company Terminex really hammers in the FEAR of e.coli by using actual cockroaches:
There are 5,000 cockroaches in these plastic containers with air-holes, which had to be turned every fifteen minutes so the little buggers wouldn't burn in the hot Texan sun.
Little stickers of bird poop were affixed on cars saying: "The cleanest way to do a dirty job ... Aura Car Wash and + phone." This explainer says calls went up 45%. I wonder what kind of stickers they used. If they used the cheap stickers, rather than a window cling, I would be majorly annoyed, since that would take a little bit of effort take off. And Aura Car Wash just left their number where I can yell at them.
I love Ikea and I do like this ad with its minimalistic, OCD-chef aesthetic:
They do stop the sushi making to show their cutting board is ...39:- ???
I know Ikea sells mixing bowls and knives too, having had too many Ikea trips to the point where I'm on first-name basis with Ikea furniture practically... Hey how's it going Lack. What's up Billy! I would have liked it if they did that with the tiny mixing bowls too in the ad. Or is that too Fight Club?
This ad for ESPN... and the fact I LIKE this ad for ESPN says a lot because I am not a sports-watching kind of gal. But here the focus is not on the game or the players but the important decision of choosing wisely for the tournament challenge:
This is the longer version of the commercial, where the shorter one cuts out the gumball bit. Who makes their decisions based on gumballs?!? Talk about ridiculous.
I am usually very opposed to the use of infants in advertising. But when the baby picks the stuffed animal team representation that was adorable.
For Easter, the Cadbury Cream Egg Canada site has a Cad-a-pult. Very cute.
Not to be confused with a Cat-a-pult.
The arrow on the site is marshmellow, eh? [Nice touch]. So you enter the coordinates. I chose the Empire State Building. ...and this part does take some time to load. They do things a little slower in Canada, eh? Then you pull down the Cad-a-pult arm and then you GOO! Actually I held down too long, and my Cadbury egg rolled away. It actually took me five tries to properly launch my egg, and I missed the Empire State Building by a bit.
I guess Lynx is like AXE body spray across the pond. I like this. Interactive is always fun, but it seems like they were playing the same Angel video loop over and over again. We do get to see the-man-on-the-Mac sitting in the sidelines initiating the video as commuters stand on the mat. What would have made it truly brilliant is if they had "the Lynx Angel" in a secret room nearby set up with a telly so she could see what the crowd was doing and then give unique reactions to all those cheeky blokes trying to feel her up.
this one in Sydney for Hot Wheels wasn't doing for me at first.
It seemed too cartoonish and I felt like I was at a theme park. Well, it's for Hot Wheels... that's a toy, right? ...So it can have child-like effects, it's for a toy car after all. But for me, the perpetual child, it was annoying. Then a fire starts and the sprinklers turn on to douse the flames, and that's when it starts to get interesting. The "race track" fills up with water, and for some reason, there's a shark now in the race track / race tank. How did that get in there? Which I only pondered on afterwards... My immediate reaction in seeing the shark was similar to when I watched Open Water for the first time [and ONLY time] ..."I hope the shark eats one of em!"
It gets progressively more challenging for these Hot Wheels race participants. Driving underwater, for one. That's gotta suck a little, and it's interesting to watch the cars float back to the track. And then grinding gears that takes out another competitor. That's kind of cool. So why wasn't this Hot Wheels Secret Race like death match from the start? The skull announcer was a real turn off and they should have just nixed that guy to focus on more crazy race obstacles.
I'm not really that fond of this campaign, but the true breakout star is the little giraffe. There's a lot of gold blinging in the background that are superfluous to the fact that there is a mini-giraffe on a treadmill. !!!
If the ads just featured the mini-giraffe, they'd save so much time not having to hunt for gold props. Just as cats are evil bitches sometimes, giraffes are majestic bitches that will continue eating their leaves, completely ignoring you at the zoo. So at the end when the giraffe blows a kiss it becomes unbelievable* because giraffes are stoic in their grandeur.
*Well, mini giraffes are unbelievable to begin with... so why not have them act ridiculous.**
**Because it makes the mini-giraffe appear "cartoonish" rather than a majestic bitch it is.
Well, I don't really consider this to be very guerrilla... here is an OOH from the Philippines created for a shampoo to illustrate how their intense hydration formula gives you that "wet hair" look. ???
I think there are several things that bother me about ad: 1) the store is kind of already packed with a lot of stuff, and you place your message on the floor, [which is not a bad thing ... there's lots of really good floor decals out there], but this is ad and those wet floor signs are taking lot available floor space so customers cannot comfortably roam the store. 2) The combination of putting a floor decal and those caution "Wet Floor" signs is troubling. I think at this point we are kind of conditioned to walk away from wet floor signs because that signals... um, there's a wet floor ahead. It is slippery, because it is wet and we want to stay away from the slippery, wet floor so we automatically walk AWAY from the wet floor area... like how this woman above is doing, walking super close to store shelves so she can avoid this "wet floor" area. Do we really need four wet floor signs? I can imagine someone knocking one of them over, and at that point someone may actually slip on one of those wet floor signs. This ad is a fire and safety hazard.
What's great about guerrilla marketing is that these are advertisements that pop up in unusual places, and the juxtaposition of this surprising element forces the passerby to say, "well what's that over here...let me investigate." And Blammo! ...You've got their attention. While there are good examples of awesome guerrilla marketing all over the internets this one I just saw recently from Brazil:
The hopscotch element appeals to this kid in me... I still want to jump in the squares whenever I see one. To make the point that"Any child's play gets harder when they suffer from rheumatism." these hopscotch stickers were placed in unusual areas, and having it askew drives the point of the message while simultaneously bringing attention to the advertisement.
The sales offer would last as long as the ice lasted. And to make it more fun, a contest was created to guess when the snow would melt... and the winner will receive a VIP racing day. I'm assuming they must keep the sides of the highway this billboard fairly ... manicured... since people are spending money to have billboards displayed. But imagine, with all the kooky weather we've been having all over the world, if the "sales offer" was adjusted to how deep the snow got. That would be a real "winter adjusted offer" but also simultaneously sucky because that means you are living in 10 feet of snow.
First off, I really like the concept of this print ad for Volkswagen from Norway. Really I do. It's hard to find really good interactive print ads.
But I think what troubles me about this print ad is when you remove one element out of the equation. If a reader sees only the print ad that's basically a picture of a road in a magazine [and they never show the copy in this little video. Maybe because it's all in Norwegian and I wouldn't understand anyway] is the copy compelling enough for you want to take your phone out and actually take the five minutes to download the app? And vice versa, if you're browsing the iTunes store and you see a "driving Volkswagen car game app," and download it ... what do you do if you don't have that particular print ad?
So essentially what was designed was an iPhone app, and there happens to be an associated print ad also. While I do like this idea, the print ad doesn't have to be present to operate the app and I think that's what I find bothersome about the video's description of "innovative print ad"... because the print ad in itself is ancillary and not necessary to the experience.
I previously blogged about the Dell Streak commercial from Japan that features the dance troupe World Order. I prattled on how I wish they were dancing in more populated areas so we could see the WTF expressions of people passing by.
Well, I found one...
So this is World Order dancing in NY. This is exactly what I wanted! Their dancing is just absolutely mesmerizing. I love watching the reactions of the crowds of people watching. The people who totally ignore this dance troupe dancing in slow-motion is pretty entertaining too. And then there are the people who are watching, but go on what they're doing because the light turned green or they realized they have other shit to do. I love at the end when they finish their dance routine and are "running away" and one guy is stuck because a tree is in his way. At 3:11 there's a huge UFC poster in the background, which is kind of funny, because it turns out Genki Sudo, the lead singer, is a former mixed-martial arts fighter... really!
And then, I found another more flash-mob style video...
This is a longer version where they dance in more populated areas in Japan:
While I have already featured videos that essentially have the same dance moves, why is it still fresh with each viewing? I love watching their slow-mo-walk dance. There is so much beauty, artistry in it. This one has more of a narrative where World Order breaks into a Buddhist temple, and dance in there until they are discovered in there after hours and they promptly run away [in slow motion]. They do a quick shot the shoes they take off before the entering the temple, which is a nice touch. This longer version shows a dance sequence World Order does during their live performances... which is kind of amazing. Esp. when Genki Sudo clutches his beating heart and the dancers arms are flailing in the background... Again, I do not know really the lyrics.. but I feel the emotions in this dance...
World Order is officially my new favorite "thing" of the moment.
Skittles commercials [...and Starburst for that matter] are known for their kooky, nonsensical stuff filled with Scottish-Asians, bus-riding zombies, singing bunnies and magical beards. And this is another great one...
I love when the blender flies out of the window and tries to get back in... I can watch this one many, many times...
Here is one for Coca Cola... it kind-of plays the Coca-Cola song...
While Rube Goldberg machines are amazing, they're all over the internets, and when you've seen a lot of them, then RubeGoldberging starts to look similar. How do you keep it interesting? The video has to be long enough, because if it is not long enough in terms of RubeGoldbergian intricacy then it's kind of ridiculous. Such as, five gizmos do not make of a Rube Goldberg machine, but if it's too long it kind of drags...
This is really disappointing since I've always liked Diesel's innovative campaigns.
Like the Heidis:
Have you lost your edge makers of Diesel adverts? Diesel Island seems so amateurish compared to what Diesel typically puts out. As if it was a parody of itself, a feeble attempt in trying to replicate the feel of a Diesel campaign that falls flat on its face upon execution. Maybe it is the bearded spokesperson who does nothing for me. Ordinarily I enjoy a good beard, but there are many different kind of beards... sexy beards, professorial beards, hipster beards, mountain-man beards, but this beard is creepy-homeless-man-behind-the-7-11-beard. So from the get go... this advert is a gigantic So What. So what you have a creepy beard man that says FUCK. Am i supposed to care that he has a potty mouth? Does that mean he is postmodern and edgy because he cusses...
So we launch into the backstory, the history of Diesel Island. Who picked the music for this? It's so cheese, and not in a good way. Every single joke was cringe.
Getting to where our audience lives... in the real world, and getting them to interact with the brand is always interesting. That's why I like interactive store displays. These things have such viral potential. Here is one from France:
The window front for Repetto [a ballet-shoe company] was transformed into an interactive display. People walking by could stand at the designated spot and swipe different scenes on the window, with a motion that is the same fashion found on touch-technology devices. As far as interactive storefronts go, this is a little static compared to others where there are a lot of interactive points for users to choose from, but this one is still pretty good. Repetto's product is seen in action with a dancing ballerina.
Okay, I'm a cat person. Obviously. This advert speaks the truism of cats. They stare and are on top of your shit until they get what they want. They are bitches like that.
And why are kitties always portrayed in media as evil? But I like this roving cat gang advert.
First off, I love the whole "we-dance-in-slow-motion-in-this-fast-paced-business-world" execution.
Perhaps this is a cultural thing. Like how Japanese people prefer television programming where the commentators and actors "break," whereas "breaking" is seen as unprofessional in the US. But here is a flash-mob style commercial from Japan. Another major sexy thing about this commercial is poppin and lockin in a suit... talk about hot. Men [listen closely now...] it is an automatic 50 points if you are in a suit, and if you can dance like crazy... [oh baby]. The choregraphy is amazing, but I guess I miss the elements that make flash-mob videos great in the US... the audience reaction.
Everyone in the background seems really nonplussed that a suited army is waltzing by the Midtown Tower in downtown Tokyo. There are a few lookie-loos, but for the most part all these great dance sequences are happening in mostly non-populated areas so we miss all those wtf expressions on passerbys. Which again, may be a more cultural thing... or not an emphasis of the campaign, considering I don't speak Japanese and I don't know what is being said in the song.
Another great touch, [there are a few] at the end when they place their mobile over their hearts. Because we are tethered to these devices... we need our mobiles to live. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but there are times when I fell asleep with my mobile in my hand. My iPhone is always with me wherever I go. But I will say, this is a rather large device. It won't fit in my skinny jeans... so I will stick to my iPhone.
Man... I'd really like a translation of this commercial.
So a grasshopper walks into a bar, and the bartender goes... "You know they have a drink named after you?" The grasshopper says, "They have drink called Larry?"
Ah hah ha ha. Was that from Family Guy? I think why I like this print ad is because it has that type of humor...it's simple. Is this effective? Well, it got me to giggle a little bit, so I suppose so, but I do have a soft spot for jelly candies.
I really liked this idea of this Mentos gum sculpture contest. If it was more Art School Confidential-style, it would have been hilarious. It just had all the components for it in the video: hipsters looking tragic while they explain their craft, the use of found objects... This advert is good but a little too documentary, when it had a lot of potential for some really funny stuff.
How many adverts have been inspired by Japanese popculture? Like the Old Navy Mannequins for instance reminds me too much of one of the most creepiest, best Japanese TV shows Oh Mikey!
LivingSocial has a series of adverts that takes this style of performance that I've seen from Japanese TV shows.
Example:
Here's one of the LivingSocial adverts I really dig:
In the Japanese version, the players-dressed-in-black, the ones who do all the scene changes, are somewhat incognito. We can see them in the background, but for the most part they are not the focal point. In the LivingSocial advert, sometimes the players are kinda camouflaged, but there are instances when they're too visible such as skydiving scene when the background players are dressed in light-colored clothing. I mean, it is logical ... you can't some bloke all-in-black in the middle of an azure sky... and that's what makes the LivingSocial advert is so daring because it takes it out of one static scene and drives the narrative through a multitude of events. Perhaps this motif is quintessentially an American-style of advert that has been popular lately; one of the rapidly shifting scene, woven seamlessly together. Think: Old Spice; those stop-motion Kindle adverts. In this particular LivingSocial commercial, the transition from the massage table to the skydiving scene and the mimicking of the opening parachute... is just absolutely brilliant.
I really like the idea of the terrain changing as if the world was a gigantic Rubik's cube. I'm not sure about those animatronic robo-cougars though. But for the most part, combined with the score I found it pretty good.
