Know your limits

At this time of year, it’s not unusual to see plenty of people full of Christmas Cheer, it’s also not unusual to see people full of alcohol either and that’s where the trouble tends to start.

We see messages all year warning us about binge drinking, but during the festive period those messages seem to be even more prominent, and with good reason. With all the parties on the lead up to Christmas and the parties in between Christmas and new year, many a drinker goes a bit over the score, either passing out in a stupor in their own beds or, if they aren’t so lucky ending up in the nearest A & E department or police station.

It’s nice then to see the adverts promoting a healthy attitude to drinking out where revellers will actually see them – on taxi doors. Although only on London cabs (I think), it would be good to see the idea roll out to other parts of the UK next year, certainly all the big cities.

Nice work from CST, London.

Whopper Freakout

Found over on Angus Whines – ‘Whopper Freakout’ - the day they took the Whopper away.


And what happens when a company takes away the product that they are famous for? Well, absolute disbelief, shock, confusion, sadness, anger even. Listening to the customers, many had been eating Whoppers for years, recalling driving from other towns to find one when they didn’t have a Burger King in their own town, growing up with the burger, even measuring their arrival to manhood when they could finally finish a whole sandwich.

Quote of the Video has to be that without the Whopper, it may as well be called ‘Burger Queen’ – classic!

No doubt they managed to show how well-loved the sandwich was/is in the town where they filmed anyway and I reckon the effect would have been the same in the majority of Burger King restaurants around the world. So another well done for Burger King who’s creative ideas just seem to keep coming this year, what with the computer games they launched earlier this year also.

Just wondering where’s left for them to go next year?

Literally the world's coolest fitting room

I actually saw this a couple of weeks ago now, but forgot all about writing a post about it, It wasn’t until I stumbled across it again today that I was reminded of its sheer brilliance. What am I talking about? - The world’s coolest fitting room in Sweden.

Selling coats for extreme weather conditions, the best place to test them out probably isn’t your normal retail store where the temperatures are usually well above normal room temperature, let alone the conditions they are actually made for. The solution then – to make the world’s coolest fitting room from 10m3 of snow and 200 kilos of dry ice to create a room at -25 degrees Celsius. I’d reckon if the coat is going to keep you warm(ish) in there, it will anywhere.

The concept was marketed through one ad in a daily newspaper, by posters outside the store, pictures were taken by a web cam and spread on the internet, then spread by word of mouth, radio and the newspapers. And the result – the store in Stockholm drew 400% more customers in (the target was 100%) and more than 100% more jackets were also sold against their goal. I’d say that made it a rip-roaring success. Well done Äkestam Holst (the agency behind it) and Playground (the brand behind it)!

Just wish they had one over here too...

Via directdaily

Print and presentations

Two things caught my eye today on today’s trip round the blogosphere. First up a print ad from Audi which is so simple, yet so clever. I’m amazed it’s not been used many times before, however I suspect it’s one of those ideas that people would probably think someone must surely have done before. Interested to see whether a few more will pop up after this one mind you...

The second thing to get my attention was a presentation from The New York Times. Not your usual Powerpoint effort, the style of the presentation seems very apt considering the subject matter. Instead of detracting from what is being said, the voice-over and powerful images help to add to what is already a powerful story anyway. You'll find the presentation here.

Two great examples of how to get print and presentations right.

Find your future you...

I always like finding campaigns that allow you to have a little fun in your lunch break and that’s exactly what I just did on the ‘Find Your Future You’ website from Svedka vodka.

Why have a ‘future you’ website you might wonder, well, it’s based around the company’s claim / tagline that Svedka is “Voted #1 Vodka of 2033”, quite a random year to pick, but at least they have 26 years to try to live up to it. And both the ‘future you’ website and the official company website are suitably futuristic and entertaining so the company has started their campaign in the right direction.

Given that it’s only available in the US I very much doubt i’ll be buying a bottle any time soon though, but otherwise i would have been tempted to try it, if only to reward their brightening up of my lunch hour. I picked the ‘No Sunscreen You’ for my future self, not that I don’t use it, but I preferred that to being a down-and-out.

Meet My Future You - Find Your Own Future You
Have a go yourself here, and, if you’re making a trip to the US in the near future, maybe pick up a bottle on your way home. And, if you like, also feel free to drop one into the office here afterwards... It is coming up to Christmas after all.

Another idea for Christmas...

For those of you looking for a present for the less marketing inclined, but still want to give a present that could make a difference this Christmas, Oxfam may well have the answer (Can you tell I started my Christmas shopping this week?).

Just came across their great new ad for ‘Oxfam unwrapped’ on Talent Imitates, which put a little smile on my face on a dark winter afternoon.


So, how does it work? Well, instead of giving your loved ones useless presents they neither like nor want, you can choose a gift from Oxfam Unwrapped, from a variety of price ranges, your loved one will receive a gift card and fridge magnet and Oxfam will use the donation you’ve made on their behalf to help in the fight against poverty. Not a new concept I know, but their use of humour instead of near emotional blackmail puts a whole new spin on it and really makes the campaign stand apart.

OK, so this sort of present isn’t for everyone, but it does give an idea for that someone you know who seems to have everything, especially if that everything includes a big heart.

And if you want a few more laughs, you can see the out-takes from the advert below. Have a good weekend!

A world of meat

Another advert today, this time in print. As with yesterday’s ad, there is a cleverness about this campaign and on first glance it looks pretty nice. But then you take a closer look and you realise that it isn’t advertising sweets or icing or something of the like. No, it’s advertising meat.

Now, I’m not a vegetarian and I love my meat, especially the type of meat featured in the Negroni ads, but instead of enticing me to go and buy the meat, this ad makes me shiver. There’s something sweet (quite literally) about scenes made out of candy, but scenes made out of meat? As Tim Seidel on bad banana blog comments, “...who lives in those little houses? Little meat people? A crazed butcher?”

Maybe it’s the fact that many meat eaters, like myself, are actually hypocrites who don’t like to think about the fact that they are really eating an animal, I don’t know. But the scene showing a river of what looks like Parma ham particularly just makes me think of a river of blood – not an image that is going to help me forget what I am actually chomping into used to be alive. It’s enough to turn someone vegetarian.

I do feel a bit sorry for those who worked on the ad however. Clearly a lot of work has gone into it and all in all it’s well done. But whoever thought up this concept is either a hardened meat eater or is just plain crazy.

By all means make an ad that elicits real emotion in your target audience, but I would say that making them feel uneasy and sick won’t help you to sell your product to them...

Shadows

Well Halloween is out of the way, so that means it must be time for the Christmas campaigns to start in ernest, right? And so, John Lewis began their Christmas campaign on November 5th, their largest to date, with their ad break ‘Shadows’.

Featuring a team of people arranging John Lewis products in an empty room in front of a spotlight, the objects slowly build to form the shadow of an elegant woman and her dog. I really like it when advertising is clever like this. It makes you wonder, ‘How did they work out what to use to make the shadow?’ and ‘How did they work out where to place the objects?’

What I like even more about it, especially at this time of year, is the fact that it is not overtly Christmassy; I really can’t handle too many Santas and tons of snow when I’ve not even begun to start buying gifts. This advert instead acts as a gentle reminder instead of throwing Christmas down your throat. Which for me is perfect.

And I’m not proclaiming the advert to be the best thing I’ve ever seen, but I do like it and I think you will too.

Advertising outdoors

Apparently...

And, judging by many of the headline grabbing billboards through the years (also of course my own personal experience as a consumer) I’d say it tends to be true.

But, if you want to do something outdoors but don’t want to use a billboard, what other options have you got? Well, it seems nowadays that the possibilities are endless. And yet another addition to the list has been added by Street Advertising Services. Providing what they call ‘pavement art’, the company use high water pressure and steam to create an advert on dirty pavements and their staff even wear the aluminium framed signs used to stencil on the design as they make their way around the streets. So, it’s two for the price of one when it comes to exposure for your brand.

Even better about this new medium of advertising, it doesn’t use any chemicals to make the advert and so is kind to the environment at the same time. I hope it’s not long until we see some up our way; it’d definitely brighten up my day as the weather gets ever colder.

Oh, and Happy Halloween everyone!

Wandering eyes

You can see it countless times each day, a man’s eyes following a beautiful woman walking down the street. Whether with their partner or on their own, they seem unable to help themselves, staring longingly as each stunner passes. Hence, whenever advertisers want to advertise to man, often a young, beautiful, voluptuous model is wheeled in to grab their attention and sell the product.

You could be forgiven for thinking therefore that the new ad from Mercator is another ad in that same vein then. Using a beautiful woman walking along a high street - wearing a short skirt of course - every man who passes stares as she goes by, regardless of the fact that they are all walking along with their partners. The ad isn’t for men though, it’s for women and the message is clear – don’t rely on men to provide you with financial stability, rely on yourself.

Being used to seeing women being objectified in order to sell to men, this ad makes a nice, fresh change. Whether it arouses annoyance or laughter in women as they begin to watch it, it is more than likely that it will grab their attention by the end, for the surprise factor of it being aimed at them, if for nothing else. And for the men watching it? I’d imagine they’ll get a bit of a surprise too when they realise the ad isn’t for them and perhaps will also feel a little bit of embarrassment that they are indeed so easily led by their desires.

I like the ad a lot, not only for its humorous execution, but also for its message. In an age where divorce is so prevalent, it would be foolish for women to ignore what it is saying. And perhaps being confronted so full-on with just how weak-willed their partners can be, they will find it hard not to act to secure their own future. What do you think?

More green chat

You’d be forgiven for thinking that we’ve turned into green crusaders here at AME Marketing these past couple of weeks, and I suppose in a way we have, having been inspired by the goings on in the retail world, Blog Action Day and now the new campaign from the WWF.

In association with the wonderful Iain Tait’s agency, WWF are building a massive paper boat and aeroplane to fly / sail to the British Houses of Parliament with the purpose of putting pressure on the government to strengthen the Climate Change Bill. At this point you may be thinking – eh? Well let me explain further... The reason behind the idea is that aviation and shipping have currently been left out of the climate bill; however these are actually the fastest growing sources of emissions. The giant-sized structures will therefore be used as symbols to represent this weakness in the bill.

Nice idea and it will certainly be attention grabbing, something WWF seem to be very good at – remember the WWF campaign highlighting exhaust emissions in Beijing earlier this year? Apparently they are going to actually try to make the plane fly as well. No mean feat I would imagine. And where exactly is it going to land? Who’s going to control it? But, if they pull it off, how spectacular will that be?

This isn’t just about the spectacle of massive paper creations though. WWF want us all to help by signing an online petition to add support to their argument of including planes and boats in the Climate Change Bill. However, this is a petition with a difference, because everyone who signs up will have their name on the boat or plane that will arrive at the Houses of Parliament. Pretty cool eh? Not only do you get to do a good deed and help drive forward change, you also get your name on the largest paper plane / boat known to man (well, I’m guessing, I’ve not verified it with the Guinness Book of Records or anything).

So, go on, you know you want to, if not for the environment, at least for your 1cm (or however big your name might appear) of fame. You can sign up and find more information here. I’m away to sign up right now...

Play-doh

I feel a bit of déjà-vu in this post as this time last year I had just spoken about the Sony Bravia ad after I had spoken about the Dove ad the post before. And here I am at it again.

The new Sony Bravia ‘Colour Like No Other’ advert finally launches tonight on Channel 4 during Ugly Betty. Having been hyped for months now and teasers being released along the way, does it live up to the hype? Erm...

I never expected it to be as good as the first, I don’t think anyone did. And I’d say it’s at least on a par with the last spot (although that one scored extra points in my book for being filmed in Glasgow). I’m probably with quite a few other bloggers who are most fascinated by the actual making of the ad – 100, 000 still images were used to make the ad – rather than the actual ad itself.

I do like the ad though, to a point. The bunnies are great, the music is great, the people in the background are great, but what’s with the wave and then the cubes? It’s a bit like two concepts pushed into the same ad. Why?

See what you think.

Dove does it again

Last year it was the ‘Evolution’ ad. Starting with a make-up free model, the woman is then made up by make-up artists, has her hair done perfectly, gets some flattering lighting, and then after all that has her picture manipulated digitally to make it thinner and blemish-free. The message from the ad is clear – the images that you see in magazines and on billboards aren’t real. So this perfect ‘beauty’ that women strive to achieve is unachievable, because even models don’t look like this without help. This is, in part, the whole ethos of Dove’s ‘Campaign for real beauty’. It’s all about letting women, young and old, know that they are beautiful. Whatever their weight, height, race, etc, they should never feel pressure to conform to the ‘ideal’ presented to them on a daily basis through the media, fashion and beauty industries.

I’m always in two minds about these adverts and the campaign in general. Overall, the company conveys a positive image and behind the adverts the company also run a ‘self-esteem fund’ which develops and distributes resources to “enable and empower women and girls to embrace a broad definition of beauty” and also provides resources to organisations that foster a broader definition of beauty. In addition, they also give talks in classrooms across the UK on the topic, again encouraging girls to build up a positive body-image however they may look. And it is not only in the UK and the US this campaign runs, but across the globe. All of which is excellent and I think / hope it does / will make a real difference to some women’s / girls’ self esteem. But then you look at who their parent company is – Unilever – and it all starts to unravel a bit. Aren’t those the same ‘perfect’ models they are using to promote their other products that they just criticised the beauty industry for using over at Dove? Hmm...

Aside from this however, Dove has brought out a new advert to follow on from their Evolution spot from last year. ‘Onslaught’ shows a barrage of the type of images that young girls are subject to every day. And putting myself in their shoes, I reckon it must be fairly hard when you’re young and impressionable not to be affected by them. Even as grown women many of us are affected, so what chance have young girls got?

The message from the ad is to speak to you daughter before the beauty industry does. Although I’m not completely in love the ad itself, the message behind it is very powerful and is conveyed well. Will it win the awards that Evolution did? Who knows? More importantly, will it encourage women to speak to their children about this issue and help instil a positive self-image in their minds? Would they not be doing this anyway?
Still, it does remind us self-esteem begins building, or conversely, being destroyed early on and if the media/fashion/beauty industries seem intent on showing children an unachievable ‘perfection’ it’s our responsibility to let them know that they should strive to achieve it at all, but simply be comfortable in their own skin. Hopefully it will sink in.

“No Anorexia”

I am slightly divided when it comes to the size zero debate. It’s not that I support models starving themselves to be as skinny as they can be, not for one minute. But what annoys me about the issue is firstly that outside of America, size 0 doesn’t even exist, so while everyone is banging on about size 0, in the UK it’s actually size 4 and in the rest of Europe it’s a 32 (perhaps, every conversion table I ever look at is different), still ‘the size 32 debate’ doesn’t sound quite so shocking does it? What also annoys me about the debate is that the media who write about how terrible this issue is are the very people who perpetuate the idea that ‘thin is beautiful’, but one minute stars are too fat (i.e. normal) and the next minute they are too skinny. What sort of message does that send out to young girls?

Aside from these points, there are many other issues within the debate which also cause me great annoyance, but this isn’t the purpose of this post. At the same time, there are many reasons I also think that the debate should be had and should continue to be discussed. Number one of which is the disease Anorexia Nervosa, the actual reason for this post.

As Milan fashion week begins this year (where last year they followed Madrid’s lead banning any models with a BMI under 18 and asked that models carry medical certificates), size 0 and anorexia is still an issue very much on people’s minds. As a result, the fashion brand Nolita has released an ad showing a naked anorexic woman to highlight the effects of the disease. The posters have been erected all over the city of Milan during it's fashion week.

The ‘model’ used in the ad is a French woman named Isabelle Caro, who has suffered from the disease for 15 years. Weighing only 31kg (just over 4st 12lbs) and also suffering from the skin disease psoriasis, Isabelle spoke to the magazine Vanity Fair about her decision to take part in the ad campaign: “I’ve hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance. I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is.”

The ad has been shot by the same controversial photographer, Oliviero Toscani, who photographed a man dying of aids in 1992 for a campaign for Benetton. Of the campaign for Nolita the photographer said that his aim was “to use the naked body to show everyone the reality of this illness, caused in most cases by the stereotypes imposed by the world of fashion”.

It certainly does show everyone the reality of what the illness does to sufferers bodies, but what about what the illness does to their minds?

So far the response to the ad has been quite mixed. While the Ministry of Health feels it can help promote responsibility with regards to the disease, the President of Italy’s Association for the Study of Anorexia is not quite so keen. Fabio De Clercq feels instead that the woman used should be in hospital and the image is “too crude”. He also expressed concern that instead of helping those with anorexia, many may feel envious of the woman pictured and become determined to get even thinner than her.

Unfortunately, it’s a very tricky subject to approach and obviously one ad campaign isn’t going to make a world of a difference, even with an accompanying website which explains the motivation behind the campaign a little more. The aim is to shock people and it certainly does, at least it shocks those who do not suffer from the disease, but whether it shocks those who have an eating disorder themselves, I don’t know.

It may very well end up that some will look to the ‘model’ as something to aspire to be, but even without this campaign, those with the disease have many ‘role models’ already in the media to look to for ‘inspiration’. I wonder also whether the ad is aimed slightly more towards those who do not have the disease to highlight just how hellish the actual reality of the disease is. Because ultimately, those suffering from anorexia already have a distorted image of their own bodies and their problem is in the mind, a poster cannot make them change the opinions that they have so firmly ingrained. If Nolita really wanted to target those with disease, their campaign would go much further than a billboard poster. But then they are a fashion company, not a charity, and so is it actually their responsibility to tackle the disease itself or is it enough for them just to make a statement? Again, I don’t know.

The campaign has left me in two minds. The pictuers are shocking and hard to look at, but the ad has made me think and has made the issue of anorexia and the media and fashion industries' glorification of 'thin' more prominent in my mind once again. So I guess in a lot of ways it’s worked, on me. The actual test will be when it comes to those within the fashion industry however...

No-one loves their car this much

Sometimes an ad comes along which just leaves you scratching your head wondering why.

For many recently that was the Cadbury's Dairy Milk ad. With the gorilla. It was random, completely unrelated to the company or the chocolate bar and totally unexpected. But whilst quite a few hated it, I have to admit I really liked it. Not that I'm saying I think all advertising should be like this. But this time, what's made it stand out is that it's so out of the ordinary. Should every ad go in this direction we’d never actually know what was being advertised and just learn to tune out. But once in a while, this type of ad is good. It shakes up the industry a little and shows that you can venture outside the box and still have something that works.

Anyway, Cadbury's gorilla aside, I saw an American advert for Volkswagen Jetta online today. A guy, about to set off and meet his date, notices that a bird has been using his new VW Jetta as target practice. He loves the car so much that he resorts to licking the offending droppings off the bonnet, before promptly planting a smacker on the lips of his girlfriend.

First it made be baulk and then second, wonder why they would do this. It’s not that I don’t understand the premise – he loves his car THAT much that he doesn’t want it being soiled in any way and obviously he’s about to go on a date and so he can’t use his clothes to wipe off the bird faeces. But licking it? Licking it? And then giving the girl a kiss? That's just gross and not needed. Do Volkswagen want to make us buy their car or make us puke up a little in our mouths? I can see the funny side, but the disgusting factor far outweighs it.

And there’s only one more thing I have to say on the matter – Yuk!

Gadz

Normally, I like Tom Ford. Actually, that’s wrong - I love him. His reign at Gucci was nothing short of genius and his dabbling since, although not always to my taste, has retained that same ethos and feeling. But then came the adverts for his new fragrance for men...

I saw this first ad a few weeks ago on Brand DNA and at the time had been rendered quite speechless, not just because of the content of the advert, but also because of who was behind it. True, Tom Ford has always used sex to sell and it’s not always been subtle, but until now it hasn’t been downright crass. I don’t have any problem with sex being used to sell, and let’s face it, in fragrance and deodorant ads it’s almost a given that there will be some link made to romance or sex, that’s fair enough. But this?

But perhaps it was just a blip. I put it out of my memory never to be thought of again so as not to blemish my love of the great man. Phew, worshiping still intact. But then, just when I’d forgotten all about it, I stumbled upon another execution today.

I have absolutely no moral objection to the ad. It’s not that I find it offensively objectifying to women, either. Okay, it certainly does objectify a woman, but it’s not the first advert in this vein. It’s not even the fact that it looks as though it’s come straight out of the 80s, although this factor does disturb me quite a bit. It’s the sheer crassness of the adverts which completely put me off. As Adrants put it so well “Ford removes all pretense in his latest fragrance campaign and celebrates what every man wants: to f*@*.”

And I guess that’s why many people, not just men may I add, do buy perfumes and aftershaves, to attract the opposite sex and eventually lure them into bed. But while Lynx does this with humour and other brands do it with romance or at least with a little subtlety, this campaign just rams it down your throat, and not in a nice way.

A Tom Ford Beauty Spokesman said of the campaign “...we decided that a sharper, more graphic approach clearly communicated the bold and provocative mood of the fragrance." Hmm, bold – check; provocative, double check. But what about stylish and sophisticated? Poor show Mr Ford, poor show.

And why should this correlate in any way to you loving marketing? Reason number 20: Sometimes it can actually put you off buying a product and in the process can save you a little money. That’s more a positive for the consumers I guess and a warning to the advertisers.

Cheeky...

A bit of a cheeky reason to love marketing today – pardon the pun – courtesy of Sloggi and their campaign to find the perfect male and female bottom. And the reason why this should make you love marketing of course is that on occasion, not always granted, marketing allows you to ogle at some lovely half-naked bodies. Well, sex sells, right?

Being an underwear company, it is inevitable that the human form is going to be used to sell the product, but usually the model is over six foot tall and perfect in every way. But here, Sloggi is going a little outside the box and asking us ‘ordinary’ people to send in photos of ourselves in our best undies (preferably Sloggis of course) and the photos will then be rated by the public to find the best. Finalists will receive a range of prizes while the winning two bottoms will have the prestigious title of ‘best bottom in the world’ as well as 10, 000 Euros and a modelling contract with the company. Certainly not a ‘bum’ deal (OK, last pun of the day, promise!).

But not everyone is quite in love with the campaign. Media in Sweden have blasted the campaign as a “pornographic”, “cynical and sexist” and some have even gone so far as to say it is a “porn trap”for young girls. There is also talk that the Trade Ethical Council Against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) could look into the campaign. A spokesman for the organisation asserted however, “We do have the possibility of taking up the case on our own initiative but this hasn’t actually been up for consideration yet.” He added though that he would be “...surprised if we weren’t to receive any complaints, since this has been so widely discussed in the media.”

So, not such a great reaction in Sweden then. But, as one Swedish phrase quite nicely puts it “Taste is a bit like buttocks – divided.”

And with the campaign running in another 38 countries besides Sweden, and with no other such negative reactions elsewhere, overall it doesn’t look to be harming the campaign too much. In fact, with around 72, 000 photos of rear end from all over the globe having being sent in; I’d say the campaign is doing rather well.

And, as for complaints that the pictures may be of those under 18, Sloggi has assured us that all pictures are carefully screened before being uploaded to the website - “They have to be over 18. If we are in any doubt we ask to see official identification. And we don’t upload every picture.” Said spokesperson Sofie Lindahl-Jessen.

Of course, it’s clear that a campaign such as this is going to have to tread a thin line between amusing and pornographic and is constantly going to be under scrutiny with regards to its propriety and ethics. But at the end of the day, it’s only a few bottoms, it’s a little fun. Surely we all like to look at a nice bum now and again?

So, if you’re a fan of bums and fancy a look at what all the fuss is about before the competition has ended and the top bottoms have been chosen, you can visit the Sloggi site here. You can even sit and rate the posteriors which have been submitted already in a ‘Hot or Not’ style. What better way to spend a lunch break?

West side!

Marketing doesn’t always have to make you laugh, but it’s always nice when it does. My Gran usually says that the adverts are the best thing on the television, and there are definitely times that I’d be inclined to agree with her (and of course times, such as when some terrible debt advert, for example, comes on that I wouldn’t).

Two adverts that would certainly make me agree with her though, alas however, are not for the UK market, are Smirnoff’s Ice tea and Green tea spots. Thank goodness then for the wonder of the internet and Youtube. A take-off on the rap culture in America and the East Coast / West Coast rivalry that exists, the adverts turns the rivalry on its head and instead uses the rich kids from each coast to sing about their life on the not so mean streets.

Absolute classics.

And, the relevance to why it should make you love marketing? Well, there isn’t really one. Wanted a little bit of Friday fun and this provided it – that can be the reason for today! – Enjoy!

Guerilla Warfare

As the world of TV and print advertising become over more saturated the use of guerrilla marketing appears to be on the increase. Unusual and attention-grabbing, the campaigns are often run with a much smaller budget than traditional campaigns; however often manage to achieve much greater coverage ironically.

Allstate Insurance in America carried out one such stunt recently, where a car was dangled over the edge of a tower block in Chicago and underneath was the company’s ad asking “Are you in good hands?” Apparently the company also backed this up with an advert where they filmed a car actually falling out of the tower block into the sea. The ad was then shown on TV, online and stills of the stunt also ran in the press. The only problem is perhaps that those on the ground could not appreciate it fully as they would have been unable to see the company’s logo on the board, however, effective nonetheless given the coverage received. Devised by Leo Burnett, Chicago, it seems the objective was indeed achieved – attention grabbed (Picture from Ad Goodness).

Another campaign that I particularly liked which was executed on this side of the pond a few months ago by Carlsberg, where they dropped “litter” around the streets of London, to the tune of £5000. £10 and £20 notes were placed around the streets with a removable sticker with the latest execution of “would probably be the best [insert whatever] in the world.” I have to agree with this one, definitely the best litter.

So, the next reason to love marketing that I’ve extrapolated from today’s examples? Marketing can be carried out almost anywhere and is constantly evolving. It’s not just about selling, it’s often also about entertaining and as more and more guerrilla campaigns surface who knows what will be thrown up next. And, it might just make you a little bit richer...

Peace man!

Seems we’re not the only one’s who want to have a summer of love this year. But while we’re focusing our love on marketing, Lucky Brand in America is reviving the 60’s and focusing their love instead on flower power (with their brand taking centre stage of course).

Sending a 1949 Flxble bus cross country across the USA, they have their own blog, a ‘Daily Denim Diary’ reporting on the journey. The party hasn’t stopped since the bus set off with the band ‘The Hysterics’ playing live sets in many of the locations as it goes along. Press from all around the US have picked up on the campaign as well as much of the online community, giving Lucky Brand the type of exposure they would have been hoping for.

Fair enough, the campaign was born to shamelessly plug some jeans, but at the same time, it’s a nice idea and what better time of year to send a party bus round the country than in the summer. And, from the coverage it’s received it seems that it is spreading some love and happiness as well as brand awareness.

Those old enough to remember the 60s are given a trip down memory lane and those who weren’t there the first time get a little taste of the decade (through rose-tinted glasses of course).

I’ve already said that a good reason to love marketing is that it lets you spread a little love, and this is another case in point, so what other reason can I wrangle out of today’s example? Well, I think today’s reason (which will be no. 5 for those of you counting) is that sometimes, just sometimes, marketing can brighten up your day when stuck in a traffic jam. In fact, it also happened to me a few weeks ago when a van for a club called Boho in Glasgow’s West End passed us in the car (see the back end of it’s hedge-covered van below).

N.B. Next reason won’t be as obscure – promise!