Digital marketing, engagement, transmedia, games, fun
The new Cadbury’s ad, from Fallon, is over at the Guardian Media section (can’t find an embed yet).
It’s a whole lot of fun, the rabid eyebrows contrasting to kid’s stoic faces. So how was this done?
For some reason, I just like the last explanation 
Many of the videos in the YouTube lists for last week are TV grabs from the US Air plane ditching in the water, there’s plenty of copies from different news broadcasts. The highest ranked product video is this one from T-Mobile. Filmed on Thursday 15th, on the TV on Friday, Saatchi’s use the idea of a flashmob to bring a few minutes of manic dancing to Liverpool St station, the location for many a previous real flashmob. Here, they work with the station (well, I assume they did) to get the music played over the system so everyone can here it – and join in. The video below is not actually the one with the most YouTube views but is a higher quality version from the T-Mobile Channel Life’s for Sharing
. The higher views are from a grab of the ad shown on TV; JonJonBaker suddenly had a hit on his hands with the ad and got luckier with the search results. Although looking at the numbers later, the official version is increasing its views, probably due to the ads on the YouTube:
TMobile Dance (Screenshot from site)
They reached out to local bloggers such as @flashboy to get them to come along and did a heavy outreach to bloggers with the video later:
Twitter about T-Mobile Ad
And has annoyed some people such as @qwghlm
Another Twitter about the T-Mobile Ad
Ulike Chris, I like this, I smile when I watch it. Yes, the flashmob thing has been done before and this is a blatant rip-off of the Improv Everywhere events but it’s done well here, it’s fun and you can see people getting involved. However, I feel they could have been slightly more transparent with what they are saying in the YouTube commentary:
Watch the moment hundreds of commuters danced in a train station and see how they pulled off the event with exclusive footage from behind the scenes
Given they give you rehearsal footage it’s obviously not a random group of commuters as is implied, it’s a group of professionals. They could put the right slant on this and give credit where credit is due for the idea. Interestingly in the blog post from Richard, a commenter discusses having seen scripts where they use the freeze idea, from Improv, so there’s been a few attempts at this.
With what looked like none of the same PR push, a Spanish ad for what Eristoff Black Vodka is up there as well. I was going to take a look at the brand, but it has such an annoyingly, huge, slow loading flash file that I gave up looking for product information as it took too long to find things. A brand that definitely needs to rethink the digital part of the marketing.
Adfreak brings you this new ad from GlaxoSmithKlineBeacham for their vaginal protection creme Lactacyd. It’s in your face and not for the feint-hearted. Where WAS the camera?? Would love to read the brief for this shoot and the director instructions.
Looking at this from a digital perspective, the only site that seems to be on the web is the UK one, but this has NO connection with the ad, which is colourful and in your face. The site is discrete, polite and, fundamentally, boring. Why push in one channel but not reflect that elsewhere? If you are going to do something outrageous, then follow through!
Lactacyd - screenshot from site
I get a news article about Top Gear through RSS today from NMA, probably derived form a press release from somewhere. I quite like Top Gear, so I thought I’d take a look.
Top Gear has launched an online viral campaign to promote the recently relaunched TopGear.com.
1. Don’t call it a viral campaign. You can’t plan for anything like that, you can put all the pieces in place and it can still flop- you can say later that something spread in the manner of a viral infection. And why would you want to start an bad infection of something. Yes, it’s a common complaint of mine, but I like to bring it up occasionally. At least they’re not calling it a successful viral campaign, which I’ve seen in some press releases.
2. Why does the NMA online never add links? I’ve put my own in there.
The films, seeded on the Top Gear YouTube channel and on Facebook groups for Top Gear and Stig,
3. Where is it? Where’s the campaign? There’s a news story out and I see nothing on the sites which seem to be the videos mentioned. The BBC have over 100 videos on the Top Gear channel, but nothing as described. I’m assuming the Facebook fan page is the correct one, although the fact that it links to a YouTube video that has been taken down by BBC WorldWide makes me question that, but there is nothing to suggest another group is more official.
If you’re going to chase press for a digital campaign, it really should be working before you talk about it.
As the Virgin Still Red Hot ad gets played more and makes its way round the blogs, it’s fun to see the different reactions.
Chris had a similar reaction to me, bemoaning the fact Virgin Atlantic forgot to put in a good way for the video to be shared over and above the YouTube copies. He also says in the comments:
Who’d have thought it. Relax gone from banned by the BBC to advertising another British institution.
Zoe did not like it at all, with her reaction and conversation about the ad on Twitter.
Oh Virgin, if only your ad was ironic and post-modern, rather than dated & sexist.
I had a bunch of different reactions on Twitter:
Andresvarela: Customer 15+ years but don’t understand why they’ve done this (so overtly). Was the ‘VirginAtlanicHubbaHubba’ domain taken?
emmapotter: Very cool. Maintains Virgin’s brand positioning as glamorous and fun. Beats its competitors out of the water, as ever
Brodie_san: Asteroids! Awesome! Also, the tallest women I have ever seen. With the biggest aura too!
A completely different reaction from another who focused on the background, not the main images
“A blast from the past!! Our Price records!! Bought many an album there… Ahhh Vinyl!”
Over on Scamp’s blog, you’ve got a whole load of reaction, from it being sexist, to numerous sexist comments about the women in the ad to the absolutely pedantic:
Does anyone know what the record is that the lad in OurPrice store is holding?
Big Country – Steel Town. Released in November 1984 so about 11 months early for a 25th anniversary ad.
Is it good? Is it sexist? It’s definitely noticeable, cutting through a lot of the stuff that’s on in the ad break.
But the key thing? It’s being talked about, it’s polarising and people seem to love it or hate it. The worst thing for a brand is apathy, nobody interested in one way or the other.
Collins Language are doing some fun stuff with their Adopt a Word campaign. It’s all about supporting the I Can charity, which helps children with speech, language and communication difficulties. You can Adopt a Word, from £20, the money going to the charity. In return, they send you a ‘certificate of ownership, for that word. So whether you want to buy a ‘diamond’ or the definitive article ‘the’ you can get it all for yourself. They’ve got some great new words on offer as well, such as ‘disemvowel’, the art of removing vowels from web comments so they become far less intelligible.
They’ve also got this widget with a daily word test from Nicholas Parsons – do you know what he knows? Take it and have ago at improving your vocabulary.
This is a nice little social responsibility campaign for a dictionary company; the right charity connection, some celebrity endorsement and tools that all fit in with the core product, that of words.
Lego Miniman is 30 years old this year and they have a site and video celebrating the fact. As seems to be rage a tthe moment, you can paste your face into the video and them embed them into your site. Well, I’d embed it but the video has an annoying autoplay, so if you want to take a look at my personalised video, take a look here
The Go Mini Man Go site is at heart a blog and they’re regularly updating it with lots of Lego news. I quite like the timeline as well, where you can see 100′s of Mini Men
Lego MiniMan (Screenshot from site)
Breathing Places is a BBC programme ( I assume aimed at children) that focuses on wildlife and the environment and what you can do to understand them and help them. As part of the Christmas drive it’s produced this very surreal, creepy video. I say creepy, because that’s how i find it. I was spending too much time on the weird mouths than the actual message of the video. But I’m guessing not everyone thinks that as it’s doing a pretty good view rate on YouTube.
Highest ranking is this from Palm Centro. I like the look of the product but hate the ad itself, no idea why this has been getting views.
Brazil continues to like its ads, with this one from HSBC. I’m not what the exact message is, but I think it’s advertising their Christmas website.
Finally a fun cartoon from the RSPCA with a serious message (even if it does contain a fart joke). It’s about animal obesity, all part of their campaign to Give Animals a Voice
The floor of Waterloo station has a number of (rapidly dirtying) posters/stickers on the floor, as well as hanging from the roof. The phone is being sold as the social network phone, with Facebook, Windows Live and Skype updates all built in. I wasn’t too impressed by the other floor stickers though, this being just one example.
There were a lot like this, all the random trivia from a day in the life, the sort of thing the average journalist or blog commentator complains about, how useless all this social media is, which is then discussed endlessly by bloggers and journalists who complain that the other media or blogger just does not get it (see Paul Carr’s latest in the Guardian for a perfect example!). But in reality, that sort of thing is what a lot of people do write, they’re connecting with friends, with a level of ambient intimacy that just lets you know what’s going on, the same sort of thing you’d mutter to them if you were in the same room. So here, the ad creators were right, even if it initially annoys.
