From Sussex Safer Roads: a stunning reminder that you should wear your seatbelt.
Sound up, fullscreen is best.
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Results tagged “advertising”
Advertising Age reports that the UK is going to allow product placement for the first time.
In the country’s most popular soap, “Coronation Street,” customers at the Rover’s Return pub drink a fictional beer, Newton & Ridley, served on beer mats bearing the mock brewer’s logo. Viewers are used to seeing actors and presenters picking up bottles in such a way as to disguise the brand name, and even to seeing logos covered up with tape. When “American Idol” is shown in Britain, the Coke logo on Mr. Cowell’s cup is pixillated in an attempt to disguise it.
(“Pixillated”? What, replaced with a pixie?)
(Upon further investigation I’ve discovered that “pixillated” is an acceptable spelling. I still contend, however, that digitally replacing the cup with a pixie or other small mythical beast would be an effective - and entertaining - way to avoid product placement issues.)
When it comes to television, if it’s happening in the USA there’s a good chance it will happen everywhere else. So based on this article from Advertising Age, I suspect my TV viewing is set to decline even more:
Walt Disney recently disclosed that its ABC and ESPN TV networks are testing the efficiency of “upper-third messaging,” or graphics that appear in the top third of the TV screen. This comes after IAC Corp.’s Ask.com search site ran “crawl” ads along the bottom of the TV screen on selected networks earlier this year, marking one of the first times full-fledged advertising has run during a program, not just in the ad breaks that disrupt it.
Now that the gaping masses have adopted timeshifting technology – and its concomitant ability to skip over ads – the networks can no longer bunch all the ads together in between programmes. Fortunately for advertisers, however, consumers have become so used to being bombarded with messages simultaneously that we won’t mind allocating some neurons to absorbing sponsors’ messages while being spoonfed the latest celebrity swill.
Advertising is set to become a whole lot more difficult to ignore. If you keep watching TV, that is.
Shades of Spike Jonze’s Da Funk in this promotional video for V Raw created by The Glue Society and pals.
If you’ve ever assembled anything from Ikea, these ads should appeal to you. Especially Poäng.
Just when the world has caught its breath from the giddy rollercoaster ride that constitutes the Chris Doyle Identity Guidelines™ – he’s been nominated for a bloody D&AD silver pencil. I shall allow myself to lapse into shameless self-promotion yet again and proudly point out that I was none other than the photographer.
Everyone knows owners look like their pets, right? Creative Review is showcasing a great campaign from George Patts for the Australian RSPCA: owners behaving like their pets.
The Dutch agency Kessels Kramer created one of my all-time favourite campaigns for the Hans Brinker Hotel, a notoriously bad hostel in Amsterdam. Rather than play down how dreadful it was, Kessels Kramer chose to celebrate it, appealing directly to its target market: backpackers.
They’ve released a compendium of their communications over the years, appropriately named “The Worst Hotel in the World”. Have a look over at the Creative Review blog.
Dude your ad is soooo fake. Mini Clubman on YouTube.
Via the inimitable Jon Vall.
And it goes to Free Doritos! According to the YouTube blog:
The ad was created by Joe and Dave Herbert, two unemployed brothers from Batesville, Indiana, with no prior experience in advertising. They earned the chance to produce the spot through an online contest last year.
Nice one, Joe and Dave.
Three of my favourites were in the top five.
Those good folks at YouTube have posted all the 2009 Superbowl ads for your viewing entertainment.
My favourites:
- Hulu’s ad is great (starring Alec Baldwin).
- Conan O’Brien for Bud Light (vroom vroom party starter).
- Pepsi Max — “I’m good” (it’s weird that men now have their own diet cola).
- E*TRADE Singing Baby. The only talking baby ad I’ve ever seen that’s bearable.
- Free Doritos. I just wish it finished after the first act.
I didn’t watch them all, but the worst ads for me were:
- Budweiser Clydesdale Circus. Horses fall in love, beer drinking ensues.
- LMAO Syndrome. A distinctly unfunny ad, considering what it’s for.
Art & Copy is a new documentary about advertising, featuring people with surnames such as “Wieden”, “Kennedy”, “Goodby”, and “Silverstein”:
Like the talented subjects he profiles, Pray creates a rousing synthesis of art, commerce, and human emotion.
“Rousing synthesis”? Sign me up!
Via kottke.org.
A roundup of 2008’s hits and misses in the world of US advertising. The Coke ad is worth checking out, as is the “feel bad” campaign for Burger King’s “Whopper Virgins”.
My esteemed colleague Chris Doyle has taken his personal brand to the next level. He designed the Christopher Doyle™ Identity Guidelines 2008 (and requisitioned me to take the photographs), with examples of colour palette, clear space, incorrect use, horizontal and vertical formats and more. Very witty and thoughtfully designed, it’s just been featured on the Johnson Banks Thought of the Week. Well done, that man.
The debut episode of The Gruen Transfer, an ABC television program about advertising, screened last night in Australia. It’s hosted by Wil Anderson, and features two teams of advertising professionals, each consisting of two regulars and two guests. The show features several segments that give the panelists an opportunity to dissect and comment on advertisements.
The concept, which was originally thought up in part by Andrew Denton of “Enough Rope” fame, is a good one. However, it’s let down by the panel format. The participants try too hard to make the audience laugh, rather than getting into a great deal of depth.
Another irritant is that the advertisements — some of which are outstanding — are not full screen, and therefore lose considerable impact. Perhaps they’ve done this so that channel surfers don’t think they’ve stumbled on to an ad break, and keep surfing.
Still, advertising makes for a fascinating subject, and with any luck the show will mature into something with some more substance over time. You can watch the debut episode on the ABC’s website.
And now, a word from our sponsor…
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