It's hard not to love the trend towards better data visualization; all those complicated stories made much easier to understand.
But really I just wanted to bitch about the ridiculous number of advertisers now "feeling our pain" with their very own "bailout" special or "stimulus package." Seriously, people are freaking out. It's scary out there, and the last thing we need is to have this financial death spiral beaten into our brains. The cable news channels do that plenty.
Oh yeah, I just lost my job and my house, my wife just left me to go live with her mother because she doesn't want to live out of the back of my van, but phew! - Mitsubishi has their bailout plan! Everything will be okay!
Anyway - complaining over - here's how we got here. Don't be too depressed. It's our patriotic duty to spend, so go buy yourself something nice. Maybe a new pair of jeans or an HDTV to lighten the mood?
Here's my top 5 from last night's Super Bowl commercials. Mine is the only ad tracker that matters.
You'll also notice that there are two number 2's and no number one. Believe, that was intentional. No one deserved it. I also usually don't go for the blow 'em up sort of stuff and I've never seen a Jason Statham movie, but that spot was particularly clever as far as car commercials go, and strategically spot on. A dagger to Lexus, the Benz, etc.
We'll throw an honorable mention to the Cars.com spot. Great all the way up to the end when they stuck in the advertiser. Felt like the spot was written for someone else. Put this one in the category of cool idea that probably won't sell cars.
Maybe I'm a little late to the party on this one, but this feels a little like a big budget remake of the click through rate. As in, information that encourages us to make decisions that might be unrelated to what we actually should be learning from it. Or better said, it allows us to think we're gaining knowledge when all we're gaining is information. (Of course, maybe I should shut up until I read the book)
UPDATE: This is actually fairly interesting, though...
Here's a pat on the back for Huntington after the brilliantly captured tmobile spot for the Life's for Sharing campaign. Taking a fair bit of inspiration from Improv Everywhere'sFrozen Grand Central, this stunt/spot is just about bursting at the seems with pure joy. Love it. Adding to the "of the people" vibe is the hectic 'shoot on Thursday, air on Friday' schedule. Check out the YouTube channel for behind the scenes and teaser video.
Much applauses.
There's a certain level of tenseness in this sort of thing, kind of like the Honda skydivers, mostly because of the live feel. By the end of it, you're almost pulling for them to keep it going.
Then there's the music, a build through decades and genres, but lots of universally personal stuff, if that makes sense. Maybe better said, it's rich with association.
It's also a socializing act. From videos like this from random bystanders who happen to cross the shoot, to people who have walked through the same area before, etc. - it's both relatable and personal. The bystanders there sort of act like a proxy for everyone else being in on the joke in a way.
Just saw this spot for Esurance come across the telly. Although I appreciate the intent to publicize a relatively unknown band, it may be a little obtuse to the importance of the discovery process. The hope, I presume, is that the audience, elated by the new find, dubs Esurance with a cool credit.
It's possible that I'm far too much of a music snob to understand how most people actually find music, but the massification of putting the band name on the screen sort of ruins the bit of joy one (okay, me) feels when coming across a good up and comer. It lets everyone "in on the joke" and strips away the shareability.
As Tim Smith said, "Marketers of the future will not be measured by how well they tell stories to their audience, but rather by how well their audience tells stories about them."
So why take away that story?
If they had just left the name off, it'd still take an act from me to find the name. While that may seem somewhat somewhat frivolous, it's the act of searching that makes the find more fulfilling. Plus, what do I gain by sharing something everyone already knows about?
Anyway - have you guys checked out that Michael Jackson song, Thriller? I mean, wow. Like seriously...
"Every effort to break through the clutter is just more clutter. Ultimately, if you don’t have clean, plain borders and backdrops for your ads, if you don’t have that blank space, that commons, that virgin territory, you have a very hard time making yourself heard. The most obvious metaphor is a room full of people, all screaming to be heard. What this really means, finally, is that advertising is asphyxiating itself."
-Mark Crispin Miller, from the PBS's Frontline documentary, the Persuaders.
Sounds about right, no? Although the documentary is about 4 years old, the argument presented seems roughly the same as we're having today, except with fewer references to social media, of course. Which on some level makes today's argument seem a little stale. But maybe that has more to do with Frontline's depiction of advertising folks. You'll probably feel a little dirty after watching this.
As a side note, check out the PBS library of content for some cool stuff. There isn't shit on TV this time of year, so if you want to get all learned up, this is probably a good place to start. You might also check out The Merchants of Cool if you'd like to get a gander at a short-haired Malcom Gladwell.
To find our purpose, ours and our audience’s, we must create movements. That means using our influence to create a social good. We win by all of us winning.
Engagement as a metric has been largely misused as a simple act, no matter the act, as an indication of commitment. An interaction with a banner ad, whether intended or not, this is engagement. Curiosity by shock, attention by near nudity, these would be considered engagement by most models. But this is engagement in the ephemeral, not the beginning of a meaningful alliance.
Engagement that matters is about caring. It’s the feeling an underdog might experience after pulling an upset. It’s the audience leaning forward with a communal want.
These experiences can’t simply be created by price points or USPs, and advertising’s big ideas are mostly far too small to cause these social movements that are defined by real behavioral changes. People believe in the authentic. People believe in things they feel matter, both personally and culturally. To expect them to believe in you means you must obsess over more than bottom lines and share their thirst to leave behind something better than came before.
A professor at the London Business School, Patrick Barwise, simply said, “Often our biggest mistake as managers is believing that, in general, customers care a lot about your brand. They do not.”
This is our truth. People don’t generally care about brands. They don’t care much about what we say, the logo or the color of the stationary. But they could care very much for what we do.
With Evolution, Dove expanded sales by exposing the falsehoods around model culture, but also funded real efforts to change what young women saw when they looked in the mirror.
When Haagen-Dazs supported the movement to save the Honey Bee, they didn’t just make ads, they created new products and went to the senate floor to plead their case.
Our goal is not simply to move more products in the name of moving more products, but understanding a brand’s cultural relevancy, creating stronger relationships through social movements and ultimately accomplishing business objectives by enriching the people we serve.
A planner walks in the room, sits down across the table from a team of disinterested creatives. She sternly ruffles through her papers to find her just completed creative brief.
She says, "Listen guys, we've gone about as far as we can go with this whole 'squeezably soft' thing. There are far too many other soft brands on the market. We've done double soft, triple-layered and quardruple protection. The research indicates that a quint is simply not a credible claim. We've lost our USP. But I've got something even better."
The creatives lean forward, listening intently for the first time.
The planner continues,"so here it is, the new proposition is...we don't leave specs of soiled toilet paper stuck to your bum."
Silence befalls the room.
"So your challenge is to tell people we don't leave the specs without inducing a collective audience vomit."
The creatives gleefully exchange glances around the room before shouting in unison, "Bears!"
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