You Can Tell This Commercial Was Done In Europe

I think parts of this commercial would've had a tough time getting by the American TV censors, but maybe that's what makes it funny.

As a marketer, though, it makes me think several things:

1) Amstel understands men and, in Europe (where they sell Amstel AND Amstel Light), they're using that in a clever way to sell beer.
2) There are so many groups that it's not ok to make fun of anymore. But men? Go right ahead. Nobody seems to mind when we're made to look like chuckle-heads... Maybe because deep down, we know we really are.

Enjoy this Amstel commercial, celebrating women who understand men, despite the fact that we don't deserve it.



Now, if they would just sell Amstel in this country...

Having Fun with Your Brand

HEMA is, I'm told, a Dutch department store that opened in 1926 and has stores all over the Netherlands. They have a great web page up that is being pretty widely circulated on email.

Click this link, and then wait for the page to load. It should look like the picture below. Then wait 10 more seconds and enjoy...
This is a fun use of Flash, a great way to have fun with your brand and a great way to encourage people (like me) to tell people about your company just because you did something interesting.

As usual, the benefits accrue only to the people who do it first, so don't copy them. Find another way to take a small risk with your brand. It's good marketing.

An Ikea Commercial That Won't Run In America

Other countries are a bit more liberal in their sensibilities as to what can be shown on TV and what can't. Ikea's "Tidy up" campaign is just enough off-color that I don't think we'll be seeing these in the States any time soon... This one is being called "Always Pick Up Your Toys."



And this one... We'll call it spaghetti, for lack of a better name.



There are much more twisted ones in this campaign. If you'd like to see more, check out this link.



Whether you want to buy an American flag or you just want to know more about the US flag, or even any other flag, the Internet could be of help. There's plenty to read about the different flags of the world and lots of places that would like to sell you flags to fly.

New Ideas for Commercial Theme Songs

This is a great video. Self explanatory. Very funny. The comedian is Eric O'Shea. He's talking about new ideas for putting theme songs into television commercials.



Have a great weekend.

Original Design Gangsta Video is Classic

This video is a number of things that marketing people will appreciate. It is:
a) hilarious, particularly to any designers/art directors out there, and those who work closely with designers; and
b) an absolutely great example of social media marketing on a shoestring budget. Enjoy.



I'm particularly proud that he's a fellow North Carolinian, and worked "North Cackalack"into the video...

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

4 Fun Ads for a Friday

Sorry for the fewer postings recently, but I've been swamped the last couple weeks. I did want to do a quick post showing four fun print ads for you to enjoy on a Friday morning, to make up for the four horrible TV ads we looked at last week. Here goes:Full credit to Technospot, who collected all of these and 11 more. Check them out. Have a great Friday.

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

Revenge of the Media Buyers

In a lot of agencies, the creative team gets all the glory. They create the spots that make people cry, make them laugh, make them buy... They write the ads that win at Cannes, that win Addys, that win Tellys.

But often it's the media buyers who have the real power. If they buy the right shows, the right space, the right type of media, the great creative gets its chance to shine. But now the website Oddee shared these examples of ads where the media buying was probably not as careful as it could've been. And the creative message definitely changed as a result.










So remember, be nice to your media team... Or your creative might end up licking a garbage can... You can see more of these at Oddee.

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

Only 12 Kinds of Advertisements: True or False?

Slate is reporting today on the findings of Donald Gunn, former creative director at Leo Burnett who is claiming that there are 12 kinds of advertisements. If you watch carefully, he argues, all ads will fall into one (or potentially a couple) of these 12 categories:

1. The "Demo" Ad: These ads show you the product in action, like an informercial, or the new iPhone ads, that show you the features of the product during the spot.

   
   

2. The "Show the Need" Ad: During this type of ad, you show how something is wrong with someone's life, and then show (or say) how your product fixes it.
   
3. The "Symbol, Analogy or Exaggerated Graphic Problem" Ad: Similar to the show the need ads, these typically overdue it in demonstrating a problem, often with comedy. Or they may use a symbol or an analogy. Slate notes the erectile pill where the guy just can't seem to throw the football through a tire swing, until suddenly, bam...
   
4. The "Comparison" Ad: In these ads, you specifically call out the problems with your competitors, either specifically or as a group. Car dealer radio ads often do this, as in "Other car dealers try to fast talk you, but at Chris Leith we talk straight."
   
5. The "Exemplary Story" Ad: In this group of ads, you create a story in which the product can really shine, showing people how they really will benefit if they had such a product at such a time. (Full disclosure: This spot is a Brogan ad--and one of my faves.)
   
6. The "Benefit Causes..." Ad: This is sort of like the exemplary story ad, but in this case rather than telling the story and showing the benefit at the end, you show the benefit first, ostensibly piquing the interest of the viewer/listener, who is trying to figure out what wonder product caused this great benefit.
   
7. The "Presenter" Ad: In this case, a presenter or talking head or person dressed as a researcher or some such will explain to you the benefits of the product.
   
8. The "Ongoing Characters" Ad: This one is easy, think Geico Caveman, Budweiser lizards, or Jared, etc. Create a character and stick with it for a while as the character tells us about the product, usually using humor.
   
9. The "Symbol/Exaggerated Graphic Benefit" Ad: Just like number two, in which the advertisers exaggerate the problem they can fix, these ads exaggerate (or symbolize) the benefit that the product offers.
   
10. The "Associated User Imagery" Ad: In these ads, you convince people they want to be like Mike, but usually in more subtle ways. By showing the types of people that use the product (and, of course, their highly toned abs), people who want to be like them will buy the product. (Laugh, if you will, but it works.)
    
11. The "Unique Personality Property" Ad: These ads point out something that is a characteristic of the product and highlight it. This could be a bad name, like Smuckers, or a German engineering, like BMW.
    
12. The "Parody" Ad: Very popular today, these ads take pop culture, twist them and put them into ads. These ads can be very funny, or not so much.
    

So the big question: Is this true and accurate? Gunn believes knowing the 12 types can be helpful to the harried creative struggling for an idea to pitch. Perhaps. The first comment on Slate was from someone adding two more, including "oddvertising" and "self-aware" advertising (like Joe Isuzu). Putting aside the fact that Joe Isuzu ads didn't really sell cars very well, I believe they were comparison ads wrapped in humor.

At the same time, arguing that there are only so many 'big ideas' is not limited to advertising. In novel writing (an area with much more license than you can find in a 30-second spot), some claim there are only 36 unique plot lines. In fact, I own writing software based generally on these limitations of ideas.

My thoughts: These are pretty big categories. I suspect that just about every ad I've ever seen could fall into one of them. At the same time, I don't believe that limits the profession. There can still be highly effective types within each category, just like there are bombs within each category. So to me, it boils down to a fun way to watch the TV and critique the ads--but weren't we all doing that already?

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

New Look at Old Friend in German Commercial

This is just a really fun spot. Watch it first, and then we'll chat.



There's so much to like about this spot.

• First of all, the long format (2 minutes) is brilliant. I'm assuming this ran on German TV, and I'm not at all familiar with their commercial breaks, but it seems clear that this was longer than normal. The payback includes, among other things, over 600,000 views on YouTube so far.
  
• Secondly, the documentary style. Classic.
• The scenes of him just messing with people. Of course, that's great.
• But most of all, how the agency took an assignment that could've led to the same ole same ole green power, save the world creative. And they twisted it, but not just for a gratuitous joke. The twisting amplified the message instead of taking it away, as it usually does in a beer commercial, for example.

Congrats to Epuron, who just won the coveted Golden Lion at Cannes for this ad. Great casting, too. The guy who plays the Wind is excellent. There is likely must celebrating at Nordpol+ Hamburg, the agency that created the ad. They deserve it. Brilliant.



Whether you're going online to read about Germany, get yourself some free online music, or you just want some advice on buying a new computer for the family, the Internet is full of useful knowledge that might help.

Rats, My Product Tie-In Killed My Sales

It's a proven formula, take a well-known movie, particularly a kid's movie and tie your product to it. McDonald's has done it with Shrek. Burger King is aligned with the Simpson's movie.

This summer's hot Disney-Pixar movie is Ratatouille (pronounced Rat-a-too-eee), about a Rat named Remy who dreams of being a big-time fancy chef. Ok, cute movie. My daughter has the Wii video game.

Now let's say you're the maker of a new Chardonnay and your marketing person brings you the idea to name your new product, Ratatouille and put a picture of a rat on the label. Do you:

1. Fire your marketing person; or
2. Yell, ahah, and start sketching the new label.

Oh, and you're selling the wine at Costco...

Seems like a questionable strategy to me, but they are certainly getting coverage out of it. And Fat Bastard Wines continues to do well even if it makes me think of the Austin Powers movie, so quirky can work. But Rat wine, at Costco... I don't know... Take the poll on the right hand side and let me know what you think.

~Jim Tobin
Life Is Marketing

On email trash, guerilla marketing and cool stuff

So the title of this post is a search engine optimization no-no, but I just literally stumbled upon a cool web application that made me think three things at once:

1. This is a cool solution to a minor annoyance;
2. I can actually use this to avoid spam; and
3. What a nifty little way to use social media to market it.

The website is called GuerrillaMail. They offer free, disposal email addresses that expire in 15 minutes (unless you ask for more time). But in that 15 minutes you can read and reply to whatever you get.


Why would you want a disposable email address? I wondered that, too... Ever go to a website that requires you to sign up for something and you have to input your email address? But it won't activate for you unless you click on a link, proving that you put in a real email address?

You want what they're offering, but don't want all their spam, or a lifetime commitment? That's when you use GuerrillaMail.

Ok, so that's cool. I bookmarked it. I'm going to use it.

What's the marketing lesson? They are getting the word out in part by using the social media website Stumble Upon. On that website, nearly 3 million people have signed up and downloaded a little toolbar that let's you Stumble Upon sites that other people think are cool. You hit "Stumble" and it loads a random web page in one of the categories you find interesting.

If you like it, you give it a thumbs up (like I did), and they serve it to more Stumblers. If you don't like it, thumbs down and it goes up less often. So it uses the power of social media to help people find interesting web pages.

A neat alternative marketing tactic that costs nothing. And hey, I found a neat way to stick it to the man...

Simpsons Movie Uses Surprisingly Few Tie-Ins for Marketing

The Simpsons Movie is getting a lot of buzz already, and with a huge promotion budget they could've chosen lots of partners for tie-ins--partners that would've spent millions more promoting the movie.

But they did not. They chose only 4:

• Burger King
• Jet Blue
• 7-Eleven; and
  
• Vans (shoes)

Even more interesting, according to Hollywood Reporter, is that only one of them has a big advertising budget. Instead, they will use non-traditional marketing to reach the target audience.

Some believe this was to further the Simpsons irreverent personality. Others believe that the power of non-traditional marketing is growing enough that the Simpsons folks felt they could score with it. I tend to think it's a little of both.

(As for me, I'm on vacation the rest of this week, so no more posts for me! See you next week. I'll try to lure some guest commentary later this week...)



Even if you want to be a movie actor then you'll probably want to start at college, like many do. You can get a college education that will mean something even if you can't land a Hollywood gig. Even better, you could enroll in an online degree program so that you can get some or all of your degree online and save time and money.

Wii: Today's Hot Game Console Pays Homage to Old School Game Favorites

I continue to love playing the Wii. We're starting to amass a number of games, which makes it more fun, of course. And I've been a fan of their mix of traditional and social media marketing for a while.

Now, the Coolhunter points us to an ad in Italy for the Wii that pays homage to the old games, like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. This ad is made of Post-It notes, which create a great visual for those old pixelated characters.And if you make an ad out of Post-It notes, people are going to take notes off of it over time, effectively destroying the ad (or spreading the word, depending on your perspective).

These notes talk about the classic video games and how fun they are to play new versions on the Wii. The headline: "Wii'll not forget."

Good stuff.

Jim Tobin
Life is Marketing



To get more information about student credit cards, the web can be an excellent source. When looking for credit card offers or even cash back credit cards, the web can provide you with many various opinions.

Apple's iPhone Now in Hand, But How Big a Hand?

Further proof that no detail is too small to worry about... Apple has obviously put great thought into the size of their hand models. Check out these early shots as compared with the later shots:Nope, the phone didn't change size, but it sure looks like it did.

Strangest thing is, it really does make a difference in how you think about the phone, doesn't it?

Credit to Boing Boing for finding this.

Wired Let's 5,000 Subscribers Appear on Custom Covers

Did you ever go to the amusement park when you were a kid and pose for those phony magazine covers, like National Lampoon or Sports Illustrated. Great fun at the time.

Now Wired magazine has taken it a step forward. They invited the first 5,000 subscribers to sign up at their website to get their copy of the magazine delivered to them with their picture on it. Very cool mashup of personalized marketing, digital work flow and the use of a digital production press. An example is to the right.

So, of course, I'm flipping through Wired tonight and see it, and I'm bummed that I missed out on the invite. But to bring the point home, and leverage their brand positioning from this offline effort in the online world so it can live longer, they have a website where you can play too.

Not as cool, but fun nevertheless. Create and share your own wired cover. Here's mine. And if you're wondering if I know I'm a dork...yeah, I know. But hey, I feel a bit like I'm back at the amusement park...Go ahead, play with it. You know you want to... You don't have to share it, but you know you sort of want to try it... Or maybe that's just me...

Mini-Creative is Maxi-Idea

I can almost see the creative brief that was written for this one. "We want to demonstrate the fact that the Mini, despite it's small size, is actually rather roomy on the inside."

What I can't imagine is personally making the leap to come up with this rather brilliant creative from a subway stop in Zurich, Switzerland.There's a growing trend toward "invasive advertising." The thinking, I guess, is that agencies should spend more time finding ads that can't be Tivo'd. That leads to a lot of junk. But everyone once in a while, it leads to a lot of creativity, like this. Nicely done. Credit to Hemmy.net for the find.

Did Snap, Crackle and Pop Surrender to the Fat Police?

Kellogg's is making big changes in how they market breakfast cereal to kids. They're also making big changes to certain breakfast cereals formulas to ensure they meet some new health guidelines. (Kellogg's created the guidelines themselves.)

Apparently, Tony the Tiger is ok... (Well, actually, he's great, but you know what I mean.) But Toucan Sam and Snap, Crackle and Pop may be on the unemployment line if Kellogg's can't find a new recipe for them by 2008.

While nutritionists can debate the merits of their "complete breakfast", the question for marketers is did Kellogg's capitulate to pressures too soon, too late or just in time? Animated cereal characters have been on TV for a generation, so are they really the cause of obesity?

As a marketer, can you reinvent an iconic brand relatively quickly? Does Froot Loops even exist without Toucan Sam?

My thoughts:

• It was time to change the formulas. They are one small part of the obesity epidemic, but they can help a bit. They would have been punished in sales if they'd resisted too long;
• If they can get Froot Loops to taste close to the way they taste, stick with Toucan Sam. If it's a dramatically different flavor, then invent a new brand and a new way to market it. Let Toucan Sam live and die with his product.

Those are my two cents... Yours??

Enjoy this *&#@!)% spot

I'm taking a break from the heavy discourse on how clients and agencies should work with one another because, well, I'm tired... And because a friend of mine sent me this spot and I thought it was funny.



For those of you who expect a marketing lesson with every post, go *&#@!)* yourself... Aw c'mon, I'm just kidding... It's a reference back to the spot... Don't get all mad like that! Come back here... There there...

But seriously, here's a quick fun fact. This spot comes from bud.tv, which is being widely panned in the blogosphere as a weak attempt at using social media. You need to log in to see the spots, provide personal info--even your drivers license number! Like YouTube doesn't have enough content like this for free? Heck, it HAS this spot... Why would I go give Bud my info... Funny spot. And a how to in what not to when you're trying to reach out...

~ Jim Tobin
http://www.lifeismarketing.com

Friday Cartoon Fun

Enjoy this all-too-true cartoon and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Credit to Tom Fishburne at Sky Deck Cartoons.

Ignoring Strategy 2.0

Just read a good post over on a blog called OkDork. The post was called Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0, and Noah Kagen, the writer, made several good points. Ok, actually he makes one really good point and 4 sort of fun ones...

The one really important point is that Web 2.0, if you 're applying it to marketing, is just a tool. And like all good marketing tools it can be applied intelligently or it can be swung around like a monkey with a hammer.

He asks good questions like, "Do you need a blog." Everyone wants to rush to answer yes, and many more should have them than do, but everyone? Seriously?

Learn about tools, to be sure, but think about strategy first!