China’s wildly popular messaging app WeChat is stepping up its courtship of users outside its home market, kicking off an international ad campaign featuring soccer superstar Lionel Messi.
WeChat already has more than 300 million registered user accounts, including 70 million outside China, mostly in Asian markets.
It started as a messaging app similar to WhatsApp, but the addition of video calls, photo sharing, location-based services and other social features also make it similar to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.
Australian yuppie hipsters … crikey, who better to pitch cars in Kia commercials? The answer appears to be anyone, judging by the pervasive negative reactions to the automaker's "Man of Now"/"Woman of Now" spots from ad agency Innocean. The spots popped up Down Under in January and were panned by pundits at the time, but they're just now gaining global traction (and fresh abuse) following recent airings during Wimbledon coverage on Australia's Channel 7. The Guardian, among others, asks if these might be the most irritating ads ever made, and warns viewers, "Once you've seen the spots, you can't unsee them, so be careful what you click for."
Each ad follows its subject through bustling city streets as the Man and Woman hurry to reach their Kias, extolling their own "virtues" in rapid-fire, brand-building beat poetry from hell. The "Man of Now" informs us: "I push the envelope, push a button, push a pram … push 'em real good. I wear the pants, I wear aftershave, I wear the blame … and I wear it well." Wow, I wonder how many roommates he goes through in a year. The "Woman of Now" confides: "I'm texting, typing, LOL-ing, OMG-ing, I'm digitally in touch, but not retouched. I'm a storytelling, canteen-helping, fundraising, muffin-making, party-going yoga lover." Hey, aren't we all these days?
This stuff's easy to criticize as smug nonsense. Yet, I'm not in the hater camp. Though it's largely unintentional (I think), the commercials actually do a fine job of both reflecting and skewering cultural modernism and revealing the shallow stereotypes that some self-styled "men and of women of now" have become. Viewed thusly, these ads are a hoot—irritating, yes, but also strangely compelling as warped signposts of the times we live in. (There's an ironic bit in both spots where the Man and Woman briefly bump into each other, but they're too self-absorbed to break their stride, too focused on their personal manifestos to really see the world around them.)
Kia has been a good sport, with a rep explaining that the campaign mirrors "the modern lifestyle—it's a metaphor," and adding, "Some people don't get it. You can't please everybody." The automaker even embraced a parody from Priceless Productions, which features a beefy rugby hooligan type who brags, "I spent $20 on my mum for Christmas. My haircut cost $80. I'm international, I'm interconnected, I'm interrupting people all the time because everything I say is f—ing hilarious." Good on ya! Now, go drop-kick a giant hamster, mate! ("We think it's great," Kia said of the spoof.)
In fact, the real spots play like parodies, and while that presumably isn't what Kia intended, they're generating commentary and heightened awareness without being offensive—and they're poised to go viral. That surely beats driving into instant obscurity, which is the road most car commercials take, after all.
Na tentativa de prevenir distrações na direção, Volkswagen criou uma campanha de posters que destaca os perigos de usar o celular enquanto se dirige.
De acordo com a Dontdrivedistracted, pessoas que digitam no celular enquanto dirigem são 23 vezes mais sucetíveis a sofrerem um acidente, comparadas àquelas que esperam chegar a um destino para trocar mensagens.
Conhecida como I’m in traffic, a criação foi resultado de uma colaboração entre VW e Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town, que brinca de forma provocadora com o auto-corretor de texto do iPhone, famoso pela facilidade na hora de digitar e demais situações que demandam rapidez e mínima atenção.
Com uma série de posters que retoma a essência visual e conceitual da famosa campanha “Think Small”, e ainda se adequa a uma linguagem comum de seu público para criar um diálogo audaz, Volkswagen espera chamar à atenção para as consequências de hábitos tão presentas na vida dos motoristas quanto o próprio celular.
A campanha foi vencedora do Leão de Pratana categoria Outdoors, em Cannes Lions 2013.
The Netherlands takes one of the strictest approaches to online data protection, but the government has relaxed its policy on cookies following protests by consumers fed up with constantly being asked for cookie approval every time they visited a website.
The heavy-handed effort by the authorities to impose what they thought was best for their people has now been softened by a much lighter-touch regime that provides control to consumers without overburdening them with requests for consent.
It all began in June 2011, when the Dutch government incorporated article 5(3) of the European Union’s e-Privacy Directive (“the cookie law”) into its national Telecommunications Act. As of June 2012, websites were required to ask users for permission before dropping or retrieving cookies that recorded their data or browsing behavior. Websites also had to prove that users had approved the use of their data.
In the nine months since Hooters began working with Skiver Advertising in October 2012, the restaurant chain has increased its placement on the Nation’s Restaurant News Social 200 Index from 56th to 12th. The NRN Social 200 Index determines leading social media brands by evaluating audience size and reach, brand influence, customer engagement, relative movement, and lifetime aggregates.
The increase spans all platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. In November 2012, Skiver launched the Hooters Instagram account, which has accumulated nearly 21,000 followers. Other social media efforts have included Hooters for Heroes, Wing Day Wednesday, and Step Into Awesome. The agency also reacted quickly to a Seth Meyers SNL Weekend Update piece on Hooters with video that countered Meyers’ assessment of Hooters as a sex dungeon.
Of that particular piece of work, Skiver Director of Digital Strategy Chris Van Dusen said, “The video we created for Hooters in response to Seth Meyers’ joke demonstrated how nimble Skiver’s digital practice team is and that’s key in our space. Within hours, we’d developed a strategy and began to implement it on social media, and within a few days we’d created a video that was going viral. Our clients love being able to get campaigns to the market without lag time; it allows us to start seeing results immediately.”
Viral is a relative term, of course. Since its launch on March 14, the video has been viewed just over 26,000 times. That said, the agency’s focus on element of Hooters beyond the Hooter Girl are, perhaps, why the chain has increased its appeal and social media footprint.
Depois de Audrey Hepburn, Bruce Lee é a mais recente personalidade a ser ressuscitada pela publicidade. O lutador, feito em computação gráfica, estrela o comercial “Game Changer” de Johnnie Walker.
Criado pela BBH e produzido pela The Mill para o mercado chinês, o filme obviamente é polêmico. Apesar da autorização dada pela filha de Bruce, Shannon Lee, existe muita reclamação por ser um comercial de bebida alcóolica. Os comentários no perfil do diretor responsável, Joseph Kahn, falam em desrespeito ao legado do mito, que não ingeria álcool e que, aqui, parece comparar água com whisky.
Kahn se defende, dizendo que se trata de um filme inspiracional, com uma metáfora sobre a vida, e que Bruce Lee não cita e nem segura um copo de Johnnie Walker. “Isso é uma escultura numa mídia diferente, paga por um igreja diferente”, afirmou o diretor.
Personalidades consideradas ilibadas em comerciais geralmente causam problema, vide o recente caso Tom Zé + Coca-Cola, quando estão mortas então, a situação se agrava. A publicidade costuma ser demonizada pelo público, e nada pode garantir que tal celebridade aceitaria colocar sua voz e rosto para vender qualquer coisa que seja.
Comentei isso quando a Citroën usou Marilyn Monroe e, pior, John Lennon para promover seus automóveis. Legado com prazo de validade, que perde mais ainda o sentido por se tratar de alguém notoriamente anti-establishment.
Dito isso, tem algo que me incomoda ainda mais nesse comercial do Bruce Lee. Vocês realmente compraram esse CGI? Parece um boneco. Cinema e games já fizeram muito melhor.
Projet de fin d’études de Thibault de Fournas, cette superbe vidéo d’animation « From Paper to Screen » nous propose de découvrir l’évolution de la typographie, en passant du papier jusqu’au générique de films, pratique révolutionnée par Saul Bass. Une superbe création à découvrir dans la suite.
With all the hullabaloo surrounding the Campbell Ewald news and everything else under the sun yesterday, forgot Whit Hiler‘s note to us that, yes, brands have latched on, literally, to his “Beardvertising” effort. Hiler, of course, is one of the parties involved in the “Kentucky Kicks Ass” tourism campaign launched towards the end of last year. Two months ago, the creative and his agency Lexington, KY-based agency Cornett Integrated Marketing Solutions decided to launch an effort called “Beardvertising,” in which still-patent-pending “beardboards”–or miniature billboards–would be placed on willing participants’ beards.
Well, suffice it to say, we were skeptical, but now Hiler tells us that “Beardvertising” is building momentum, in a sense, in that the project has nabbed brands including A&W Restaurants and most recently (and aptly enough), Dollar Shave Club. In a statement, the latter company’s founder Michael Dubin says, “We’re excited to be building our business of beardlessness with these badass, bushy Beardboards.” Yesterday, the Beardvertising effort officially took off with 25 participants from around the U.S. who will sport beardboards, and Hiler says there are 1,400 more “eager guys” willing to participate. Perhaps one of the most prominent beardvertisers for DSC thus far is Gerald Okamura (below), who you may recognize from films including Big Trouble in Little China and Showdown in Little Tokyo.
You can check out more Beardvertising hijinks on Instagram here.
Everyone is raving about NeverWet, a spray-on waterproof coating that Rust-Oleum is manufacturing and distributing in North America in return for royalty payments. I didn't get what all the fuss was about, but then I saw the product demonstration video below. And, uh, holy crap. If any of this is legit, then NeverWet isn't so much hydrophobic as it is an ancient voodoo curse against liquids. Now if only they could rename it something that people could ask for in stores without blushing.
Colgate has scrapped its #brushswap giveaway planned to run at London’s Waterloo Station for the entirety of this week, due to the brand being overwhelmed by consumers yesterday (9 July).
MediaCom’s managing director, Claudine Collins, and Shortlist Media’s chief executive, Mike Soutar, are set to help sort the wheat from the chaff for Lord Sugar in the BBC’s The Apprentice interview episode tonight.
E-David est un robot-peintre qui est capable de créer différents types de peintures. Avec 5 brosses différentes et 24 couleurs pouvant être utilisés, la machine regarde et réagit de façon indépendante en peignant et décidant d’ajouter ou non des nouveaux tracés. Une belle initiative à découvrir dans la vidéo dans la suite.
No ano passado, o banco belga Febelfin surpreendeu muita gente ao apresentar um “vidente” que sabia tudo sobre suas vidas. A sacada, claro, é que tudo o que ele dizia estava na internet. Agora, a agência Duval Guillaume dá um passo adiante com uma nova pegadinha, muito mais cruel e assustadora, simplesmente mostrando como é fácil “roubar” a vida de um internauta.
O filme – um pouco longo, mas ainda assim válido – mostra como um ator consegue assumir a vida de alguém que ele escolhe na internet, utilizando as informações que ele inocentemente compartilha por lá. Depois, basta apenas um telefonema para conseguir os dados que faltava, e pronto. Adicione uma maquiagem muito bem-feita e o “roubo” está completo.
Depois de assistir a este filme, vale até uma reflexão de como andam nossos filtros de exposição na internet…
A phone call basically confirms that Resource, the Columbus, OH-based agency formerly known as Resource Interactive, has parted ways with chief strategy officer, German Dziebel, who’s been with the agency for just eight months. We’ve also been told that Resource may have cut ties with its CTO at the same time, though we’re still trying to ascertain who that is exactly (the agency has been awfully quiet in the past when it comes to personnel issues).
Anyhow, as for Dziebel, the Russian native worked on the strategy/planning side at several notable agencies prior to joining Resource including CP+B, where he served as senior anthropolgist, as well as Hill Holliday and Arnold. We’ll try our luck again in trying to get any comment/clarification on the matters at hand, and will update if and when we hear. Update: It appears Glynn Evans, an Oracle/Cisco alum, is the Resource CTO in question, though no word yet on his status. Evans has been with the agency for 18 months.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
A phone call basically confirms that Resource, the Columbus, OH-based agency formerly known as Resource Interactive, has parted ways with chief strategy officer, 