Hasta La Creative!

One thing that advertising needs to accomplish is the message should be loud and clear. Making promotions and supportive marketing aids are evident these days but unless the whole logistics of proper delivery of the message that the whole campaign should do, chances are the whole advertising effort will go for naught.

Clarity and short messages. That is the best way to describe effective advertising these days. People have no time for long and boring ads. Get to the point but make sure that it is understood loud and clear! That is what advertising is all about.

Technorati Tags: advertising, logistics, clarity, messages, loud and clear

For those of you who are not sports fans, you may not know the awesomeness of one Charles Barkley. As a player in the NBA he played above his capabilities to be a dominant power forward in a small forward’s body. As a commentator on TNT, he is honest and forthright without any niceties.

As a pitchman for T-Mobile his commercials with Dwayne Wade are funny and bring out his personality.

Technorati Tags: T-Mobile, NBA, National Basketball Association, Turner Network Television, TNT, Dwayne Wade, Charles Barkley, Live Television, I’m Ron Burgundy?

Absolut is bringing one of their print ads to life in the newest spot from TBWA, titled, “Dissection.” The original print ad featured an exploding glass that reveal the vodka within. In the spot, TBWA takes it to the next level with the Absolut bottle itself exploding in slow-mo and the liquid inside staying in the quintessential shape. According to AdWeek, the vodka was actually shot in slow frames and minimal (20% or less) was CGI animation. I enjoy the ending where the pieces assemble themselves back together for the end tagline, “In an Absolut World.” Check out the ad for yourself below… what do you think?

Technorati Tags: Absolut, vodka, liquor, advertising, marketing, CGI, animation, commercials, TBWA

I’ve never been a die-hard fan of much of the Axe creative – some is pretty stellar, and others just don’t quite hit me right. But this newest spot/website for Axe Canada is stellar, and just a bit different than much of the past Axe work.

Simple, not over the top (over the top for Axe, that is), a simple website, and a contest to win a trip to the Axe Cottage. What more could a guy want? Be sure to check out the website for more video clips and to enter the contest.

In one of the coolest guerilla marketing campaigns I have seen in awhile, HP and Publicis (in Malaysia) have created giant fake black holes to give the appearance that you are walking towards a background.

  

Each “black hole” was placed in different urban settings (as you can see above) and they look like someone has busted through. Now, clearly this is selling the realistic look of their photopaper. I mean, from what I can tell from the photos, that must be some darn good paper if it looks that real. I guess I’ll just have to plan a trip to Malaysia and check it out for myself… but in the meantime I’ll just sit and wonder why I didn’t think of that.

Technorati Tags: HP, photo, guerilla, marketing, advertising, international, Malaysia, Publicis, urban

 

We all remember the Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials with Donovan McNabb and his oh-so-adorable mother and even Matt Hasselback and his mom. This September, LaDainian Tomlinson takes the reigns in the newest spots that will follow a day-in-the-life of the football star. However, this isn’t Tomlinson’s first appearance in the Campbell’s spots, he appeared last year among an all-star cast. As you patiently await the coming football season, check out previous commercials here and watch the oldie-but-goodie below.  (Source AdWeek)  

Technorati Tags: Campbell’s Chunky, soup, NFL, football, LaDainian Tomlinson, TV, sports

A couple of commercials on rotation currently strike me as incredibly similar. In fact, I know people who didn’t even realize (at first) that the commercials were for two completely different products. Enter the AT&T Go Phone spot with Meatloaf and Tiffany and a handful of Comcast spots, including the “Lady Marmalade” ad. Notably I find them similar since each uses singing as the main means of conversing. Personally, I find AT&T’s spot much more interesting to watch as it is more of a mini-musical – including the song being edited to fit the product. As far as Comcast goes, their spots showcase one of the actors singing the song back as part of conversation, in a weird dubbed-over way, that I find, well, creepy. After much debate, I have found that most prefer the Meatloaf spot to Comcast’s. What are your thoughts? Do you find them similar? Maybe not? 

Technorati Tags: Go Phone, AT&T, Meatloaf, Tiffany, Comcast, Lady Marmalade, Patti LaBelle, tv, commercials, cell phone, singing

I’ve been intrigued by the new “Haggen-Dazs loves Honey Bees” campaign for a few reasons. Both the spots and the website are both beautiful and cute and well executed. But what’s more fascinating is the concept and message behind it.

The website has a wealth of information on the bee situation. They’ve even created a Haagen Dazs Bee Board to “provide insight on the honey bee issue,” and are proponents of community outreach. They’re promoting planting bee-friendly flora and donating to bee research efforts underway at Penn State and UC Davis. Haagen-Dazs has also released a new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee, with proceeds going to the research efforts, in addition to other “bee-dependent flavors” being identified.

It’s an interesting idea, and a seemingly well-executed campaign. I’m curious how much of the proceeds actually go to research efforts, and how much effort Haagen-Dazs is actually putting forth. The message is good and I certainly hope Haagen-Dazs truly stands behind it and actually follows through. In a time when green and pro-environment movements are rapidly gaining popularity, it’s easy to come out with messages that are green. Actually being green, and not just greenwashing, is a whole different ballgame.

After a few weeks of teasers and trailers, Nike finally released the 2-minute full version of the “Take it to the Next Level” spot after it aired on broadcast via ITV at the beginning of today’s Manchester United game.

The spot is directed by Guy Ritchie of Lock Stock & Snatch fame, who is no stranger to branded films. Several years back, he directed the 10-min. short, “The Hire: Star” featuring Madonna & Clive Owen for the BMW films series.

As anticipated, this spot is pretty impressive. Definitely falls in line with the overall Nike image of late. I’m curious to see of there’s any further integration of the spot into any of Nike’s advertising, beyond being featured (in high quality) on the Nike Football Homepage. Either way, it’s okay — the Guy Ritchie fanboy in me is satisfied.

Audi has been creating (or rather constructing) some fascinating spots lately, like the “strings” spot I wrote about a few months back.

This most recent spot from BBH London continues along the deconstruction & construction path, stylizing the internal workings of the Audi RS6 via Hugarian Gymnasts. Certainly not the first thing I would think of, but the suspension of reality and the acceptance of the gymnasts loosely representing the internals of an RS6 engine does something fairly powerful, and certainly creates an interesting spot.

So the ultimate question: do gymnastics, string figures, and automotive orchestras work to sell cars and change brand awareness? Or does it simply yield commercials that are interesting to watch?