Hasta La Creative!

If you’ve ever been a corporate clown, you can relate to this spot aimed at small business owners who fled the office circus to live their dreams.

Puddles, the Sad Clown with the Golden Voice, sings an altered version of the 1899 song “Keep on the Sunny Side,” made popular in the 1920s by The Carter Family. His version, entitled “Keep on the Corporate Side,” is a satirical ode to all things loathed by corporate wage slaves.

From the mockery that is casual Friday to dreams of vacations we can never take, the song is depressingly accurate. Lines like, “when they give you birthday cake, it just seems a little fake,” might make you rethink every corporate-enforced celebration you’ve ever tried to enjoy. Luckily, Puddles’ antics in the video and his melodious voice keep you smiling. And, of course, the video ends on a happy note as Puddles packs up his desk and quits.

Small business loan service Kabbage Inc. created the spot with Atlanta’s BreenSmith Advertising Agency to appeal to small business owners who’ve jumped the corporate ship (and those about to make the leap).

It’s interesting to note the video encourages people to share their #sadclown stories, since that’s a hashtag already in use by Puddles for his unrelated antics. But hey, you might as well have something come up when people search for your hashtag, and you could do worse than videos of a sad clown with an amazing singing voice.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) has launched a campaign begging consumers to have a digital-free Sunday. The paper, owned by Cox enterprises, rolled out the over $1 million campaign this week with the tagline “Unplug. It’s Sunday.” The campaign is to promote the Sunday newspaper as a way to escape the ringing of cell phones, e-mail notifications, IM, and all of the other digital devices that “clutter” our work weeks. Instead of reading the news on an RSS Feed, we can lug out the seven pound paper and spend some quality time getting newsprint on our fingers. Nice. The campaign is slated to run for the remainder of the year.

Perhaps the funniest (or dumbest) thing about this story is that Cox Enterprises chose a digital agency to lead consumers back to print. The AJC tapped IQ Interactive, an Atlanta digital agency. Weirdly, we can digitally view this couple reading the traditional newspaper, which is like Xeroxing a mirror (don’t do it, you’ll go back in time). The fully-interactive microsite gives off that  ”peeping tom feel,” staring into someones home from a bay window. A couple is sitting on the couch reading the paper, and “Tom” can move from room to room, opening cabinets, running water, and even taking bread from a shopping bag. Voyeurism does have its advantages…

There are other media components to the campaign, including; print, TV, radio, online, point-of-purchase, direct mail, and out of home.

“It’s about how to reposition the newspaper,” said Tony Quin, CEO of IQ Interactive, the independent Atlanta digital shop
that created the campaign. “We came up with the idea as a counterpoint to the digital cacophony that exists in everyone’s
lives. Sunday is the day to relax and do something different than you do the rest of the week.”

The AJC has fared no better than the rest of the newspaper industry; the paper’s circulation dropped twenty percent in the last year for weekdays and Saturdays, and seven percent on Sundays. Earlier this year, the AJC cut 30% of the news staff.

The takeaway: although the marketing team will be gone next year after this debacle, they did show foresight by using forms of media that actually reach the consumer. Just another bullet point for the ol’ resume.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Coordinator. His passion is writing, contributing to BMA as well as freelancing. He’d love to hear from you: linkedin.com/in/jefflouis or twitter.com/jlo0312.