Hasta La Creative!

Whenever you’re in Orlando, chances are you’ll see a car like this driving around. All I can say is, even though I’ve been in Orlando and went out for dinner quite a few times, there’s only one place I remember where you can eat ‘the best lobsters in town’… I wonder why that is.

Great stunt for the Boston Lobster Feast!

A few months ago I did a post about 8 unfortunate company logos. Recently I came across another logo that really could fit in well with the others. I’m not really sure it’s in Spanish, because I can’t really translate it, but the pic has been sent to me by a friend who found it on the web. Since it’s travelling around, I thought I’d post it here. Thing is, when it comes to picking the right company name, please make sure the abbreviation is not ambiguous in other languages. Chances are if a company like this depends on tourists to survive, I don’t think it will be quite as popular 🙂

Thanks, Kristof

I remember that whenever I had to do some ‘casual seeding’ for a promo video for an agency, I had a document with all the usernames and passwords of the sites I would dump the file to. It would take me up to a day to drill down that list, surf to the site and log in, upload the video, wait for the encoding and then bookmark the url of the clip to track the number of views afterwards. I know seeding promotonial clips has taken a downfall a bit, since not all communities are that keen on ‘being abused’ by ‘yet another agency that wants to score’ with a clip in the hopes it goes viral. So. Here is a solution that can make some people very pissed, but at the same time would come in very handy for an agency to start the seeding and save a lot of time.
In comes Hey!Spread…

First thing to do the ‘undercover work’ is to have some sleeping accounts. Just go to the sites listed below and register for an account. You better start making those on beforehand, even when you don’t have a clip to seed. You can put some ‘general’ funny clips on the account and pretend to be a regular user. It’s good to have a history on a site. The longer the better. It’s good to have some activity on that account as well, it will add up to your credibility. Write down all the usernames and passwords and then head over to the Hey!Spread website.

With a simple login, you get access to their service, name your movie, tag it and start the uploading. Hey!Spread will upload your movie to:

• Sclipo
• Sumo
• Sevenload
• Youtube
• Google
• Dailymotion
• Blip
• Metacafe
• Yahoo
• Facebook
• Myspace
• Vimeo
• Revver
• Veoh
• Vsocial
• Photobucket
• Putfile

All the links above go directly to the registration page of the sites, so in case you don’t have a username/password on that site yet, you don’t have to look for the signup page.

Hey!Spread also allows you to add a watermark to the video file, in case you want to brand it for an official release or something. As soon as you start uploading your file, all you have to do is sit back and relax. The only thing you have to wait for is the processing time of each individual video site. When everything is uploaded, you get the URL to the location of the uploaded clip. Just copy-paste that list, put it in an e-mail or a Word document, and go check the views if you need to harvest the results.

As a bonus, you can use the Hey!Spread API which allows you to propose Hey!Spread in white label as a innovative and addictive feature to your users or clients. Allow them to mass-distribute video content over the best video platforms at any time, but still be the solution provider that came up with this brilliant plan for your customer!

Have fun.

To send New Year greetings for 2008, the communications team at the dinosaur museum in Brussels sent colleagues and main sponsors a highly original package. Inside was a block of plaster and a hammer & chisel with an invitation to amateur paleontologists to dig, not for the bones of a mighty T-Rex, but to find the museum’s greeting card.

Agency: McCann Erickson Belgium
Account Director: Talia Hendlisz
Creatives: Gregory Defay, Quentin Gascard
Thanks for the pointer, Tanguy

If you are one who believes capturing attention – and luring one to a special website – makes for a successful ad, then I think you’ll like this one from Hyundai. But, if you believe ads should directly help sell something and move people to want to purchase it NOW because of what they saw or heard, then this may not be your cup of tea.

I’ll try to explain…

I’ve watched this TV spot more than several times. It is odd and captivating…but, I’m not so sure it really sells the product (in this case, a brand and a car). But, it may move folks to type in Hyundai’s special, off-beat website ThinkAboutIt. And, I certainly have been thinking about it. And…I did do as the spot tells me, and checked out the website. So, I guess it worked on me. But, did it work for me and for Hyundai?

In all honesty, the spot engages me and makes me think a little — which is good. But, it doesn’t highlight the car well or tell me much — except the vehicle has a fine powertrain warranty (10 year/100,000 miles). So, am I more apt to go test drive and buy a Hyundai? I don’t know…probably not. But, it did make me go to its special website.

You tell me…is this a successful ad?

Technorati Tags: Hyundai. commercial, ThinkAboutIt.com, beyond madison avenue

It seems like only yesterday when Tivo first came on the market much to advertisers dismay. Marketers everywhere attacked the service, with the CEO of Turner going so far as to accuse commercial skippers of theft. A lot has changed since then. Advertisers have slowly come to terms with the fact that people will fast forward through ads and Tivo has introduced a new products in an attempt to appease these advertisers including pop-up banners and other more interactive units.

But even as this un-easy alliance has been forged, no one seems to be taking much notice of Apple TV. With the latest version now supporting not only a slew of popular tv shows but the ability to rent movies — and with both options being available in HD — I’m surprised we haven’t heard more screaming from marketers. Imagine if everyone started consuming all of their tv and movie entertainment in this a la carte style and the implications it would have not only for advertisers but cable providers as well. Let’s do the math. I’ll use my own television and movie consumption as an example. As someone employed in advertising I figure it’s my duty to watch tv, and I do enjoy a HD picture so I currently subscribe to DirecTV. My package includes some premium channels, the HD and the DVR options and currently runs me $101.97 a month. I also use Netflix which runs another $18.43. So a month of tv and movies costs me $120.40. The reality is I don’t watch that much tv and often don’t get through my 3 movies a month — who has that amount of time? Out of the zillions of channels I have I really only watch a handful of shows: 30 Rock, Lost, The Office, Project Runway, Top Chef and a few others that I’ll just refer to as guilty pleasures — so 7 shows in all a week or about 28 a month which is probably a little high since I never seem to catch them all. If I were to purchase those same programs through Apple TV I’m looking at $55.72. If I throw in 3 movies, which again is a little high, I’m looking at another $14.97 assuming I’m going with just new releases in HD. So for only $70.69 I can have access to all of the content I regularly watch (with much of it in higher quality HD) at a savings $49.31 a month and all without any advertising! Hmmmmm. Advertisers and cable providers need to prepare themselves as an increasing amount of different entertainment distribution models become available. TV spots, it’s been nice knowing you. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Technorati Tags: review, advertising, broadcast, beyond madison avenue

While Apple has been making a splash this week, tech-giant Microsoft has been busy with shopping carts. They have started a nine-month pilot program with MediaCart and Wakefern ShopRite stores to display point-of-purchase ads in 220 grocery stores in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. While Microsoft doesn’t have the same web advertising presence as Google, Yahoo and other giants, they are rapidly expanding into emerging digital channels. Last year’s acquisition of aQuantive, Inc. puts them in a unique position to market via new digital channels.

Equally interesting will be the consumer reception to one more screen vying for their attention. Not to mention the cart’s abilities to check your location in the store via RFID, specifically target ads based on what items your near, and the ability to track your shopping habits. Highly effective from a p.o.p. view, and tentatively useful for understanding consumer habits and patterns, but if the consumer doesn’t befriend the machine perched at the end of the cart, results could be lackluster. Early responses to the idea from the public seem to be mixed, but the technology certainly has a good deal to offer, if utilized effectively. I’ll be curious to see how effectively (and creatively) Microsoft can handle the task of in-cart-advertising. If you’re curious about the carts, there’s a bizarrely mesmerizing video of the carts in action on the MediaCart website.

Technorati Tags: marketing, Microsoft, shopping cart, beyond madison avenue

The International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was this past week and being the tech geek I am, I was catching up on all of the event coverage, but nothing stood out quite as much in my eye as the Taser personal mp3 player, which apparently offers us “Fashion with a Bite.”

Is there really that high of a demand for a taser/music player combo? Maybe on the heels of “Don’t tase me, bro!” there’s a new market that has opened up I wasn’t aware of. I do applaud Taser International for executing such an unexpected combination, but my question remains: How does one effectively market such a device outside of a show like CES? Is it an ipod competitor or a personal protection device with the added feature of an mp3 player? The possibilities of music and tasering pairings do intrigue me. Maybe Taser could give us a Pandora station? In a world where products are constantly evolving to accomplish more, it’s always interesting to see what will come next. I can’t wait for next year [another interesting article (and video) on the mp3taser at The Guardian]

Technorati Tags: marketing, taser, leopard print, mp3 player, beyond madison avenue

As we all know, brands are living things. They can get sick, they can get tired, or they can thrive and become energetic. The getting better/mending (and potential positive turnabout) is off to a good start with this relatively recent branding ad for Saturn automobiles. In fact, I really dig this ad!

Saturn was one of the only GM brands that had darling status in the industry when it was introduced some 22 years ago. But in the last decade, Saturn has endured a steady erosion of brand equity and sales of its automobiles. Part of the decline was due to unimaginative automobiles given to it by GM — but, getting away from its original branding has also played a role.

This “Rethink American” ad and platform re-make of the Saturn brand has me optimistic about the division’s future. The ad is thought-provoking in a more global consequential way, as well as informative about the Saturn line-up. It sizes up that things change — how we once viewed things, now mean something else. And, with Saturn’s 5 new models, commitment to affordable hybrids, and a 100,000 mile (5 year powertrain) warranty, it may be worth giving this brand another look.

As the ad’s uplifting rock music articulates in the end, I may be ready to “come around”. Good idea, good execution, and good luck turning the corner resurrecting the Saturn brand.

Technorati Tags: GM, Saturn, Brands, Rethink American, Beyond Madison Avenue