Hasta La Creative!

We all know that the key towards making advertising work is to find ways to get attention. Apparently, this has been in the mind of people who have let out their creative artistry towards various means such as goods and transport media images that can really draw attention.

For some, this may seem funny, but the thing is, you are getting the attention which is important in any advertising and promotional gimmick. Laugh at it or like it, the fact remains that the key here is baring the ideas of modern advertising the people will use for larger market awareness and penetration needed by businesses today.

Technorati Tags: advertising, transport media, promotional gimmick, market awareness

The smiling face above is Mick Cornett, the Mayor of Oklahoma City, who has teamed with Taco Bell to challenge his city’s residents to lose 1 million pounds this year.

According to the AP:

Taco Bell’s new Fresco Menu, which debuted in December and includes nine items with less than nine grams of fat, has been dubbed the “Official Menu of the Mayor’s Challenge.” Life-size cardboard cutouts of the mayor, which began appearing Thursday in Oklahoma City-area Taco Bell stores, feature the slug, “Because you can’t lose 1 million lbs. by yourself.”

…

The idea for the campaign began shortly after officials with Irvine, Calif.-based Taco Bell learned of Cornett’s initiative and contacted the mayor, telling him about the new menu items being launched in their stores, including 42 in the Oklahoma City metro area.

From a marketing standpoint, it’s both genius and dangerous, and a natural fit for a fast food company with resources. You have a built-in focus group, the problem is they a) have free will and aren’t required to buy Taco Bell every day and b) they aren’t required to get items off the Fresco menu, which isn’t price equivalent even if it may or may not be taste equivalent, which seems to be the major problem concerning fast food and obesity.

Do people care that they’re eating a bean burrito with 6 grams of fat versus the kind with a regular tortilla and nacho cheese that may be “less healthy?” Do they realize that a Fresco taco doesn’t mean you should get a regular soda? Does this new campaign mean the employees of Taco Bell have an obligation to the people of OKC to keep them on a healthy regiment or to plug the healthy menu when an obese person orders the Nachos Bell Grande?

I’m more skeptical. When it comes down to it, on your way home from work, it matters more if you’re paying $2.29 for the healthy menu item or $.99 for the regular one from the value menu. If you want to really be effective, you either have to make the price comparable or get rid of the unhealthy items and replace them entirely, thus taking the choice factor out.

But let’s hope for the best and expect the worst. Maybe the advertising blitz in OKC will educate and change behavior, which is part of the point.

Technorati Tags: Taco Bell, Oklahoma City, Mick Cornett, politics, fast food,

After the ABC series about Geico’s Cavemen, well, bombed, I was sort of hoping it would be the end of the cavemen altogether. My wish has yet to be granted and now the cavemen have entered the disco world. The new commercials show off their sweet dance moves, think “The Hustle,” and “Jazz Hands.” The purpose of the ads are to direct you to not one but two new viral sites from Geico - CavemansCrib.com and DancingCaveman.com. Visit the latter and you can even download your very own dancing caveman to put on your desktop. Hours of entertainment… or maybe just seconds. 

Technorati Tags: tv, commercials, Geico, cavemen, sitcoms, websites, viral, dancing, disco

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of Danica Patrick

But unfortunately this pun from airTran makes me think they’re shooting for a different demographic than race fans, or telling us something about their spokesperson that’s none of our business.

Seinfeld disclosure: Not that there’s anything wrong with either

Technorati Tags: Danica Patrick, airTran, celebrity endorsements

With the 2010 Vancouver Olympics practically a year away, it would be wise for companies who are planning to get advertising slots towards this world-renowned event early. With practically the whole world watching, you can just imagine the number of companies worldwide jockeying for position for good slots in the expected expensive yet lucrative exposure that one can just imagine.

The strategy here is simple. It is all on a first-come, first served basis. You can expect giants such as Nokia and Sony to be at the forefront of it all in what is expected to be a circus of sorts since this meet will really hit the global target audience. Just look at Canwest which just closed the deal of their advertising pact for the 2010 Olympics.

Canwest Publishing Inc., the largest owner of Canadian newspapers, has signed an Olympic-sized deal to supply advertising to the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee.

The deal, which will be announced this morning, includes all 10 of Canwest’s regional newspapers, including The Vancouver Sun and The Province, but not the flagship National Post.

Vanoc is calling Canwest an “official supplier”, a category that generally is worth between $3 millon and $10 million. In a memo sent to staff Wednesday morning Dennis Skulsky, the president of Canwest Publishing, and Kevin Bent, the publisher of the Pacific Newspaper Group called it an “Official Regional Newspaper agreement”.

(Source) The Vancouver Sun

Technorati Tags: olympics, advertising, canwest, nokia, sony, global

The Left Right Project is meant to celebrate an icon. Adidas and 180LA teamed up to create a giant pair of Adidas shell tops. One shoe was given to an east coast team of artist at Surface2Air in New York, NY. The other was given to the creative team, Upper Playground in San Francisco, CA. In a classic east vs. west tradition, the two teams designed their shoes to reflect their coast. Each crew had 3 days to design their shoe. The teams met up in Venice Beach, CA to showcase their work.

This is a nice viral/digital/experiential project. It is an example of micro targeting with mass appeal potential. The viral was picked up by the sneaker community as well as the creative community. It’s very Adidas and I like that it doesn’t feel overdone or over budget. The Left Right Project is part of a larger Adidas Originals campaign, which includes “games” and events.

As far as advertising is concerned, you can expect some of them to exaggerate some stuff and even get to the point of misleading the consumer market with their practices. This is common and some people just fail to realize it. The exposure of ads are becoming aggressive and rather than analyzing and reading them closely, people are too involved in observing the images and scenes rather than what an ad is all about.

Consumers only get to realize a product once they have purchased one. While many are using the psychological warfare to sell their product, consumers don’t even have a clue that they are buying goods that may not even have all the necessities that were injected into the ad that they saw. And I guess you know who becomes the loser and the winner in the end right?

Just look at this example of misleading advertising:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) criticized easyJet for its Easter promotional campaign, when the no-frills airline claimed that if was offering 25 percent discounts on nearly all tickets, including just about all routes.

(Source) Carrentals.co.uk

Online games are rampant these days and with the added advertising and promotions, they are bound to land more players for this growing popular game called World of Warcraft.

Any avid gamer who has been following the Warcraft Series are sure to be aware of this game through word of mouth. So with that said, you may ask why invest in television commercials? The fact is, the World of Warcraft is still a business and while they have saturated the market using the Internet, there are still untapped markets out there.

And what better way to market it in style other than with MR. T, a familiar figure in television who has an image like character representation in WOW.

One thing that television advertising offers is that you have to be wise as to what time slot you want your ad to come out. In events such as the Oscars or the closely watched sporting events such as boxing and the Super Bowl, slots will surely be packed and if you really want the exposure, you have to think ahead and get the ideal ad slot to get your money’s worth.

Often, you will find tough picking when you are up against the aggressive advertising giants who want maximum exposure. While they are preferred by most event organizers, the best you can do is find the next best slot to place your ad and get the required exposure your product or service needs.

Yesterday, developers of the explosively popular video game Rock Band announced that Motley Crue will be releasing their first single off their upcoming album through the game. Definitely a first, but certainly not entirely unexpected. From the Reuters article:

“Rock Band” went on sale last November and now has more than 80 tracks available for download in addition to the 58 tracks in the original game. MTV Games said players have bought more than 6 million downloadable songs for Rock Band. Tunes range from classics by the likes of the Who and the Rolling Stones to more-contemporary fare from the Killers and Fall Out Boy.

The music industry is changing (in-case you hadn’t noticed) and is trying to stay afloat as the video game industry adapts to an evolving – and growing – demographic. Significant? Definitely. The way we are interacting with the world of video games is shifting – and moving significantly closer to the “real world.” Certainly something worth paying attention to as technology and games continue to advance.