Hasta La Creative!

Here’s a pair of ads for Westwood College, one of those vocational schools where you can get a degree in three years and start your career!

It’s one of those tough predicaments: your client wants to be the spokesperson for your new TV spots…well, his new spots. He’s the man driving the company-the brand-no matter how much time you’ve put into it.

A very charismatic and charming man, unfortunately he’s “got a face for radio,” standing 5′ 5″ tall with wispy hair that seems to start in his ears and wind it’s away around the back of his bald head. From the looks of it, the ears have never seen a trim. (Yummy…)

CEO's Melon

You weigh the options; he’s definitely not stupid, so the whole “we need a perfect fit for the brand persona” BS angle is dead. In his mind he’s part of the brand’s image, and he is to an extent, just not the TV extent. If you tell him that, the account won’t be in jeopardy, but the relationship will be strained. Then again, saying that he’s the perfect fit is a straight-out lie. Plus, you’ll pay for it in terms of reputation and credibility. Slinky’s will start showing up in your office…to remind you of your backbone. So, what to do?

If you are thinking correctly, you’ll head down to Media and see if they can dig up research on the effects of CEO’s in TV commercials. (That’s what I’d do.) They won’t have the information, but they’ll have an idea on where, and how, to get it. Remember to always love your media department…

In this case, they provide you an Ad Week poll done on LinkedIn. According to the  Ad Week article:

When a company uses the CEO in its advertising, do you find the message more credible, less credible, or does it make no difference? Overall, “makes no difference” won a plurality, with 49 percent of the vote. But “more credible” beat “less credible” by a wide margin, 36 percent to 14 percent.

The poll addresses other CEO characteristics such as age, company size, gender, etc, and is available on LinkedIn.
So, unless there’s another way out of it, it looks like your spots will revolve around the CEO. Yet, it could be worse…you could be working with kids and goats…

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.

Microsoft launched two “Hulu-esque” online TV spots this week that star Dean Cain, the actor known as Superman from the TV series “Lois & Clark.” The spots are a bit surreal, much like the Hulu commercials that have were released earlier this year. The two spots, named F.O.M.S. (Fear Of Missing Something) and S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. (Sharing Heavily Yet Not Enough Sharing Still), are in support of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), released in its final version on March 19th of 2009.

It’s unclear if Microsoft is experiencing low download rates for IE8, or are simply running the spots to support the new software in a more competitive environment. The IE8 browser is chock-full-o-features that include new malware protection, a discrete browsing mode (for those that need to hide their searches) and greater tab control. One of the best features is that when the browser crashes, it only restarts that particular tab, leaving the rest of the tabs operating normally. However, there are problems with IE8, such as it has to run in “compatibility mode” to read a majority of websites, and it is not as fast as the sparsely-featured Google Chrome browser.

The ads do nothing to dispel these irregularities, and instead are somewhat humorous takes on personal browsing habits. Both of the spots are featured on YouTube, as well as below. F.O.M.S features a woman frantic over missing a bid on EBay, while S.H.Y.N.E.S.S. enables people that send crap over the internet to send it faster using one of IE8’s accelerators. (great…)

The campaign, if it can be called such, is masquerading as a set of PSAs that are promoting BrowserfortheBetter.com, which is a landing page devoted to the new browsers. What’s great about downloading IE8 from this page is that for every download, Microsoft will donate eight meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

Whether a humanitarian effort or a sales ploy to get the browsers downloaded, the result is the same: food for the hungry. And for this, Microsoft deserves recognition.

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, so leave a comment or follow the links:linkedin.com or twitter.com.

“Insane Crash” is a coupla months old and continues Sprite’s “Freedom from Thirst” campaign, which launched in 2005.

86itjunk.com is a Canadian service that checks out your junk, gives you a quote and hauls it away on the spot.

There’s something about stop-motion vegetable videos that: 1) soothes us, and 2) convinces us anything the associated brand says is true, including the oft-repeated lie that the food is fresh.

BreatheRight keeps you snoozing soundly without leaving the auditory evidence in your wake, promises CBGrey/Paris in “Theatre.”

I couldn’t help but to express my utter annoyance of brands that put all their hard earned money into sponsorship options without that sponsorship/product placement being truly relavent. 

Key example: Watching the NBA Finals you have Gatorade’s “G-thing” plastered all over the bottom of the screen and courtside. I wonder, how much did they pay for that lil’ splish splash?

What was there? Oh, just the logo no deeper relavance to the finals than that. Yeah, yeah, I know your saying well Gatorade’s a “sports” drink and it’s a “sports” playoff, it should be there. I totally agree but that’s Marketing 101, it’s time for brands to go deeper. 

Like EA Sports for instance is present during these same finals but they integrated their brand in a smooth, non-”G”akward way. The commentator was placed virtually onto a court while a computer EA Sports generated Kobe Bryant was playing against commentator as he shows how to play defense against Kobe , gives pointers, things to watch for, etc–all in this virtual world–NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ BOUT!!! Woohooo imagine that, complete relevance, showing the brand goods, and not pandering to me–it’s no dream world, that’s real branding baby! 

This is the way to integrate brands beyond the mind numbing (in frankenstein voice) “we will repeat…repeat…repeat…repeat…and you will buy…buy…buy !”

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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) who has been in the communications industry for over 8 years, specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/

– Why you should buy the shirt at left. (No, it’s not a Greenpeace thing.)

Boost Mobile , the prepaid division of Sprint Nextel, is unleashing a series of spots that play off of the the “Unwronged” spots featuring Danica Patrick. I am so glad that some advertisers still have a sense of humor because I am about tired of hearing how all of these companies that were started during the Great Depression want to comfort us. Not that we don’t need a pick-me-up every once in a while, but enough is enough.

The creative is aimed at supporting a new $50 a month, “Monthly” Unlimited’ offering from Boost. The commercial features the Motorola Clutch i465, Boost Mobile’s first phone with a computer keypad. The creative was developed by Boost’s advertising agency of record, 180LA.

When I first saw the spot, I thought that it would run a couple of time and then get pulled due to some sort of  perceived offense. I am happy that I was wrong.

Although a bit far-fetched (Danica Patrick using prepaid cellular service), the overall creativity is refreshing. We are all aware of studies conducted during economic crises, and how the companies that spend through the storm emerge stronger on the other end.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. If you would like to get in touch with Jeff, please leave a reply or follow the links: www.linkedin.com or www.twitter.com.