Thought provoking marketing ideas focused on Leadership, Strategy, Creativity, Innovation and Digital marketing. I am a Vice President of Marketing with experience in CPG (eg Heineken) and technology (Microsoft). This is a personal blog.
Potential for change is the reason great innovators get goose bumps from great insights, which hurl open the gates to new possibilities that weren’t viable before.
One of the most powerful thing is to listen for the thing that is normally not being said. Occasionally it is being said. Usually the best insights come from mixing a consumer truth, a brand truth, a commercial truth and a marketing truth. For technology brand you can add user experience truth. For advertising it might be a storytelling truth.
The dilemma is simple: the more a TV commercial emphasis the product features the less interesting the TV ad becomes and the less effective the results with consumers.
Here are a few ways to talk about product features.
1. Using Font Type/ voice over to enhance product features
Ford F150: EcoBoost
2. The storyline: wrapping the feature in a compelling story
Spot PDA Simply Palm
3. Inspirational next generation description
Ford recently launched a nice example with their new Go Further execution
If you were offering a new car in today's crowded market, you'd do all this to go further.
Ok, animals work in advertising and is a very common technique. Here are a few examples of how they work.
Kia Hamster commercial
In this one, animals are used as personification of people. Gives a cool vibe.
2012 HYUNDAI SONATA HYBRID: Easy On The Eyes.
Cute animals. Check. Catchy soundtrack. Check. This one has all the component parts and pulls them together masterfully. The ad does a great job of keeping the viewers attention, while keeping them guessing what could have the animals of the forest so interested. Jeff Bridges’ familiar voice tells that it is “as easy on the eyes as it is on the environment.”
Aflac Dancing Duck TV Commercial (New Voice Revealed)
What is "3D Mapping Projection"? It projects specially manipulated content onto 3D surfaces such that the illusion of depth, objects and light appears. It is an illusion using standard projectors.
Ok, I am a fan of these and have applied some of these on a smaller scale at our brand activations.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Lexus CT, projected on the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles
Target: Kaleidoscopic Fashion Spectacular at the Standard Hotel NYC
3D Projection mapping in the city of Sugarland, Texas for New Years Eve 2010
3D video mapping can also be done indoors. Here is The Living Room by MR Beam. They created a unique physical 3D video-mapping experience by turning a white living room into a spacious 360° projection area. This technique allowed them to take control of all colors, patterns and textures of the furniture, wallpapers and carpet. All done with 2 projectors.
Nokia Lumia Live ft deadmau5 lights up London with amazing 4D projection
Launch of Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows phone in London. I was scheduled to attend but had a last minute cancellation. Bummer.
Showcasing the historical achievements, success, milestones and emotional connections across generations is a great way to continue to build one's legacy. Here are a few examples.
Chevrolet
This one shows how Chevrolet remains connected to its iconic moments, locations, and Chevy vehicles.
In general it is already difficult to make consistent great creative decisions. I believe in a number of ways to ensure this happens:
1. Provide ownership and autonomy to the leaders of the creative projects This allows for a vision to come through without it being watered down. It allows for a cohesive piece to be developed
2. Involve a number of different people in making important decisions. This is not contrary to #1 but rather a feedback mechanism. No one has all the answers and there are so many different scenarios that are possible that it is necessary to expose creative work to a wide variety of people. It is still up to the leaders to decide what to do with the information.
3. Ensure various processes are being used to evaluate the work.
One of the most powerful advertising platform is to play on National Pride. There are many angles to this platform. Sometimes brands are making a point of emphasizing the impact that doing business with them has on the local economy. Other times, they play on the emotional connectiveness.
Car Brands Play on National and Local Pride
Holden
Take iconic Australian auto brand Holden with the tagline “Times are a bit tough. But Australians and Holden are tougher,”the brand is trying to leverage national pride to drive affinity with consumers.
This Australia Day ad focuses on how the automaker boosts the economy by exporting its vehicles and employing Australians, and unusually features the prime minister. The campaign acts as a rallying cry for Australians to face the economic crisis with a united front, which sits against the country’s pioneer history and love for the “Aussie Battler” spirit.
Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial - Imported From Detroit
Chrysler throws a hail mary and turns in a two minute commercial.This was mostly bellyaching about how Detroit builds cars, built America, then Eminem gets out of his car and tells us to buy this Chrysler. The ad plays on the cultural tension that Detroit is perceived dead, a city who's time has come and gone. Chrysler, like the other big automakers, is inextricably tied to the city. This spot said screw you, the city is coming back, it has a rich powerful history and the next chapter's about to be written. It makes you as the viewer rooting for the city. Classic underdog story.
Drinks category Play on National and Local Pride
As sports is a big drinking occasion, a lot of beer and soft drinks play on national pride with the favorite national sport.
Coca Cola He Shoots He Scores
Coca Cola links in with the Vanouver 2010 Winter Olympics with “He Shoots, He Scores”, a television commercial featuring ice hockey. From the boy playing with a Coca Cola can, through to schoolboys and schoolgirls, professional players, table hockey players, spectators and fans alike, the cry is, “He Shoots! He Scores!” The final line, “Let’s make sure everyone knows whose game they’re playing”, appeals to Canadian national pride over their connection with the game of ice hockey.
The Molson Canadian commercial "I Am Canadian".
Military Enlistment Ads
Advertising about enlisting in the military is tricky business; a balance between agitprop and national pride.
Building product credentials in an interesting and progressive way is difficult. Very often we see the predictable version. Here are 2 examples (both in the beverage world) on how to talk about the values of the brand with the brand at the centre.
1. Sapporo Biru
Sapporo’s Legendary Biru advertisement builds credibility in an exciting new way that really catches the attention. It visualizes a blend of popular traditions of Japanese culture with parts of the brewing process.
2. Coca Cola Happiness Factory
This is a great example of how the tap into the FUN needstate. In this animated television commercial Coca Cola demonstrates the joys of life behind the scenes in a Coke vending machine. There have been a few more versions of this approach. Made by Psyop and agency Wieden+Kennedy
This top list brings the most exciting extraterrestrial ads that capture electrifying and creative alien concepts with amusement and marketing ingenuity.
There’s so much you can do with the concept of aliens and it can be related to almost any category, whether it’s social media, fashion, design or technology. Our fascination for aliens and entertainment make a powerful team.
Droid
Droid advertising seemed to take its cues from Darth Vader.The best of the commercials could easily have been mistaken for trailers for science fiction-horror films. They looked like an alien invasion and sometimes featured people being forcibly converted into human-machine hybrids.
This commercial captured a specific tension in our relationship with technology. We’re fascinated by and drawn to innovative technology while we’re simultaneously suspicious of it and fear it. That’s a big part of what made the Terminator movies tick. We want the power that advanced tools bring, but we recognize their potential to overwhelm, addict or even destroy us. Technology is power, and like power, it can be used for good or ill. Rather than shying away from this tension, Verizon jumped right into the thick of it and intentionally blurred the lines between man and machine. In contrast to the iPhone’s story of happy empowerment, the Droid campaign let Verizon express the attractiveness of raw power and dominance—in all of its dark glory.
KIA: 2011 Kia Optima: One Epic Ride
This builds on the concept Everyone is trying to get their hands on the car. The fact that aliens want the car as well implies it must be really advanced.
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