FIFA’s World Player of the Year, Kaká, the Brazilian soccer star who plays for Real Madrid, is the focus of Sony BRAVIA’S new Motionflow advertising campaign for 2009, competing directly with Phillip's "Carousel" online campaign, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/philips-carousel-brings-creativity-to.html). The UK advertising agency responsible for this unusual and creative campaign is Fallon Worldwide, the agency which in 2005 introduced the Sony BRAVIA advertising premise, COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER. This memorable platform is heralded by a trilogy of "larger-than-life" spots that have surprised and entertained viewers over the last 4 years with captivating sound-tracks and imaginative portrayals of colour. This trilogy of ads; “Paint,” “Balls,” and “Play-doh” got attention with an over abundance of paint, bouncing balls, and colourful bunnies which communicated the vivid colour spectrum visible through Sony BRAVIA’S high definition LCD TV sets.
Fallon’s latest campaign for Sony BRAVIA moves away from this COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER platform, focusing instead on the smoothness of motion that Sony BRAVIA’S new Motionflow 240Hz TV technology provides. (Motionflow technology provides the viewer with 200 frames per second, delivering an extremely smooth viewing experience.) The “larger-than-life” premise from the previous BRAVIA campaigns still remains, almost as a Sony BRAVIA signature trademark, but this time it is diverted into the creation of a technological marvel as the centerpiece of their spot - a modern-day zoetrope. A zoetrope is a contraption that harkens back to 19th century film technology. It works by rapidly moving successive static images to give the perception of movement.
Fallon’s mission for the Motionflow campaign was to build a “larger-than-life,” fully functioning zoetrope and use it to demonstrate Sony BRAVIA’s Motionflow technology. They did just this, creating in northern Italy a BRAVIA-drome (zoetrope), a large donut-type (room-size)carousel of sorts, as the centre piece of their set for the 2009 advertising campaign. The campaign featured celebrity Brazilian soccer star and FIFA’s World Player of the Year, Kaká. Once the BRAVIA-drome was built, the commercial shoot took place, complete with the zoetrope and sixty-four static images of Kaká controlling the soccer ball in amazing ways. The shoot comprised of crowds of people, including Kaká, watching as the BRAVIA-drome containing his static images started to spin. As the BRAVIA-drome spun and gathered momentum, the static images of Kaká intermittently appeared to be moving until a speed of 44 km/hr was reached. At this speed the static images of Kaká seamless and smoothly flowed, moving sequentially as if on film to display the soccer player’s incredible ball control. This action all comes together in the final edits of the spot which uses the song UNDERDOG by Kasabian to give it that added edge.
The music for the campaign can be accessed through the Sony BRAVIA microsite for this campaign, http://www.motionflow.eu/ which also includes the Motionflow Kaká ad, information on the TV, interactive visuals of Kaká, behind the scenes footage, and information on the idea behind the campaign. The campaign also includes a BRAVIA in Motion YouTube channel where additional footage can be seen, http://www.youtube.com/user/braviainmotion.
The Motionflow campaign first aired in Australia and is now moving into the European markets, and will be rolled out into other countries as appropriate. The campaign also includes print, internet, viral, and in-store materials.
A few interesting facts from these “larger than life” Sony BRAVIA campaigns:
• The BRAVIA-drome weighs 10 tonnes and is 15 meters in diameter. It is also collapsible and can be easily dismantled and assembled at other locations. • The BALLS spot was filmed using 250,000 balls being thrown down the streets of San Francisco. It uses the song “Heartbeats,” from Jose Gonzales’ Veneer album. • The PAINT commercial used 70,000 litres of environmentally friendly paint. The music is from the “Overture to The Thieving Magpie,” by Gioachino Rossini. • The PLAY-DOH spot was filmed in New York City. It uses the soundtrack “She's a Rainbow,” by the Rolling Stones.
You can see the Sony Motionflow spot below as well as the “making of” the spot, and the trilogy of the COLOUR LIKE NO OTHER spots from the previous 3 years; “Paint,” “Balls,” and “Play-doh.”
After numerous requests, this blog post looks at the current Canadian advertising campaign for Cadbury’s Caramilk chocolate bars which revives their Caramilk SECRET campaign from many years ago. “How do they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar?” This is the light hearted theme of the 2009 Caramilk summer advertising campaign, STILL WONDERING, which picks up on a communications platform that has run intermittently for over 35 years.
The Caramilk SECRET campaign was made popular over the years, originating back to 1968, when the first Caramilk SECRET ad launched showing a person drilling a hole in the Caramilk chocolate bar prompting the question, “How do they get the Caramilk inside the Caramilk bar?” Probably one of the most famous TV spots was the Cannes and Clio award winning MONA LISA commercial from 1973 where the Mona Lisa smile was attributed to her secretly eating a piece of Caramilk chocolate while Leonardo da Vinci was trying to figure out the Caramilk secret.
After numerous ads over the years that followed the Caramilk SECRET platform, and a diversion over the last 5 years to focus on the eating experience, Caramilk had gone back to its roots and launched another SECRET campaign, STILL WONDERING, which begs the question, “How do they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar?” This campaign is rather unusual in its whimsical approach and has been met with mixed reviews. Many people enjoy its eccentric qualities, while others have questioned, “What were they thinking?” Nonetheless, when one looks at the campaign in context of the light hearted approach of previous Caramilk SECRET campaigns and the type of humour used, it falls into place quite nicely. Of course, the issue that currently exists is that awareness levels of previous Caramilk SECRET campaigns remains relatively low after a lengthy hiatus. This issue will be remedied over time through consistent messaging and strong media weights which will give the campaign additional traction.
The STILL WONDERING campaign, created by Saatchi and Saatchi New York, includes TV spots, on-line components, print ads, a microsite, and audio boards on the Toronto subway system. At the end of June, 2009, 50 innovative interactive audio boards were put on the Toronto subway system allowing listeners to plug their earphones into various spots on a Caramilk STILL WONDERING ad to listen to an assortment of quirky voices, unusual accents, strange sounds, and foreign languages, all intentionally incoherent in their explanation on how the caramel gets inside the Caramilk bar. There are six selections on the ad (see above); a five year old boy, a Cockney man, a Xhosa tribesman, a whale, a fax machine, and a speed reader! These Caramilk STILL WONDERING audio options can also be seen and heard on videos posted on the campaign’s microsite at http://www.stillwondering.ca/. People that have listened to the audio transit ad seem rather amused, perhaps a little confused, but have nonetheless enjoyed it enough to spread the word to others, encouraging them to also listen to the ad.
The TV component of this campaign MODERN DANCE is currently playing at heavy weights, using an interpretive dance, a Cirque du Soleil type spoof, to explain the secret of how the caramel gets inside the Caramilk bar. Some have called the spot bizarre while others have enjoyed its quirkiness. MODERN DANCE is certainly unusual and uses a catchy sound track reminiscent of melodic, Peruvian folk music to engage viewers. The music track, called Cachapaya from the Swingle Singers, is originally from the British-South American band Incantation.
Below you can appreciate the Caramilk SECRET platform by listening to a short interview with Cadbury’s on their Caramilk brand and see segments of their original 1968 ad. You can also see the famous Mona Lisa ad from 1973, followed by two further spots in the SECRET platform. Their current STILL WONDERING campaign for Caramilk follows, including their interpretive MODERN DANCE spot and website executions for COCKNEY, XHOSA, and 5 YEAR OLD. The STILL WONDERING microsite is at http://www.stillwondering.ca/. By the way, Cadbury tell us the Caramilk secret is still safely under lock and key in their vault!
As part of their UK new product launch for Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted, a year round version of the Cadbury Creme Egg, Cadbury in the UK just announced the winner of their social media campaign devised to spread the word of their gooey new product and create a buzz in the market. The GOO ON THE LOOSE campaign created by CMW London used traditional media such as TV ads, but also used social media to spread the word in a way not seen before. The social media elements included a microsite created specifically for the promotion, a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and the use of YouTube for their viral TV spots. (See examples at http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/06/cadbury-creme-egg-twisted-social-media.html). The social media campaign ran from mid May to mid July and started with press kits being sent out to bloggers to encourage them to write about the campaign. A challenge was then let loose to young adults over the age of 18 to become super agents in the quest to find the missing Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted bars. The agent who most successfully created a buzz in the market would win the grand prize.
The social media campaign used Twitter to send out clues on the whereabouts of the missing Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted bars, with prospective agents vying to become one of the selected top 10 super agents who would then compete for the grand prize of £20.000. Once the top 10 agents were selected, they were each given a video camera with which to film their quest for the missing Twisted bars. They were challenged to spread the word of their feats and the Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted campaign through social media outlets such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube, Flikr, and MySpace etc. The winning agent would be selected based on creativity, social networking skills, the lengths gone to spread the word, and finally the buzz created.
Cadbury just announced the name of their top super agent, and winner of the £20.000 grand prize, Dean Stokes, who not only managed to get the Cadbury campaign talked about on the top rated Mashable blog, but also created numerous humorous viral videos of himself uploaded to YouTube. Dean Stokes could be seen gently spoofing the secret agent campaign with police outside Downing Street, at Wimbledon talking in hushed tones outside an Andy Murray match, and in London hotspots such as the London Eye. In total, 2,000 fans followed Dean Stokes on social networking sites and his viral videos received more than 5,000 views of YouTube - an accomplishment for both him and Cadbury. Let’s not forget that another 9 agents were also spreading the word about the Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted GOO ON THE LOSE campaign through social media outlets, making the campaign a measurable success for Cadbury.
Since the announcement of Dean Stokes’ win, the buzz continues to spread through articles and interviews on what Dean Stokes will be doing with his winnings. You can see a smattering of how Dean Stokes used social media to create a buzz in the market by going to his YouTube channel, visiting his blog, and seeing his Twitter updates. Below you can also see one of his best video uploads during the social media campaign and the final viral video he used to sell himself in the competition. All in all, a very imaginative campaign by Cadbury, and a very creative endeavour by Dean Stokes.
CMW London's video review of this successful campaign is also posted below. It identifies the intricate elements that went into the campaign, highlighting the positive campaign results for Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted!
Olympus is celebrating 50 years of their PEN cameras with a new product launch, the digital PEN EP-1 camera. It is being launched with a global marketing and ad campaign that makes one marvel at their creativity. The PEN Story 3 minute ad video is going viral on the Internet, their sequence of four short ads is getting more and more views on YouTube, and their microsite is becoming increasingly interactive as users upload content to share with others. The PEN Story microsite is truly amazing in its use of technology to bring the PEN EP-1 camera alive for viewers.
The PEN Story marketing campaign has a global website at http://www.olympus-global.com/en/global/ and a number of country microsites. The European microsite is a super example of how the Internet is used to bring the whole campaign together with interactive tools, user generated content, downloads, and viral videos. A simple splash page arouses curiosity with its scrap book design that places the viral ad video front and centre and gives viewers access to free music downloads and a ringtone of the PEN Story video. A camera link takes us further afield into the world of Olympus PEN cameras, http://olympus.eu/penstory/.
Within the site, the section titled LIVE EXPERIENCE enables people to apply for a one week trial of the camera and then share experiences with others on the website. In addition, a viewer can immediately experience the PEN camera by using the mouse to digitally point the image of the camera at a scene on the website. By selecting different camera settings, the viewer can then alter the photos and see the result of six built-in filters such as such pop art, soft focus, pale & light colour, light tone, and grainy photo, http://www.olympus-europa.com/consumer/pen.htm#liveexperience.
The website creatively showcases the PEN camera’s simplicity, technological features, photographic capabilities, as well as audio, and video functions – all in an interactive and creative fashion that gives viewers an immediate, creative, and enjoyable experience with the product. This microsite also leads to an area designed specifically for user generated content. Here users are invited to upload links, photos, and specs to share with others. To date, (July 18, 2009), 101 links, 1825 photos, 30 specs, and 74 friends have been added to the site which also has a link to a Facebook page where people can join discussions, ask questions, and join the community.
The viral element of the PEN Story campaign includes 4 short ads placed on the Olympus PEN Story YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOlympusPenChannel, and a 3 minute ad video uploaded to the Pen Story YouTube site, and posted on the PEN Story microsite. The short ads use a simple animated graphic-illustration format to reveal the history of the PEN camera, showing its evolution from 1959 to 1963. The viral ad video uses a different format, Stop Motion animated photography and a flowing melody titled, "Down Below," (music by Johannes Stankowski, produced and arranged by Michael Kadelbach), to draw us into the PEN Story. The PEN Story ad video is a visual narration of a young boy, first seen in a snap shot outside his elementary school house. The ad video shows the lad walking off the snap shot as a young boy and into his life as narrated by a continuous spilling of photographs. Fifty years later, as a middle aged man, we see him retrace his original footsteps, down the school house road, to pose for a class reunion photo outside the original school house we saw at the start of the ad video.
Olympus tell us that the PEN Story viral ad video was created by shooting 60,000 pictures, developing 9,600 prints, and reshooting over 1,800 photos to get just the right images. Since the YouTube ad video-upload on July 2, 2009, the PEN Story ad video has enjoyed 708,099 views. Olympus credits another YouTube viral video as the inspiration for their PEN Story video and you can read this credit on their YouTube description of their ad video as linked below. Taijin Takeuchi’s viral video, “A Wolf Loves Pork,” (Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig), uses the same Stop Motion format as seen in the Olympus PEN Story spot. Three months after its upload, “A Wolf Loves Pork,” (Stop Motion with Wolf and Pig), has enjoyed 2,071,368 views on YouTube.
Below you can link to the PEN Story website, view the sequence of short ads, watch the viral PEN Story ad video, and see the Takeuchi inspiration.
Ritz crackers just released the anticipated full length version of the jingle which accompanied their LET IT RAIN commercial. The full length song can be found on YouTube, as linked below, or found on iTunes under the name, "Make Believe - Ian LeFeuvre," http://bit.ly/m7y6v. This song was created in response to interest from viewers of the LET IT RAIN commercial who wanted to know where the song came from. Ritz' response was to launch a social media challenge through YouTube, promising to create a full length version of the song if the uploaded commercial reached 10,000 hits on YouTube. In 3 weeks the challenge was met and Ian LeFeuvre, the creator of the jingle, set about creating the song which was just released 6 weeks later.
Ritz' other social media challenge, for people to upload videos of themselves enjoying a Ritz cracker, and to create artwork for the iTunes download did not transpire due to low involvement. These videos were to be spliced into a music compilation, but due to the lack of response, it did not materialize. Perhaps this YouTube generation of technically capable, creative souls were hoping for raw footage and an MP3 from which they could make their own mashups? Most likely, they were just eagerly awaiting to hear the song they had been promised, thrilled at the direct response from Ritz!
This successful campaign from Ritz demonstrates how in the world of social media the communication process is no longer static. Companies that are creative, open minded, flexible, and responsive will be able to interact with their consumers and create campaigns that evolve and develop over time. The result is a more engaged consumer, more memorable campaigns, and communication programs that become conversations.
You can see elements of this Ritz crackers campaign below starting with the initial commercial, followed by the social media challenges from Ritz, and finally the release of their song, Make Believe by Ian LeFeuvre.
Phillips’ “Carousel” the winner of the Film Grand Prix (and the Cyber Silver Lion) from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2009 is now collaborating with the musician 50 Cent and is prominently featured in their new music video 50 Cent- OK You're Right from their album BEFORE I SELF DESTRUCT which will be in stores September 2009. The music video, which can be found on YouTube and linked below, prominently features footage from the Phillips "Carousel" film, and in fact starts by zooming in on the Phillips TV, taking us directly into the film footage. These scenes are then carried over into other parts of the music video through synergistic images of clowns and other scenes from the film.
Phillips' on-line film CAROUSEL was created by Tribal DDB Amsterdam and is truly an unusual promotional piece that deserves a closer look. It uses imagination to communicate the benefits of a new technology and ambushes the consumer on the Internet with its creativity. “Carousel,” is the second on-line film to win this coveted award in the last 3 years, rising out of the shadows of the Dove "evolution" spot which won the award in 2007.
“Carousel” is an important piece of communication that needs to be examined in terms of how the Internet is used to effectively communicate with consumers. It appears that discerning consumers respond to nothing short of creativity on the Internet and this is needed to deliver results - particularly, if traditional media is not part of the media mix. Phillips uses this creativity to market their new Cinema 21:9 LCD TV on-line, allowing viewers at home to experience the same smooth viewing found in a movie theatre. “Carousel” is the 2 minute and 19 second on-line video that Phillips posted on their microsite, http://www.philips.co.uk/cinema, and uploaded to YouTube for all to experience.
In this on-line video Phillips uses the power of the Internet to communicate the product benefits in an interactive fashion not seen before. When viewing the film on Phillips’ microsite, viewers can intuitively use the mouse to move the video forwards or backwards frame by frame and click on interactive hot spots to see more. These hot spots take viewers into the depths of the film, showing how the video was created from the perspective of the director, special effects experts, and lighting specialists – fascinating. To ensure Phillips learns the most from this approach, they are currently running a short market research survey on the site to assess the effectiveness of this approach.
The film is shot in one continuous sequence, offering a glimpse into the world of film production. It uses a haunting sound-track and no words to tell the story of an armored-car heist gone painfully wrong with all the expected accoutrements of money, gunfire, breaking glass, police, and casualties. The story seems to unfold from an almost CSI-type perspective, where the viewer is taken back to the crime scene, seeing it frozen in time. As we view the footage, we realize when we come to the end, that we are remarkably right back at the beginning of the sequence.
Philips’ intention was to create a film that would excite movie-lovers, a segment of their target audience, and demonstrate the TV’s main benefits of Ambilight, Cinema 21:9, and superior picture quality. Technically, the film was shot keeping the actors motionless in a particular pose, while the camera continuously shot the sequence, navigating its way through the scene of still actors and props. Importantly, the music was formatted so that it could be properly distorted as the viewers interacted with the film either through the hot spots or as they moved the frames backwards and forwards.
I cannot imagine how much it cost to create this film, but what we are seeing is the transfer of traditional media funds into creating expensive pieces of creative that can be aired for very little on the Internet – probably still saving the company money!
Below you can see the “Carousel” short film, the making of “Carousel,” and for context, the making of that other on-line sensation that paved the way from Canada in 2007, Dove “Evolution.” It is preferable to watch the "Carousel" video off the Phillips' website, rather than YouTube, in order to see all the interactive features http://www.philips.co.uk/cinema. As an aside, see if you can find the numbers "21:9" (the name of the TV), cleverly embedded in certain places within the film. This campaign directly competes with the new Sony BRAVIA Motionflow spot featuring the Brazilian soccer star Kaká, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/soccer-star-kaka-featured-in-sony.html).
Twenty-four days after Dave Carroll uploaded his humorous UNITED BREAKS GUITARS video to YouTube (July 6, 2009), the video has had 4,467,537 views on YouTube, with a stunning 19,947 comments that are fuelling negative publicity for United Airlines. Around the world, people continue to smile and give approving nods to the viral YouTube video, United Breaks Guitars, a ballad of Dave Carroll’s year-long struggle, (to no avail), to get compensation from United Airlines for the $1,200 damage it inflicted on his Taylor acoustic guitar worth $3,200. Over a year later, and after numerous discussions with United Airlines, their refusal to give him any form of compensation, (despite admitting to damaging the guitar), prompted the musician to tell his story by writing 3 songs on the incident and posting detailed information on his website. This is all stirring up negative publicity for United Airlines, even three weeks after the initial video was uploaded to YouTube.
United Breaks Guitars is the first of these songs which uses the following catchy chorus to engage listeners and drum up this negative publicity:
Chorus United Breaks Guitars
United, United, you broke my Taylor guitar.
United, United, some big help you are!
You broke it, you should fix it,
You’re liable - just admit it.
I should have flown with someone else ... or gone by car,
'Cause United breaks guitars.
The negative publicity for United Airlines directly corresponds to the airline not responding immediately to the United Breaks Guitars YouTube video, and ignoring the power of social media to spread negative publicity. Social media is a powerful communication tool used by many companies to monitor and respond to negative publicity sent out through media tools such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and YouTube. Negative publicity continues to grow for the airline with extensive news coverage on the viral video. The United Breaks Guitars story has been covered by major Internet bloggers around the world such as the Huffington Post and Mashable, and is spreading through links on Twitter. It has been reported by the mainstream press in newspapers, magazines, and the broadcast media, including CNN and BBC World News Americas. It has been covered by the main US and Canadian TV networks including CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, CBC, CTV, and Global. A number of analytical business articles on the United Breaks Guitars incident are also circulating in business circles and creating even more negative publicity for United Airlines. An example can be seen in this scathing press release from Thomas Hinton, President & CEO, American Consumer Council, a non-profit consumer education organization with nearly 90,000 members in the US. It analyzes United Airlines' approach to this situation, taking them to task on their customer service procedures in general, http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/United_Airlines_is_Broken,200927885.aspx.
Here is the latest update on the incident. Week one saw an explosion of press coverage for the United Breaks Guitars video and considerable negative publicity for United Airlines as the video went viral on the Internet. The video and incident were discussed on social media sites such as YouTube and Twitter, while they made the rounds of the blogs and mainstream press in Canada and the US, particularly after exposure on CNN's The Situation Room which is broadcast around the world. Week one also saw the response from United Airlines, (post negative publicity), offering to pay for the $1,200 in damages and give Dave Carroll another $1,200 in travel vouchers. Dave Carroll asked United Airlines to instead contribute the money to charity. United Airlines donated $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, one of the participants in the June 2009 White House Music Series focusing on music education for children.
In the second week since the YouTube upload of the United Breaks Guitars video, the chatter in the mainstream Canadian and US press somewhat subsided but the negative publicity started to take-off in the music press, still gathering momentum in the social media venues such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, while appearing in more and more blog posts. The United Breaks Guitars story also started to spread considerably outside of North America with the negative publicity for United Airlines continuing as people awaited the second in the trilogy of songs on the incident, as promised by Dave Carroll. On-line coverage during the second week extended into the music scene with well respected Rolling Stone magazine, (July 13, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/ldxewy), and into the podcast arena with interviews in far flung places such as Australia with Tony Goodson. This Tony Goodson podcast is truly worth listening to as he talks directly to Dave Carroll who, in a soft spoken manner, speaks to his music, the writing of the United Breaks Guitars song, the making of the video, and the social media coup for himself as a solo artist and for the SONS OF MAXWELL, a relatively unknown Canadian music group with which he plays, (July 16, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/nfwup8 ).
In the third week since United Breaks Guitars went viral, the media coverage and negative publicity has picked up again with Dave Carroll, the singer-song writer, participating in radio and TV interviews around the world. This third week alone sees TV coverage on BBC World News Americas, many articles in the UK press, and further TV interviews with Dave Carroll on the major US networks - ABC, NBC, CNN, and Fox. The result for Dave Carroll is positive. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dave Carrol mentioned that since the upload of his United Breaks Guitars video on YouTube, his website has enjoyed over 50,000 hits compared an average of 40-50 in previous weeks. He is thrilled people are enjoying his music which is increasing in sales from 1-2 sales per day to hundreds. This week his song, United Breaks Guitars, has made the top 20 list of iTunes downloads in Canada and yesterday, after 8 TV and radio interviews in the UK, United Breaks Guitars was the #1 country music iTunes download in the UK. As we await the second song in the trilogy of the United Breaks Guitars incident, Dave Carroll tells us that his second song is better than the first, and has been played at his live concerts to warm reviews. The second song is unlike the first in that it does not follow a country-western beat. We should be seeing it soon on YouTube - the recording date for the video is August 4, 2009 and we should be seeing it soon after it has been edited.
Companies need to understand the new reality - the transparency and the microscope social media now bring to the equation. Tech savvy consumers now have the means and capability to easily spread messages that can influence public opinion and spread negative publicity. Although United Airlines responded to the United Breaks Guitars viral video, (post-negative publicity), no heart-felt apology hit the airways in a substantial manner. Where is their heart-felt YouTube apology? And so the negative publicity continues to spread through the blogosphere, Twittersphere, and mainstream media around the world.
Other recent social media incidents point to how companies such as United Airlines can deal with social media incidences in a more positive manner to avoid the escalation of negative public relations. The first example that comes to mind is the Dominos Pizza incident where employees thought it was funny to upload a YouTube video showing false unsanitary food practices while preparing Dominos pizzas. Dominos Pizza responded immediately with press releases and video messages uploaded to YouTube to minimize the negative fallout of the video. The second example that comes to mind is for the pain reliever Motrin which faced a social media backlash from the so-called Motrin moms who unleashed a negative social media campaign against Motrin. They used Twitter, blogs, and YouTube to express their anger at a Motrin ad they considered insulting to mothers. Motrin's manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson responded immediately by pulling the ad, not seeing the benefit in alienating their customers.
The creativity coming out of France this year is worth mentioning with the latest imaginative campaign coming from Paris-based BETC Euro RSCG for Evian water. Just two weeks ago, Evian’s Live Young campaign was sprung in France, the UK, Belgium, Canada, the US, and Japan with an imaginative campaign that makes you chuckle - who would expect a gang of rollerskating toddlers with “attitude” to be showing us that Evian water invigorates the body? These babies toe-tap to rap music, break-dance to the beat, and perform rollerskating tricks - all to make the point that natural, pure water supports youth! I am not a fan of talking babies (in either movies or ads), but this ad over-comes the cliché of talking babies by having them do something other than talk which, after all, is not that exciting, or even creative. In fact, these babies do not talk at all. Instead, we are immediately engaged at the start of the commercial by the unexpected view of a “tough guy,” (very cute), rollerskating clad toddler, rhythmically tapping his toes and moving to the beat of a rap song. The unexpected scene and music raises our interest as we curiously enter into the playful world of Evian babies that captivates us with their playful grins as they boogie to a RAPPER’S DELIGHT remix, (hiphop artist Dan the Automator).
This campaign includes viral videos posted on YouTube, (6,245,870 views for the international version, 5,668,037 for the US version, and 1,161,468 for the French version by July 16, 2009), homepage YouTube placements, TV ads in select markets, print ads, a Facebook page (5,541 fans to date), http://www.facebook.com/evianliveyoung, a microsite at http://evianliveyoung.com/ with viral videos, teasers, interviews, the making of the 60 second spot, and music and photo downloads. They are using a social media campaign to virally spread their campaign through press releases, bloggers, Tweeters, Internet links passed on from person to person, and updated videos posted on YouTube and Facebook. Their latest video- release, posted July 15, 2009, is a new (not the original) montage of the making of the Roller Babies. It cleverly splices in props, computer animation, and the footage of the babies to give us a taste of how they brought the campaign to life. You can see the video below. This campaign will receive additional international exposure in August/September 2009 as Evian is a sponsor of the Masters Women's Golf tournament and the US Open Grand-Slam tennis tournament.
For those of you familiar with the advertising for Evian water, this campaign goes back to their use of babies in 1998 where we saw the babies swimming under water in a synchronized swimming routine. The use of babies is to represent something precious and pure - a symbol of Evian water itself. The 1998 spot starts with the same trademark sound of dripping water that we hear in the latest 2009 spot. I would be remiss if I did not mention the very creative Evian WaterBoy spot from 2003 which took us all by surprise with a TV spot created to the Queen song “WE WILL ROCK YOU.” You can see these spots below;
A few days ago I highlighted the creativity of the Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted campaign from the UK - a launch campaign for Cadbury’s new Creme Egg Twisted product that successfully uses traditional and social media to engage consumers, build awareness, and encourage people to try this new product. This Creme Egg Twisted campaign is built on the base of another successful marketing campaign for Cadbury’s, this time for their traditional Creme Egg product. They ran a campaign for Cadbury Creme Eggs earlier this year, HERE TODAY GOO TOMMORROW, around the Easter period using a creative approach that, yet again, gets attention and makes heads turn. It is worth looking at this HERE TODAY GOO TOMORROW campaign due to its creativity and innovative use of media.
Cadbury Creme Eggs is a seasonal, fun, quirky brand which gets attention through its marketing campaigns which are creative and unusual. Below you can see three forms of media used to innovatively market Creme Eggs in the UK. The first refers to viral ads, the second to an interactive bus shelter ad, and the third to placement in online video games.
First, they created their own YouTube channel, CremeEggGooTube, and uploaded a variety of fun, skit-like, 10 second spots that raise smiles through their fun/silly humourous treatment of a brand personality that makes the viewer chuckle. http://www.youtube.com/user/CremeEggGooTube. This aspect of the campaign is designed to get people talking and share the fun.
Second, they used interactive bus shelter ads that use technology to transform bus shelter ads into interactive arcade-type games that people can play by pressing elements of the ad while waiting for the bus or stopping for a minute when walking by. The bus shelter ad displays floating Cadbury Creme Eggs that get the attention of passers-by who are encouraged to squash the eggs and splatter the goo within the bus shelter ad.
Finally, Cadbury Creme Eggs embedded images of their billboard ads, HERE TODAY GOO TOMMORROW, in online video games such as; Spiderman Web of Shadows, The Incredible Hulk, Skate, and Shaun White Snowboarding. In-game advertising ran on the online Massive Network which partners with over 40 video game publishers and allows advertisers to reach gaming audiences in real time across multiple platforms. Massive Inc. is owned by Microsoft and worth checking out. http://www.massiveincorporated.com/index.html
In line with Cadbury Creme Eggs' brand image, this fun marketing campaign uses media in an innovative way that emphasizes the brand's irreverent, quirky side. It manages to step outside the ordinary to appeal to a younger target market that expects creativity and fun from this brand. See for yourself by clicking below:
