Sunday, March 14, 2010

Hippos and Humour in Telus ad Campaign

Just when we were tiring of those cute animals in the Telus campaigns, their ad agency, Taxi, rose to the occasion and creatively took it up a level using humour and hippos to create the unexpected to get attention. Their new Hippo campaign, launched in early March, features two hippos, Ghost and Polita - a follow-up to their recent Hippo ad from the Telus holiday season campaign. Hazina the hippopotamus first appeared in a DDB created spot for Telus in a 2005 holiday ad campaign in Western Canada that used the 1953 "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas," song.
A little background – Telus first began their animal-focused ad campaign in 1999 with an eye-catching red-eyed-bright-green tree frog jumping out of a jar. This campaign still continues today using a consistently simple approach of a white background as the backdrop to a cute animals and the slogan, “The future is friendly.” TV spots use popular songs as memorable center-pieces of the ads, giving them stopping-power that gets attention.

The March 2010 Telus Hippo campaign features two humorous spots that will have you chuckling to their bold combination of music and unusual images.  A large and awkward hippo portrays the Telus network as fast, nimble and extensive. The first humorous spot spoofs the hare and the tortoise fable, replacing the tortoise with a hippopotamus to showcase the network’s large size, also using a cute bunny rather than a hare!  It uses the music “Speedy Gonzales,” by Pat Boone to ad a humorous touch and get attention. The second spot focuses on two hippos swimming in a water hole to the light-hearted tune "Splish Splash" by Mina Mazzini and uses clever editing to reveal the hippos are actually swimming in the face of a cell phone. The Telus spots use repurposed footage from the original 2005 Christmas spot and new scenes that include the new hippos-stars who are the brother and mother of the original Hazina who lives in a zoo is British Columbia. For all the animal lovers, Telus donates money to the Zoo for the use of the animals in their commercials and donated $10 thousand dollars for each of the first two spots.

Below you can see the two latest Hippo ads from Telus as well as their repurposed 2005 spot for 2009 – enjoy the hippos and humour!

Telus “Fast” spot


Telus “Best” spot


Hippo for Christmas ad

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2 comments:

Tash said...

The natural bond and attraction that people have with animals through previous relationships with pets is generally positive and comforting. Even the most deadly and ferocious animals like the Bengal Tiger can seem so cute and adorable if portrayed in a positive light.

Telus' use of animals in their campaign is a creative way of pulling those warm fuzzy feelings toward the animals and transcending them toward the feeling of Telus and Telus products.

Not only did they pick the two cutest and docile animals ever, in this particular promotion, they paid homage to the tortoise and the hare; story which we all enjoyed as children. So those nostalgic feelings are also being transcended into how we view Telus.

Anonymous said...

i ABHOR TV COMMERCIALS AND WHEN I DO WATCH TV I MUTE THEM. I am not sure how I elected to turn on the volume and watch the Telus ads. However, that came to be, I continue watch and listen. Telus commercials allow us to be intelligent and not embarrassed. The simplicity, the animals, the music all make for enjoyable watching. Please keep it up!