Tuesday, March 16, 2010

United Breaks Guitars Song three

Third Song Posted for United Breaks Guitars

After a year- long battle with United Airlines and the release of the now infamous United Breaks Guitars viral video, Dave Carroll has released his third and final song in the trilogy, as promised to United Airlines in response to their poor customer service and refusal to compensate him for breaking his guitar. United Breaks Guitars first made the rounds of the Internet last summer, boosted by the catchy tune and humorous video which popped-up on news programs around the world. Companies beware, social media works and United Breaks Guitars is a prime example.

The first song, released July 6, 2009, has received over 8 million views on YouTube over the past 8 months, with over 25 thousand comments. The second song, uploaded on August 17,2009 is reaching 1 million views, with the third song, just released on March 1, 2010, already enjoying over 64 thousand hits to date – and all for the cost $200 for the first video and about $600 for each of the remaining two! Of course, this pales in comparison to the millions of impressions generated by the songs’ exposure on TV stations such as CBC, CTV, BBC, and CNN ... just to name a few - not to mention a recent interview on THE VIEW.

You can read details on the saga at http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/11/united-breaks-guitars-reaches-over-6.html with Dave Carroll’s insights on the events posted in the Grand Rants blog at http://grandrants.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/exclusive-dave-carroll-files-a-new-flight-plan/. It would be interesting to know the impact this adventure has had on Dave Carroll’s music career in terms of the amount of music he is now selling, versus before the first upload – comments anyone so we can see the final impact of this social media escapade?

Below you can listen and watch the three United Breaks Guitars songs – enjoy – and thank you Dave Carroll!

United Breaks Guitars – Song 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo



United Breaks Guitars – Song 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UoERHaSQg



United Breaks Guitars – Song 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P45E0uGVyeg

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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