Coldplay STRAWBERRY SWING Music Video Gets Attention

Despite negative publicity over the years, music videos have often led the charge in using creativity to reach out and market their wares to interested buyers – after all, aren’t music videos a form of advertising for the music industry? Coldplay’s STRAWBERRY SWING music video is as an example of a new music video that gets attention through the creativity it uses to weave a story and entertain.

Coldplay is a band that has used interesting approaches in their music videos over the last few months to encourage people to listen to their music, purchase it in one form or another, and attend their concerts. Their last two music videos, single releases from their album Viva La Vida, have used creativity to get attention; their February 2009 music video release for LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR ii, unexpectedly rendered the band members as puppets, and their latest single release and music video for STRAWBERRY SWING, uses the stop-motion animation technique being seen more and more frequently in videos/ads/short film renderings. This stop-motion animation technique was successfully used by Olympus cameras in their July 2009 PEN Story advertising campaign where a viral three minute ad video was created by shooting 60,000 photos, developing 9,600 prints, and then re-shooting over 1,800 images to get just the right shots. This visual story was told over a catchy tune, “Down Below” by Johannes Stankowski, produced and arranged by Michael Kadelbach, (http://mktgcliks.blogspot.com/2009/07/olympus-pen-story-campaign.html).

Coldplay’s STRAWBERRY SWING music video also uses stop-motion animation. This music video, released at the end of July 2009, coincides with the planned digital release of the STRAWBERRY SWING single on September 14, 2009. The STRAWBERRY SWING music video uses a stop-motion animation chalk rendering technique to portray their front man, band member Chris Martin, as a super hero fighting with a giant squirrel to save a female hostage. As you watch this music video you will marvel at its creativity and wonder how it was actually put together in a manner that gets attention and encourages you to listen to the story. This STRAWBERRY SWING music video is worth watching for is creativity and usage of different media to engage the viewer into listening to the story, relayed through the music’s haunting melody – quite beautiful!

The STRAWBERRY SWING song was written by Berryman, Buckland, Champion, and Martin. The video was directed by the art collective Shynola.

From a marketing perspective the STRAWBERRY SWING music video has been uploaded to YouTube, is available on the Coldplay website (http://www.coldplay.com/), and has been discussed on music sites where free downloads of the STRAWBERRY SWING ringtone are available. The STRAWBERRY SWING music video has been given extra traction in the UK through media buys in July/August 2009 at Odeon cinemas where the STRAWBERRY SWING music video airs prior to the movies BRUNO, and THE PROPOSAL. Let’s not forget that the Viva La Vida album is front and centre of Coldplay’s current concert tour.

Below you can see the STRAWBERRY SWING music video and the PEN Story three minute stop-motion animation ad video.

Coldplay STRAWBERRY SWING music video (Viva La Vida album) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8XcSHCRwI8




Olympus Viral Ad Video, The PEN Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Et7UQh1tg

Phillips "Carousel" Featured in 50 Cent Music Video

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).

Philips Carousel Commercial - Adam Berg Commercial of the Year Stink Digital http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3D4CqHbJM



Philips Carousel for Cinema 21:9 TV - How they did it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teoSDTJDjF4



50 Cent Music Video "OK You're Right" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TcXaLS-NJ4

Dove Evolution The making of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77cFhPr5GCA