Month: October 2010

Two things I love:

1.- Tacos. (The real-deal only, I can’t stand that tex-mex crap.)

2.- GOOD ads!

I found these two ads for a marketing campaign in London. They were uploaded to YouTube two years ago, so they are not recent. That doesn’t mean they’re not awesome though!

Okay, before continuing reading you’d better have watched those videos because… Two things I hate:

1.- Christmas season officially starting after Halloween. (Can’t they wait ’til December?)

2.- SPOILERS!!!

No, but seriously did anyone notice the moon walking-bear this first time around? Well, I bet you don’t notice cyclists on the road either huh? I think this is a great way to catch people’s attention on a matter that they son’t usually think about. A very inexpensive way too, I mean, how much do you think the City of London spent on these ads? A few thousands of pounds? Definitely nothing compared to what the City of Vancouver is spending on separate bikes lanes in downtown. In addition to the $800K project built on Dunsmuir St., the City plans to spend $1.6 billion of taxpayer’s money on a separated bike lane on Hornby street.

Sure the planters look pretty, but is it really worth it? 98% of all businesses on Hornby oppose this porject since there will be no on-street parking anymore. This makes hard for busy hotels to run efficiently with their constant in-and-outs, for retail stores to get supply delivery orders in and, of course, for customers to conveniently park right outside their favorite store.

But enough about formal businessy talk! Why can’t we just have moon-walking bears on TV instead? Think about all the parties that will benefit:

– Cyclists would stop feeling like the high school freaks the popular kids (the drivers) ignore and, every now and then, hit.

– Drivers could still be the alpha-males of downtown. Sure, you have to watch out for bikes, but what are kings without their servants?

– TV watchers would enjoy not-so-terrible commercials while watching their favorite show, America’s Worst Drivers.

– Black bears would get the opportunity to be taught how to moon-walk. This will also increase tourism revenue in Grouse Mountain and Whistler.

The possibilities are infinite! :O

“So they are in Zealand, and it’s raining. They’re speeding on the highway. It’s a pretty ordinary day, until of course they see a ginormous kid covered in blood staring at them!” Nope, it’s not a scene from Saw or Scream; it’s the new awareness campaign in Papakura, New Zealand.

This is a new campaign attempting to create awareness of the dangers of driving in the rain. Most of the “Drive responsibly” billboards that I have seen, usually use guilt as a weapon, but this one takes it one step further. Basically, on a regular sunny day…. oops! forgot we live in Vancouver… on a rare sunny day, the billboard shows the image of a kid and a banner in the bottom that reads “rain changes everything. Please drive to the conditions.” Sure the kid looks a bit pale, but other than that the billboard is pretty standard. That’s until it starts raining though, when it comes in contact with water, the billboard starts “bleeding.” See it for yourself .

I thought this was a very intelligent ad that promotes not a product or a service, but an idea or a value. But what’s best is that it is actually effective: no more accidents!

 Not gonna lie though, I would’ve thought accidents would increase just because of startled drivers completely ignoring the road at the sight of a billboard that could very well have come out of a horror movie…

Just when you thought we had too many ad campaigns promoting an unrealistic image of its consumers, Nova Schin, a brand of  beer in some foreign country, came up with this ad. (Well to be fair, this blog post is from 2006.)

http://www.coolmarketingthoughts.com/2006/08/30/beer-belly-or-pregnant/

It took me a while to make sense of what was going on in front of my eyes. I could not understand why these (clearly pregnant) women were promoting alcohol. It was not after a good forty seconds when I finally noticed the side banner reading “non-alcoholic.” So I guess they are trying to tell female consumers that even if they are pregnant, they can still enjoy the taste of beer. I think this is a very interesting piece of advertising because it definitely draws your eyes to it. However, even if the ads give out a message to women, these ads are targeted mainly to men, I’m sorry, but let’s face it: these girls are too hot and skanky (I mean they ARE pregnant) to be someone female consumers would buy something from.

Still, the ads are clever enough. I wonder though, if slutty pregnant girls holding a pint of the new Nova Schin non-alcoholic beer was the best idea they could come up with, what other marketing proposals they turned down? Here are some better ideas:

– Drinking (non-alcoholic beer) and driving.

– Underage drinking (non-alcoholic beer).

– Binge drinking (non-alcoholic beer).

– Drinking (non-alcoholic beer) before noon.

Or why not combine them all?

Take a bunch of those “16 and Pregnant” girls, put them in a car full of empty six-packs of Nova Schin, preferably before school starts in the morning. Give each one of them a pint of beer, have them smile… and BAM! Multi-millionaire advertising campaign right there! You’re welcome.