NikitAkimov

I remember being a 9 years old kid and living in a Post-Soviet country. Back then sudden exposure to western ideologies was quite a sensation. Everything felt anew. Although I wasn’t quite the kid of Soviet Union, I witnessed the remnants of communist ways. For instance, the first school I went to had those old soviet books with colorful pictures of “pioners” (sort of Soviet Boy scouts) that vigorously proclaimed the Soviet’s truths. The schools themselves were named after Soviet authors, revolutionaries and public figures.

Needless to say that even some of the older propaganda posters still could be found on the streets. However, as the time went these very posters were outnumbered by the new western adds. The difference between those was striking.

First we have a moderately dressed woman that encourages her youngsters to study, and right across the street a huge banner with a Kelvin Klein add that depicts…. Well we all know what’s on those Kelvin Klein adds, don’t we? I mean yeah… The difference was amazing.

As I look back at this time, I can only try to imagine how did the people, good old Soviet people felt about it. Those “heinous, capitalist West” adds weren’t just adds, those were the heralds of the change in the old lifestyle.

Huge companies are starting to come up with very creative marketing strategies nowadays. The one that surprised me the most is the automobiles’ “billboard war”.

BMW/Audi, two giant companies with enormous budgets and sick creativity were the ones that started a billboard “war”. According to Audi everything started in LA, CA with “innocent” ad from Audi with A4 model where it says “ Your Move, BMW”. Not surprisingly BMW answered with a huge billboard just across the street with M3 model that says “ Checkmate”.  That immediately involved attention of all kind of media and was a topic of conversation. This move from BMW was very surprising for Audi, so they started to think deeply about this “war” and responded with their amazing king R8 with provocative claim, “ Time to check your luxury badge. It may have expired”.

Now the billboard war in LA is finished. However, this led to the ad war between these two titans all over the world, and continued for a long time. The last response that put an end to the battle was a BMW ad in Hong Kong that was erected alongside Audi’s dealership with the caption “[BMW 5-series] Who Knew Efficiency Could be so Beautiful ”. Now, this may seem as an end of the “war”; however, it was just the beginning because other car companies such as Subaru, Jaguar, Mercedes stepped into the game and continued it. Until Bentley made the last move in this “war”.

The billboard war is a great example of a creative approach to advertisement. It illustrates how even the giant companies and corporations are open to new and creative ideas of expanding their market share through un-orthodoxal advertising.