advergirl

What ad agencies can learn from parades

I’ve been clicking back to Adland’s peach-filled find (below) for weeks now. I think I find it so fascinating because its very creation seems so profoundly unlikely. It’s a crazy installation piece combined with the aesthetic of a holiday parade.

Which got me to thinking, what else could ad agencies learn from holiday parades…

• Anything CAN be created: What better callout to your favorite ‘it can’t be done’ naysayer than people create life-like house-sized butterflies out of little more than hundreds of thousands of roses and a glue stick, I think we can pull off a 6-color print.


• Standard materials need not apply: Astroturf, twinkly lights, torn up feather boas, spray paint and paper mache. You call it your attic, I say it’s a 500-square-foot celebration of the Chinese new year OR the boldest in-store Pressidents' Day weekend installation the Home Depot has ever seen.


• Don’t make people too comfortable: There is no better illustration of our willingness to suffer for what we love than the sidewalks lining the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. If your brand / event / story is compelling enough, people will invest themselves in the experience by huddling on cold sidewalks, staking out space, wiping drippy noses and lifting little ones onto view-blocking shoulder chairs.


• Nostalgia is fun: Not the Cracker Barrel are-they-racest-are-they-not(?) kind. The make it into our photo album kind. The it’s part of the holiday kind. The Marshall Fields windows, mall Santa Claus, ElfYourself kind.


• It takes more than one person to handle the big ass balloons: If it takes 10 perfectly-coordinated people to guide Snoopy through Manhattan, I think it’s fair to say that a little collaboration might be in order on the strategic rollout of your big client’s new widget.


• Interesting things do happen outside of prime time: Sometimes 6AM in the morning is the best time to get in queue to catch some flying tootsie rolls and gape at parade princesses. Oh, wait, Starbucks maybe already owns that time slot.


• Volunteers can create change: Don’t let the frustrated members of the Board of your favorite pro bono client get you down. Volunteers can produce unbelievable results. Say, getting 11 bands, 24 floats, 700 clowns, 11 giant balloons, and 1900 performers to walk 43 blocks together powered by little more than 400,000 cubic feet of helium.


• Trucks pull the most delightful things: Dear Detroit, how about the next Dodge Ram commercial shows off towing power by hauling a train of ALL the Parade of Roses floats. WITH fire engines on either end. Come on – that’s power.

From Adland:

 

Is local artist Ben Harben inspiring Australian advertising?

Saw these delightfully icky ads over at I Believe and had to wonder ... is friend Ben the inspiration for far-flung CDs at DDB?

Ben creates portraits of reality television stars in the medium of "chewed up and spit out" bubblegum on canvas. Check out he and cutie wife Katie 'painting' Biff on David Letterman:

These Hubba Bubba installations are interactive “paint by numbers”-style posters that use different flavors of chewing gum as the color palette. Stick your used gum here not on the sidewalk.

What do you think?

(RSS readers, click to take the poll)

Avoiding Purple Gorillas: 5 Principles of Installation Advertising

Dimensional buzz builders.

Installation advertising.

Once limited to inflatable purple gorillas bouncing atop regional auto dealerships, it's now a medium that more and more clients are demanding. A way to make a big statement about your brand in an environment that is anything but corporate.

In the spirit of avoiding purple gorillas, a few guiding principles on what installation advertising 'should be' to discuss:

1. Integral to the space: Be a part of the space you're in. Interact with it. Make fun of it. Complement it. This isn't a mass market billboard, it has to make use of the space you're in. Like, for example, Saatchi's paper dolls peeing on trees in Central Park.
   
   
2. Relevant to the brand: To be effective, installation advertising has to deliver on your brand - not just be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Think, for example, giant Nike shoes taking off in rush hour traffic after a run-away soccer ball.


3. Personal to an individual: Sometimes scale is in the number of little touches. The unexpected treat that you couldn't believe happened until you talked to your girlfriend and she got one, too. And, suddenly it's all you can talk about ... the sheer weird, unexpected Thing. Despite news out this week that SunFlower Market isn't going to make it, they surely started out successfully with hundreds of potted sunflowers "lawnvertising" in the front yards of their surprised neighbors.


4. Fresh and unexpected: Probably goes without saying: It's usually best to be first. I'm not saying strap a bunch of gamers to a semi truck with duct tape to make your point, but...


5. Extendable to wider audiences: I should maybe say, "and sometimes 5." Sometimes the one-off, news-making installation does all the heavy-lifting for you. But, in an experience economy made egalitarian by technology, there's a lot to be said for biting the budget bullet and rolling the experience to where your customers are.

One recent set of installations that over delivered on all of these from BBDO New York and Havaianas:

From I Believe in Advertising:

(top) Limited-edition welcome mats were produced and distributed by BBDO New York as a unique way for people to store their Havaianas. When leaving for the day, people simply slid their feet in and stepped out of the mat. When returning home, the flip-flops were popped back in. Because Havaianas are impervious to bad weather, the mat can be kept either inside or outside. Keeping the mat inside further solidifies Havaianas’ connection to nature by essentially “welcoming” people to the outdoors when they leave for the day.

(bottom) In an effort to push Havaianas’ floral-print flip-flops, flower-bed installations were planted in locations where they were sold. They also served to remind people of Havaianas’ unique aesthetic of color, design, and the brand’s connection to nature and the outdoors.

easyTXTR.com: Converse in the streets

Remember last year's 'Share your Secret' promotion in Times Square? P&G's Deodorant PR mavens took to the sidewalks, encouraging passersby to share their secrets on the giant NASDAQ and Reuters billboards nearby. A few thousand brave souls told their previously-closely-guarded tales via text messages, kiosks and the ShareYourSecret.com Web site (now defunct). The secrets ranged from "I’m afraid he’s falling out of love with me” to “I ate the last pudding!”  and effectively opened the brand to consumers & created a solid bit of buzz.

Fast forward to last weekend.

easyTXTR brought the same level of pop-up interactivity to Columbus' Short North with a projected display that enabled gallery hoppers to tell all - or nothing at all - on a real time outdoor conversation wall. On its first unveil, ~800 people sent funny moments, sports updates, and even a proposal.

I see this technology as a great opportunity to create real dialog around a brand without the usual fears associated with a long-term conversation online - complete with righteous admin tool and devastating stomach ulcers. This pop up tech lives in a real community (there's much less anonymity than online) and is point-in-time specific (meaning less opportunity to plot against the tech).

I'm seeing this on malls the day after Thanksgiving, at Festivals (captured on cell phones), at grand openings, etc ... anywhere a conversation builds the community & customer experience.

Experience it virtually here.

See video, pics, etc. here.

The other organic food story

Have you noticed all the buzz (and, well, legal action) around the Wild Oats acquisition seems to end with - what about Trader Joes?

Well, granola heads, it's no Whole Foods. But, another competitor - one much closer in approach - is using field marketing and WOM to actively take on the big guys. With some early success.

Sunflower Market

Check out this brand launch strategy:

Market: Indianapolis
Audience: Suburban Moms (mid-tier shoppers who don't currently buy a lot of organic food)
Medium: Online - offline / trying for viral
Marketing budget: ~ $200,000

Agency: Olson

Key online tactic: Amazing Growing Virtual Sunflower - a downloadable desktop plant that would live or die based on user action to water, give sunlight and fertilize. Totally sharable on a daily basis - look what I grew.

Key offline tactic: Think pink flamingos, but more eco-friendly. Olson & Sunflower Market took guerilla to the 'burbs with "lawnvertising" - planting neighborhood lawns in a three-mile radius with branded cardboard sunflowers.

Key media tactic: Six weeks out from the first store opening, key media received a branded flower pot + seeds and soil with the instruction to  "plant the seeds in the pot, and, by the time it sprouts, you will have been introduced to the sunny new face of organic food."

BIG, BIG, BIG ROI:

• Whole Foods' plans to build a competing store were put on hold
• Pickup by all local TV news + online media
• Exceeded initial sales goals by ~20%
• Nearly doubled average basket goals
• Lots of email registrations for ongoing communication

So far, Sunflower Market has five stores in the midwest with more opening soon...

Local Advertising in Ohio

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum from advertising reinventing downtown, there is the due diligence, pass-the-collection-plate, save-a-soul, subtlety-is-lost-on-heathens advertising thrust open drivers headed from Columbus to Cincy on 71S. Impressively, these boards have not only been displayed, but expertly maintained for at least the four years that I've lived here. The back includes longer verse for those headed back from Porkopolis...

Well, America - at least I can say: I hear you.

Advertising changes the face of downtown

Ad Junkies: Welcome to Columbus, OH

You’re likely thinking one of the above:

• Republicans
• Cows
• Rabid OSU fans with garishly painted faces
• The Arnold Classic

But, nay, young advertiser, nay. There is more to this city I call home:

• Five significant advertising & web agencies and 50+ smaller shops.
• Four national sports teams, a Big 10 college, and several Fortune 500 retailers.
• 15 distinct city neighborhoods.
• Plus, a downtown crowded with artists, students, marketers, and other creative types.

And, we are in the midst of a city-wide obsession with dimensional outdoor – beer, apartments, local spots teams, they can’t wait to climb up the side of a building. Check out the latest building + parking lot take-over across from Nationwide’s global HQ:

Part of the “life comes at you fast” campaign (that will not die), the billboard features a can of housepaint thats spill is so fierce it covers an entire parking lot. (Yes, one could question how insurance would get involved in that little whoops, but, hey, this campaign has been going on for four years – how many fresh, relevant ideas could possibly remain?)

And, some other recent installations:

   

These locations are brokered by Orange Barrel Media. A company that is genuinely changing the face of downtown. The sight-line has been reinvented from ranging dirty brick to every manner of ad message. The mayor is even calling “Times Square” the inspiration for downtown development.

I have mixed feelings about living in this modern interpretation of the company town. Questions ranging from – Do we have a responsibility to protect some urban living from commercialism to have we created so much noise that no one sees / hears anything? But one thing I do love is the interest in advertising that the mammoth installations have sparked. Out-of-industry types – even the Joe Recliners we talk to in focus groups – are buzzing about these ads. They love the creativity, the scale, the “push” of the design.

It’s fun. And, uniquely urban. In a landscape that would love to “own” both.

Much like CGC, this new cross-over of urban “art” and advertising has created an entry point to our industry – one that makes consumers feel like part of it (instead of the target of it.) Makes me want to send in a jingle to Jello or tear a recipe from a SPAM label…

Nothing says brand-love like sticky bugs...

So, what do you think the odds are that the creatives responsible for this decidedly creepy piece have a problem with mice at home?

Well, either way, a sticky death isn't just for household rodents anymore. Nay, young advertiser. Now, it is the stuff of organic creative, of brands, of bizarre outdoor placards...

In Vancouver, passersby were shown just how many creepy-crawlers are afoot with these flypaper sticky plagues - originally blank, the Orkin logo appears as bugs meet their gluey deaths ...

Agency: Rethink Communications
 

Emotional appeal

Does it strike you that some of the best advertising being done right now is about the quality of worklife?

The category - from the Career Builder monkeys to Monster.com's "When I grow up" series to these simple vending machine displays below - there seems to be a universal understanding of the emotional appeal in this category. Not money, not shorter hours, not even a better title - just, simply, be the person you want to be. Very aspirational. And selling like crazy.

Scholz & Friends, Berlin

Found at: Spoiled

Possibly the world's most compelling ad copy

Way to sell the category, my friends.
If only it came with a colorful to-go cup.

Spotted in: Columbus, OH