What about IT?

November 4th, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

Late last month, eBay launched a new TV ad campaign that I am absolutely in love with. This campaign, created by BBDO and Agency.com, has a strong concept. The ad is an excellent example of diversity-targeted adveritsing.

I don’t know if eBay is planning on releasing this campaign internationally, or if it is made with that intention. I just saw the ad for the first time today and noticed a brief snippet of a South Asian family posing for a family portrait with IT perched on the camera. I am not sure though, it was probably less than a second long! And this ad is not featured on the website.

If it really is a South Aisan family, kudos to eBay and the agencies that designed the ad, if not–it’s still a very good ad simply because it displays odles of creativity, that’s quite rare now.

And what a bummer it was to watch the lousy Old Nay ad right after such excellent work. I don’t know why Old Navy is so bent upon digging its own grave. You are better off if you haven’t heard any of their awe-spiring jingles or seen the ad actors strut what they don’t have!

New York and Company has signed on Eva Longoria, the sultry Hispanic GAB-reil from Desperate Housewives for the Holiday Season.
And I just saw Beyonce and her whole family share gifts and hugs in a commerical for Wal-mart. Beyonce and Wal-mart? what is wrong with Beyonce and what is Wal-mart thinking? First it places 8 pages of ads in September issue of Vogue and then it signs on Beyonce- Wal-mart has come off as the geeky high-school girl trying to fit in by discarding her glasses for contact lenses and exhanging her bulky sweaters for skin-tight leotards. Verdict: Trying too hard.

Okay, this post was supposed to be about eBay.

New Avenues: where branding and filming merge

October 21st, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

Movies increasingly apply non-traditional marketing and promotional methods

Zathura, the new film by Sony Pictures hits the theaters on November 11th. Last night, the two teams on The Apprentice: Donald Trump, were given the task of building a parade float for Zathura. Zathura’s director, Jon Favreau selected the winning team whose float correctly translated all of Zathura’s brand attributes. The winning float had the name Zathura painted on it four times, it even had an audio clip announcing the name. The float captured the robots, metorities and the house floating in space with a galactic backdrop.
<– Winning Float

An average of 9.9 million viewers (actually a 37% drop from last year, according E!Online) who, if even had heard of Zathura, heard about it over and over again for one hour last night.  In exchange for an undisclosed (for now) amount, Zathura managed to scoop an excellent marketing coup: a one hour advertisement! That will  not only instigiate word-of-mouth but will also be talked about, written about and discussed.

A movie, on an average, spends $20M to $25M on marketing and promotions. With increasing segmentation among audiences and new technologies like Tivo, even the entertainment industry is begining to face the draught in pulling in audiences and are now looking for non-traditional modes of advertising.
We’ll find out later if this tie-in managed to increase Zathura’s viewership- but for now, it seems like a very interesting industry move. (Check here for the Apprentice’s (Donald) vendor’s list for this season.)

India: Employs non-traditional methods as well
In India too, marketers are searching for non-traditional methods of advertising the movies. A recent Bollywood movie, Ek Hasina Thi (that didn’t exactly break box-office records) tied-up with  local coffee shops, Barista, to promote itself through a contest. Another movie, Dum, contracted Cafe Coffee Day to promote itself by selling mugs, tshirts, posters etc.

….including blogs!
Bipasha Basu, a Bollywood heartthrob has started penning a blog, talking about her new movie. Her first entry alone, recieved, 190 comments. (It’s updated very sporadically!) Ofcourse, it is a publicity stunt but it has managed to create quite a stir.
Mira Nair’s upcoming film, The Namesake, (based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s book) produced by Fox Search Light Films also had a blog – this blog was penned by Kal Penn, the actor of the Namesake. He often posted clips and pictures making the blog interactive. I actually quite liked it. and am looking forward to see the movie. A movie blog, when penned by one of its actors, AND if done honestly and correctly manages to establish a private and emotional connection with the viewers.

Infact, David Duchovny has a blog about "The House of D".  I’m sure fake blogs are regularly created – but if there are any genuine ones- do you know of any?

My guess is, each movie is percieved as a brand now. Movies like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter changed the perception of movies. On Apprentice, Zathura’a director Jon, talked of this movie as a brand… the contestants treated the movie like a brand…And each brand, needs its own distinct identification. Oh well.. the things people gotta do!! But that just translates fun, with a capital F for us consumers. We get to enjoy their endeavors!! haha

However, it will be interesting to see how entertainmen channels will find new avenues for promotion and markting.

Human Advertisements: India

October 19th, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

This is not that earth-shattering or alarming, but still newsworthy.
A new method of advertising in Bombay is raising questions. Young boys are hired to stand along the peripheries of major roads donning huge ad. banners to grab the attention of consumers driving along or waiting in traffic in their cars/buses.
Read Youth Curry’s excellent report about it here.

Open Source Argument continues

October 11th, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

Finally, adage.com has picked up on it! Today’s edition has an excellent piece about the Open-Source Revolution overtaking the consumer-world.  I had once read a very profound statement in a cheap chickflick book. The statement was something like, Information flows freely. I liked the simple truth in it. Earlier, it used to be email lists, forwards and conversations- the simple method of transferring information about products, services or just.. news! Technology mixed with post-modern thinking has given so much power to the consumer. Most of us buy products on referrals from friends or trusted sources. Traditional methods of advertising have lost their power, or their credibility which explains why advertisers are rushing to find other, more invasive methods of advertising. (But that’s for another post..)
In any case, Open source, is here to stay. Advertisers and brand managers are better off adapting and embracing it, rather than shunning it or trying to find alternatives, because honestly, there aren’t any!

A hairstylist introducing her clothing line and skin-care line

September 24th, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

Sally Hershsomething (I cannot pronounce her last name nor could I be bothered to look it up and spell it right) a hair-stylist famous for the Shag cut she gave Meg Ryan in the old-old-old movie "French Kiss" is introducing her own clothing line AND a skin-care line.
After interning at one of nation’s top fashion magazines, this kind of news does not surprise me. Any one- who’s been in close proximity to the glamor world, ends up doing something of this sort. You can’t really complain– people who do these kinda things are rich, haev rich friends who buy their over-priced products.
So here’s to smart Sally at recognizing early on the opportunity to make more money (as if her houses in Beverly Hills, East Hampton and West Village weren’t enough )

We’ve got a hair-stylist giving tips on skin care now.. what’s next?

Inlcuding consumers in advertising

September 23rd, 2005 • Marketing/ Advertising

Advertising and consumers are two separate entities.  Like oil and water. They both belong to the separte ends of the commerce spectrum. However, how long will it be before it is the consumers dictating the advertisers and even making their own versions of commericals?
With the available technology, this possibility cannot be ruled out.
AdCandy, profiled in Wired magazine is doing just that. Taking the first step to close this spasm: allowing consumers their 15 seconds of fame.

"The freedom to participate has some people comparing Adcandy’s new ad
medium to open-source programming. "People are participating out of the
love of doing it, not necessarily for professional reasons," said
Hoffman, who was a musician before he started Adcandy.The contributions that come to Adcandy aren’t labor-intensive, but
spring from a moment of inspiration. In its text-messaging slogan
contest, entries included: "U had me at : )" and "Let your fingers do
the talking." Other contests asked participants to name a new MP3
player, with submissions like "Audacity" or "LoudMouth."

I had once read that Information has a tendency to flow: from anywhere. To me, AdCandy promises its begining…