It’s only a box of tissues. But the level of consumer engagement being created around Kleenex, the Kimberley-Clark owned brand is amazing. In UK, they have launched a new TVC for their theme ‘let it out’. The theme isn’t just about cleaning your snot: ‘When people let go, they feel free and relieved. We all carry a lot of emotional weight inside, and it’s high time we let it out‘, says the UK website.

Agency: JWT. Via: The Inspiration Room Daily

On a related note, there are several interactive and themed promotions on Kleenex across their variants: Get Mommed, for one. It’s a topical promo – the premise being that during this winter season you need some TLC from a ‘mom’ and you have the chance to choose your mom. More on this later. No wonder efforts like this makes the brand generic to the category.

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While writing about short duration TV commercials, I forgot to mention the mother of all short duration commercials: the one-second TVC, from Miller Lite.

1. Miller Lite: aired during this year’s Super Bowl this is a triumph for strategy, media planning and creative.

2. Sylvania: Thai ads are another great source of story telling- most of them based on humour and a distinctly local way of life. Here are a couple:

3. Vodafone UK: this ad won at Cannes for this campaign dramatizing the ’sometimes life is more than a 3-minute conversation’ idea.

That’s it on the short duration on ads. Regular broadcast will resume soon.

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How to tell a compelling story, that affects the viewer in some way… in 30 seconds. That’s the challenge and the beauty of TV commercials. Even feature film directors who are used to 2-3 hour epics find this aspect of ‘cinema’ fascinating. The longer duration commercials have their merit – they can keep you spell bound, dazzle you with special effects and more. When it comes to story telling, I have particularly enjoyed the shorter duration commercials – the ones that are 20 seconds or under. Here are a few that have caught my eye. Not all can be bracketed as great, but hey, they get across the point in a jiffy.

1. Febreze: a fabric odour eliminator from P&G operates in a rather unsexy segment. The allure of the fragrance is dramatized in these set of spots.

2. Heinz: what can be over in 2 minutes? Heinz soup, for one. The other is a subject of countless jokes.

3. The Economist: this may be a departure from the classic AMV BBDO, clever-headline driven campaigns of UK but dramatically brings out the point of what is immediately apparent isn’t so.

4. Meerkat: what’s the difference between Compare the Market, a car insurance brand and a Meerkat? Not much.

5. IKEA: a nice setup which leads you down the wrong path.

6. Toyota RAV 4: ‘get outdoors’ is the clarion call of this SUV brand. Cleverly juxtaposed with the ‘dangers’ of staying indoors. How is it unique to Toyota and not applicable to all SUVs in another matter, though.

7. Denver Water Conservation: the privileges of living in an affluent society involve educative campaigns urging people to water their grass for 2 minutes less.

8. Axe: most of the Axe ads are enjoyable and have caught public fancy. The series I liked most where these short ones where they establish the ‘great lengths’ girls go to hang on to the Axe man.

9. McDonalds, UK: how much work does a plumber need to do to afford a McDonalds quarter pounder?

10. Alberta’s Libraries: books and beyond is the claim. Stories of what happens after people borrow books is the twist.

The longer version ads can be compared to those long winding jokes. The good ones take you down the garden path and the impact depends on the final punch line, the twist in the tale. The shorter ads are perhaps like good one liners – the snappier and unexpected they are, better the memorability.

Hope you enjoyed these ads. Any other short & sweet ads that come to mind, from India or elsewhere?

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Trivia lovers like yours truly, would remember the shameful feeling when we ended up on the losing side while playing Trivial Pursuit. An online version of the game could easily have ben a multi-player game between individuals. But Hasbro has taken the concept to a higher level: from mere trivia to a battle of the sexes. So there’s even more at stake.

A new website Trivial Pursuit Experiment, pits men against women to figure out who is smarter. So when you play, you play on behalf of your gender, um er..globally. The campaign video – a stock footage collection of booboos – has the potential to go viral. Don’t bother to log in as the opposite gender and give wrong answers – only the correct answers earn point for your team.

Nice twist of an existing concept to suit online medium, me thinks. No?

Via: Adverblog

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There isn’t a dearth of social media experts nowadays. Their key target audience logically are the CEOs and CMOs who control the purse strings on marketing spends. Since social media and technology is unfamiliar territory for many, it is natural to look for people who can guide them through it. The byproduct of all this is a lot of jargon, BS and drivel.  It isn’t just from the experts – there are several others in the business, on the periphery who want to come across as knowledgeable about the topic. All this came alive in a recent article in AdAge (subscription required) where the commenters were hell bent on out-jargoning the author. As one commenter lucidly said:

…what brands should strive to do is build a lattice or framework for the conversation that they ultimately want to occur. Then when they feed in the consumers it will grow into the shape they planned out.”

Ok, got that. How about this one?

“First, by socializing all media, the engagement experience is cyclical and ongoing. Second, by identifying conversation groups (social graphs) and tapping directly into them and then connecting them together, the long tail of niche market segments become your mass or ‘mainstream’ media play.”

Simple enough – wonder why more marketers aren’t practicing this? Every industry has it’s share of jargon mongers. The ones around social media have found a place in the sun recently. I can only take solace in New Yorker’s advice: ‘If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold’. Amen.

Post inspired but by no means close to the genius of The Ad Contrarian.

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Guinness has dropped the classic, ‘good things come to those who wait’ tagline, after using it for 10 years. A new spot, just as mega as some of the earlier ones, shows a bunch of guys bring ‘things’ to life – a barren landscape, dragging fields of grass and such like.

It’s got the scale alright –  but what it has to do with Guinness is a bit tenuous. According to this article, ‘as the 90-second commercial unfolds Guinness aims to draw a parallel with the famous “surge and settle” motion that typifies the pouring of a pint and introduce the new strapline “Bring it to life”. The earlier tagline could be linked back to ‘waiting for the perfect pint’ and by implication, Guinness. It was also linked to the product consumption – the length of time required to correctly pour a pint of Guinness from the tap, usually quoted as 119.5 seconds.

Guinness has a long history of ‘ownable’ tag lines – My goodness, my Guinness, for example. Is ‘Bring it to life’ ownable? I guess given the media exposure and buzz on the internet, it eventually will. They have tied up with Google Earth to allow web users to bring an imaginary plane to life – so knowing Guinness, they will have some jaw dropping stuff online as we go along to match the scale of the TVC. Is it worth it?

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Regulars to the Ads of the World site (which must include pretty much everyone in the Creative team of an agency) would have the seen the work for Mao Bao Dishwashing Liquid. Even at first glance it impacts you – I said ‘Wow!’ out loud. The simplicity of conveying the variant (shown below: Camellia essence) and the category in an instant is laudable. Loved it.

Advertising Agency: Bates 141, Taiwan.

Just the kind of work that conveys the message elegantly, keeps both the client and creative happy. Or at least I think so. Rest of the ads here.

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I quite liked the new set of ads from ING Vysya Bank on their ‘Jiyo Easy‘ platform. The launch ads which were released a few months ago, perhaps limited themselves to a mere claim. The reason for the claim of easy banking formed only the periphery of the argument. This time around, the features that make the easy banking claim stick, are at the core of the creative idea. Cheque-book replacement without asking for it maybe a small gesture but the need for it is real. The art direction in the ad is outstanding.

Another ad is based on ‘quick replacement of lost debit cards’ feature – a story told with a twist. The ad based on mobile banking is cute but I was left wondering just how exactly the money was transferred or the bill paid.

In this category, inertia to switch brands is extremely high. One may even put up with sub-standard service in one’s current bank, but simply closing an account and switching a bank is not an easy thing to do. Even if it’s opening  a new bank account, there are far too many considerations beyond advertising. Given the regulatory nature of the category, banking products can’t be very different from one bank to the other. But likeable advertising on the back of nifty product features will go a long way in goading consumers.

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With the return of the pug, some thought that Zoozoos were dead. It ain’t so. Shoppers Stop and Vodafone have recently announced the launch of merchandise feature the characters. Is it the first time licensed merchandise of advertising characters is available in India? One has seen roadside stuff with Fido Dido but this is perhaps the first time a retail chain has recognized the popularity of an advertising character in India.

In terms of timing, were they a tad late? I don’t think so. The Zoozoos fever was at the highest during the last IPL (though they had their share of detractors). Knock-offs soon appeared on the streets – a measure of their popularity and scope. I feel that the characters have a lot more mileage left in them – witness the popularity of the Independence Day video on YouTube. It’s a matter of time before the next set of Zoozoo ads, a new viral, a comic strip perhaps and maybe even a TV series is planned and the fever is revived again.

By the way, the Zoozoos idea is obviously far bigger than just a commercial. How does one valuate the benefits of such a big idea? What price does one pay for the value that the brand has created? Can agencies who come up with such far reaching ideas be simply compensated with a fee or commission? I am not commenting on this specific case, but how often do agencies get to benefit from the upsides of their idea? Worth thinking about. Comments welcome.

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