Uba Kontrovasie

A train, some raisins and childhood memories

I’ve been busy recently, what have I been up to?

Errmm…doing site audits, working on pitches and taking trains to Manchester.

Manchester is cool, lots of construction work under way and old boarded up buildings, which were full of character and plastered with graffiti.

On the way back to London I bought a packet of chocolate covered Sun Maid Raisins, I’d never seen these anywhere before.

If you were a child of the 80’s like moi, you’ll probably remember The California Raisins ad’s, TV show and songs.

How cool were they? All the kids at school use to watch the show and munch on the raisins, not because they tasted fantastic (without chocolate), but because raisins were cool.

That show and the ad’s were pioneering examples of brand entertainment, contentainment or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know about you guys, but thanks to those ad’s I’ve always subconsciously associated Marvin Gaye with dried fruit.

Tags: animation, brand entertainment

Bring on the trumpets!

God I love this ad! Stupid, pointless and just plain funny! I hope these guys play on the characters throughout the rest of their offline/online comms. Possibilities are endless and I expect to see more of the same humour in other channels and formats.

Genius!

Tags: Advertising, Digital Planning, funny tv ad, offline advertising, Offline Media, tv ad

Nano Chromatic

Apple strike again with another really well made iPod ad. Apple have become renowned for using bands such as The Fratellis and Feist in iPod ads of days gone by. This time Apple have enlisted Chairlift; who have an easy, Vampire Weekendish sound.

Apple are clearly another brand that have successfully piggybacked their marketing and advertising off good music, the use of new music from innovative bands is a good sign that Apple understand their core audience really well.

Other well known brands that are tapping into the music scene come in the form of the mobile networks.

O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone are all sponsoring events and music based marketing initiatives in order to get closer to younger audiences.

Tags: advert, Apple, bruises, chairlift, chromatic, ipod, nano

Good TV ads still work

We’re in an advertising era where two way dialogue and brand conversation seem to mean everything.

Is interrupt marketing dead, inefficient or ineffective? I don’t think so.

Some recent TV advertisements have been creative and entertaining to the extent of gaining viral distribution and word of mouth recognition. Take for example the Cadburys or Britvic Drench ads, I know friends who have been emailing links of them to each other just because they are entertaining.

Above the line planners and creatives are quite clearly working harder to be more innovative and I think the focus is now shifting towards TV ads which have real viral capability and the ability to spark conversation.

Why?

Sky+ and Digital TV empower people to skip through ads and flick across TV channels.

There are more ads and TV channels than ever before, modern ads have to cut through all the choice available in cluttered market in order to command a viewers time.

Due to these factors TV advertisers now need to find alternative methods of getting people to watch their ads.

How?

If adverts are being seen by smaller audiences it is important to make the quality of the ads as good as a mini productions or something that warrants conversation or recommendation amongst audience peers.

The next time someone sees brand X’s TV ad they might just sit all the way through it as they had it recommended to them as good entertainment.

One good ad that I’ve recently liked is the M&S fairground ad. The classic David Bowie song and cinematic grandeur of the fairground really make it stay in my head, you also wouldn’t think it’s an M&S ad the first time you watch it either.

It’s not gimmicky either, no Gorillas playing drums or Thunderbird’s dancing; It’s just a good, well produced Ad.

Tags: cadburys, conversation, m&s, marks and spencer, offline, tv ads, viral, word of mouth marketing

A conversation platform that will help brands to “test the waters”

Yesterday I discovered UberSpat (loving the Uber). What I like about this new platform is that it’s based on the foundations of Social Media, two-way dialogue.

UberSpat not only facilitates conversation and debate, it also lets users reinforce the debate with content, which can strengthen debates from various angles.

This website is a great way for “scared” brands to test the waters of two way dialogue and take learning’s from conversation and debate generated on the platform into developing their own purposed and branded conversation platforms such as blogs, forums or social networks.

I am sure UberSpat will be the first in a string of websites of its kind, ideas this good never stay unique.

Tags: conversation platform, social media, Uberspat

Benefits of Microblogging - A real world example

Microblogging has so many versatile marketing uses, however, clients question why they should use microblogs and what are the real benefits?

I could probably sit here and write 10 or more obvious reasons, however, one of the most important reasons has to be search engine visibility…I will lend you my real world example:

I bought a lovely pair of Nike Vomero 3 running shoes two weeks ago and ever since I have been busy putting them through their paces. As I have been so happy with them I decided to do a few searches in order to see what other people had to say about them.

As soon as I queried “Nike Vomero3” a twitter tweet ranked No.2 (Google UK & No.1 Google UK (UK)) providing a good review of the shoe. So there we are, there’s the head smacker…search engine visibility!

Not only are microblogs social media platforms which syndicate information, facilitate conversation and enable community building; they are also capable of providing good search engine visibility over time. This is something that many DR centric brands will value.

Tags: DR, Micro Blogging, microblog, social media, tweet, Twitter