March 27, 2005
Nike Commercials on the PSP
Check out the PSP site.
Check out the Nike Air Zoom Huarache 2K5 commercial.
Check out the Nike Shox VCIV commercial.
Posted by richard ting at March 27, 2005, 03:40 PM
March 25, 2005
Volvo V50 site
This site's been up for a while and it won a Cannes Cyberlion during the 2004 season, but i'm still posting it because it's such a great experience. The main objective for this site is that the car is a great driver’s car and also the safest car in its size ever built by Volvo. The sign-off for the whole campaign is Have Fun. On the site you go on a nice trip to the beach, read all about the features and experience almost everything about the car, both inside and out.
It was designed by Forsman & Bodenfors in Sweden.
Posted by richard ting at March 25, 2005, 05:35 PM
March 22, 2005
Old Spice - When She's Hot
The good 'ole video/audio mixer brought to you by Old Spice. Music by the X-Ecutioners.
Posted by richard ting at March 22, 2005, 06:43 PM
The New Pitch - Do Ads Still Work
[from the New Yorker]
THE NEW PITCH
by KEN AULETTA
Do ads still work?
In the introduction to his 1963 best-seller, “Confessions of an Advertising Man,” David Ogilvy apologized for writing “in the old-fashioned first person singular.” In the intervening decades—the years of, among others, Madonna and Donald Trump—that modest impulse has faded. The inclination now is more toward emphatic self-promotion. Linda Kaplan Thaler, who today enjoys an Ogilvy-like reputation as one of advertising’s creative talents, co-wrote a book on marketing in 2003, and advised her peers, “Don’t worry about whether the news is good or bad. Just get covered. . . . PR breeds PR.”
I thought of Thaler when I began to look into whether advertising, which plays such a large role in the American economy, might be ailing, and how it was being affected by new media and by new technologies. (Last year, more than five hundred billion dollars was spent on advertising and marketing in the United States—half the worldwide total.) Thaler still believes that the old-fashioned advertising model works; and it seems to work for her. Although the industry’s growth has slowed in recent years and profit margins have shrivelled, the Kaplan Thaler Group, which she founded in 1997, has flourished.
Thaler, who is fifty-four, has been around long enough to have seen the business change. In Ogilvy’s day, within a single mile of Madison Avenue one could find America’s—and therefore the world’s—most celebrated ad agencies: Ogilvy Benson & Mather, Young & Rubicam, McCann-Erickson, Grey Advertising, Ted Bates & Company, J. Walter Thompson, Benton & Bowles. Agency people saw one another while dining or drinking at Pavillon, “21,” and other establishments. The business was romanticized and mocked in popular culture, sometimes as a trade where failed poets became embittered copywriters and had too many Martinis along the way. It was portrayed as manipulative, in books like “The Hidden Persuaders”; as ruthless, in movies like “The Hucksters”; and as innocent (or sinister) fun, in the memoirs of some of its practitioners.
The path to profits was once fairly straightforward: clients paid agencies fifteen per cent of each advertising dollar, and most of those dollars went to the three television networks. In 1965, advertisers could reach eighty per cent of their most coveted viewers—those between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine—just by buying time on CBS, NBC, or ABC. “You could put together a media plan in an hour,” Roy Bostock, the former chairman and C.E.O. of the MacManus Group, recalls. “When we introduced Scope, in the mid-sixties, we were able with television advertising in the first four weeks of the ad campaign to reach more than ninety per cent of U.S. television households ten times.”
By the late nineties, some clients began to rebel against paying a flat commission, preferring fees, usually billed by the hour. (Linda Kaplan Thaler says, “I sometimes worry that clients are paying us for the hours we spend working on projects rather than the worth of the ideas.”) And the agencies have long since left Madison Avenue—a street now frequented mostly for its luxury stores—for other parts of Manhattan and the rest of the world. But the name remains a synonym for an industry that bears little resemblance to what it once was.
Posted by richard ting at March 22, 2005, 12:19 PM
March 18, 2005
NBC Gives New Meaning To Buying 'Space,' Premieres Show On MySpace.com
[from Mediapost]
IN A FIRST OF ITS kind deal for NBC, the peacock network Wednesday night debuted new prime-time comedy "The Office" via a webcast on MySpace.com, a week ahead of its March 29 broadcast TV premiere. MySpace.com is the kind of "social networking" site that NBC's promo team hopes will generate water cooler talk in advance of the TV debut. Vivi Zigler, senior vice president of marketing and advertising services at the nework's in-house NBC Agency said it is the first time the network has webcast its content online. A nearly 13-minute clip of the premiere will be available at MySpace today through the end of the month.
As other cable and broadcast networks have relied on large Web portals like America Online and Yahoo! to Webcast their content for promotional purposes, Zigler admitted that MySpace was an unusual choice of venue for NBC. "We specifically wanted to avoid the big portals because that's been done," Zigler explained, adding that the network liked the younger composion of MySpace's audience.
In fact, MySpace has a sizable member base. The site, a subsidiary of Intermix Media, Inc., attracted 8.9 million unique visitors who generated 4.6 billion page views last month, and was the seventh most trafficked Web domain in February, according to comScore Media Metrix. "What was really controversial was previewing it so early before it hit TV," said Zigler, adding: "'The Office' is not your ordinary show, so it's extra important to let as many people as possible actually experience it, and understand it, and get it."
At MySpace, users can fashion profiles, blog, instant message, e-mail, download music, create photo galleries, and search classified listings, events, groups, chat rooms, and user forums. Registered MySpace users can join "The Office" group on MySpace to share their own office mishaps through personal profiles, blogs, and other MySpace features.
It's becoming more common today for cable and broadcast networks to partner with major Web portals to Webcast new shows as a promotional gimmick. A few examples include America Online teaming with Bravo, an NBC-Universal-owned entity, to Webcast "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl," and before that Warner Bros. previewing its teen drama "Jack & Bobby" on AOL. Showtime and Yahoo! getting together recently to Webcast "Fat Actress" is another example.
"The Office" will air regularly on Tuesdays at 9:30-10 p.m. EST on NBC.
Posted by richard ting at March 18, 2005, 06:03 PM
March 15, 2005
Subaru Leads with Interactive for Product Launch
[from clickz]
When Subaru was plotting how to build awareness for its upcoming B9 Tribeca luxury SUV -- a new model, in a new space -- the carmaker went online to build and maintain excitement for a 6-month pre-launch campaign. The campaign was developed by New York interactive agency R/GA, part of Interpublic Group. It aims to introduce prospective buyers to Subaru's first 7-passenger luxury vehicle. The online campaign includes a mini-site at b9tribeca.com, and an online sweepstakes. Site visitors are encouraged to opt-in to receive information by e-mail as it becomes available. An online B9 Tribeca giveaway incites users to sign up.
Offline efforts are comprised of traveling interactive kiosks that will provide information and capture customer opt-ins at major auto shows. Subaru will also organize events at the shows for existing owners that will encourage opt-in to the e-mail list. "Our goal is to harness the pent-up demand for the product, to build awareness, and to let people start engaging with the brand," said Jonathan Rivard, manager of Subaru's CRM group.
Read more.
Check out the site.
Posted by richard ting at March 15, 2005, 10:39 AM
Infiniti Sponsors Mobile-Enabled Site
MOBILE CONTENT PROVIDER AVANTGO ANNOUNCED Tuesday that it will offer a mobile-enabled Web site for college hoops fans, sponsored by Infiniti's newest luxury sedan, the Infiniti M. The mobile site will be able to deliver game day scores and statistics to users' mobile phones and devices, and will build brand recognition for the M sedan by presenting information about the car's features, with vehicle specs and high-resolution photos. In 2003, Infiniti sponsored a similar mobile site for March Madness to promote its FX45 SUV.
Posted by richard ting at March 15, 2005, 10:08 AM
March 13, 2005
New Balance Sneaker Ads Jab At Pro Athletes' Pretensions
By JOE PEREIRA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 10, 2005; Page B1
Most sneaker makers, hoping to sell more shoes, seek allies in the world of professional sports. But New Balance Inc. is taking a different stance on athletes: disparage them. The company's latest television spots, due to start airing this weekend, feature a stern young basketball player who dispenses advice to "some of the pros out there." He says: "Just in case you forgot, this is what a pass looks like. This is what a floor burn looks like." The last dig occurs as a player in the background dives for a ball.
The none-too-subtle message of the campaign, "For Love or Money," is that that pros perform for the latter, not the former. The ads, created by Boston agency Boathouse Inc., continue more than a decade of iconoclastic marketing that has served New Balance well. Closely held and relatively unheralded, the Boston-based company has amassed a 13% market share of the U.S. athletic footwear market, and has moved into the No. 2 spot behind Nike Inc., according to retail sales tracked by researcher NPD Group Inc. All the while, it has gained traction without the aid of celebrity pitchmen.
New Balance's surge began in 1992, when, with only 3% of the market, it launched its "Endorsed by No One" campaign in an industry that even then was paying top stars millions to plug sneaker brands. New Balance ads give pro athletes jabs, not glory. But that effort didn't take on professional sports directly, the way "Love or Money" does. Suggesting that National Basketball Association stars are lazy is a risky strategy, as the professionals and their big-name friends in sneakerdom could wind up attacking New Balance in turn.
"The last time I checked New Balance was in business to make money and the ads are designed to make consumers spend money," says Mike Bass, an NBA spokesman. "Our players play for love but happen to make a lot of money." New Balance will spend $21 million on the campaign, just about its entire promotional budget for the year. That is a pittance compared to the $1.4 billion that Nike spent on marketing and ads last year. On its restricted budget, New Balance can't really compete in securing endorsers, so its downside in alienating stars is minimal.
Boathouse, a four-year-old agency, is known for, among other things, bringing the bull back into Merrill Lynch's ads. It began working on the New Balance campaign after the Olympics in Athens.
At the games, the U.S. fielded a second-string basketball team after stars like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and Jason Kidd declined to play. Losses to Puerto Rico, Greece and Lithuania, embarrassed the Americans. Following the games, the agency surfed Internet boards to find what people were saying world-wide about sportsmanship. "It came back very clear to us that the behavior of certain athletes was a common focus of discussions," says James Overall, a partner and creative director at Boathouse. "What some of the athletes say and do are just unbelievable," says New Balance CEO and founder Jim Davis in an interview. "Whether they like it or not, they are the role models for our children."
Posted by richard ting at March 13, 2005, 02:29 PM
March 03, 2005
Frito-Lay Urges "Millennials" to Seize the Moment
In late January, billboards with the cryptic message "inNw?" began appearing across the country. Since then, the campaign expanded to TV, text messaging, and a Web site that reveals that solves the mystery. The campaign's message: "If not now when?" The mysterious effort is promoting a new Doritos flavor, Black Pepper Jack, to 16-24 year olds, a group PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division calls "Millennials."
"'If not now when?' is all about living life in the now and taking advantage of every single opportunity possible," said Lora DeVuono, advertising VP for Frito-Lay North America, in a statement. "This attitude is what is important to Millennials, and it's how they look at the Doritos brand."
The main agency behind the concept and the traditional advertising is BBDO New York. Tribal DDB Dallas created the Web site and online advertising. Hip Cricket, a Connecticut-based mobile marketing firm, designed the mobile marketing interaction. Spending on the effort wasn't disclosed.