Across most advertising categories, the winners in the ‘Outdoor’ or ‘Billboards’ category are not the traditional vinyl posters. What constitutes outdoor has undergone a dramatic change over the years with virtually any out-of-home installation becoming a billboard opportunity. Many of them feature interactive elements in a digital medium or use technology of some sorts. At the recently announced LIA Awards, the much celebrated outdoor campaign for British Airways, “Magic of Flying” won the Grand LIA.…
I like public service advertising which present a startling new fact or packages a known fact in a refreshingly new way. And if the public service ad asks for a simple, specific action, even better. That’s exactly what a new PSA on diabetes does. While we all know that many people suffer from diabetes, the new angle: people with type 2 diabetes could form the third-largest nation after China and India.
The comments section of news articles and blogs have been around for a while now. The intention behind providing an option to comment on an article or blog post, was a lofty one – get people to share their thoughts & opinions as a value-addition to the discussion. The practice has gone through several phases over the years. Many years ago, bloggers used to die for comments on their blog posts, even if the blog post was about a mundane or niche topic, irrespective of the quality of the post. Such expectations usually led to disappointment as comments were hardly forthcoming. The harsh reality that blog posts are unlikely to get comments in droves dawned upon us soon. And then the big boys got into the online space – big names in traditional print journalism, blog sites run as a business (tech being a common topic). Such sites often had a panel of bloggers and could churn out truck loads of articles in a day – unlike the plight of the individual bloggers who could barely write two posts a week.
One of my favourite awards shows, Epica Awards, is back with its 2014 winners. One of the reasons why I like the awards show is that one gets to see creative work from European countries (sometimes non-English work) which normally don’t do the rounds of ad aggregator sites. In print category (a favourite of mine) there is the ‘print crafts’ section which recognizes great execution.
Topical ads have been around for decades now and can be a marketer’s dream come true – but only if executed well. In my view, the hallmarks of a great topical ad are: (a) it should be about a genuinely big news…a topic that is truly creating buzz (b) it should be out lightning fast when the topic is still fresh in people’s mind (c) the creative message should be relevant to the product – link it to the brand’s proposition in a clever way and (d) executed with some subtlety and class. The last one is subjective of course, but one can easily spot an idea which is crass or trying-too-hard to find a fit. Amul’s topical hoardings have been hugely popular in India for these reasons.
I love print ads. I follow a lot of sites which showcase new creative work – with digital work (YouTube films, social media campaigns, tech-driven stunts, mobile apps and so on) taking centerstage. But I always check out new print work and love it when I spot well-thought through and executed print campaigns. I also have a soft corner for great copywriting but that’s rare to see nowadays as most ads are visual-idea driven.
Jerry Seinfeld hit out at the advertising industry while giving an acceptance speech at the Clio Awards last month. Oh, the irony. I personally thought it was a case of ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ but Seinfeld does raise some relevant points. His main issues – the industry lies about the products it sells (‘spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services…
If there is a ‘Christmas advert war’ in UK (at least it feels like it), the hands down winner in my book is Mulberry. Primary reason: when the world zigged, they zagged. When everyone else was going the ‘tugging at the heartstrings’ emotional route, Mulberry chose humour. Agency: adam&eveDDB Some have commented that the ad is offensive because it compares adopting a pet to a material thing like a handbag and that it makes fun of…
I remember an early lesson from my ex-boss about charity advertising: ask for a specific amount. Instead of saying ‘donate generously’ asking for a specific amount has a better chance of getting a donation. Second, make the response mechanism easy. In advertising, I grew up in the print era where the coupon was a powerful call to action. And the coupons typically were ‘design elements’ which the Art Director wanted to hide or tuck away…
We all have brand preferences – that intangible feeling of loving a brand so as to prefer it over competing brands in that category. Usually, such a preference evolves as a result of a lot of things the brand does, not just one. It could be a combination of things – the brand name, the logo, the messaging (advertising, PR), the activities a brand initiates or gets involved in and so on. But most commonly it is attributed to the quality of advertising – the core message and how it is executed. Airbnb’s latest advert on the occasion of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is one such.