I am currently holidaying in France and I discovered this striking viral yesterday.
A group of young Geneva firefighters decided to film the clip to end public confusion between their number, 118, and new directory assistance hot-lines. The “118 Project” video features fighters from four local Swiss brigades - some sporting hot pants - dancing and rapping to hip hop beats.
Let me know what you think!
A friend of mine recently asked me to come up with some of the most over-used advertising clichés and a couple immediately sprang to mind:
Washing powder – the ad where the guy washes a white shirt covered in deep stains in salad bowl with a wooden spoon – I can’t even remember what the product they were trying to advertise.
Gillette ads always featuring gorgeous clean-shaven hunks. Yes, I am talking about the type of guy we will never meet unless you move to LA.
Experts say that the average person is exposed to about 3,000 advertisements every day. With that many advertisements out there, it is no surprise that advertisers have a hard time coming up with something new. It seems that many advertisers out there have completely given up on being original and are simply recycling the same old ads.
I discovered this awesome ad for razor manufacturer Wilkinson (currently number 2 behind Gillette in France and Great-Britain) – the viral campaign is called Fight for Kisses and originated in France.
Click the picture below to watch the ad
There is also site to check out with a series of goodies and a game to download and play to win a series of prizes.
So what do you think? Hit or miss?
Although Paddington now lives in London, England, he originally came from Darkest Peru where he was brought up by his Aunt Lucy after he was orphaned following an earthquake when he was just a few weeks old.
When Aunt Lucy went to live in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima, she decided to send him to England to live. After teaching him to speak English she arranged for him to stow away in a ship’s lifeboat.Eventually, Paddington arrived on Paddington Station in London:
“Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear for Paddington was the name of the station.”
The Browns were at the station to meet their daughter Judy when Mr. Brown spotted a bear sitting all alone on a suitcase, behind a pile of mail bags, close to the lost property office. The bear was wearing nothing but a hat and he had a label round his neck bearing the words “Please Look After This Bear. Thank You.”
Unable to resist such a simple request, Mr. and Mrs. Brown took Paddington home to live with them at 32 Windsor Gardens with their two children, Jonathan and Judy and their housekeeper, Mrs. Bird.
2007 – You’ll either love it or hate it!
Paddington is famous for the fact that he always has marmalade in his sandwiches and so it came as rather a surprise when he was asked whether he would like to star in a new series of ads for Marmite – you either love it or hate it! “But I always have marmalade in my sandwiches!” exclaimed Paddington, when he was first approached by the advertising agency. “That‘s exactly why we think you would be perfect for the campaign,” they explained. “We want people who normally have something different in their sandwiches to try Marmite”.Paddington, of course, would never give up marmalade but he‘s always keen to test something new and so that is why he agreed to be filmed for a series of advertisements which will be shown in the UK as of today! Watch it!
I am pretty sure that I’ll love it!
I have been an O2 customer for years, and every year around upgrade time, I start looking into the different types of mobile phones on the market.
I have to say that advertising is very influential because it’s very difficult to escape ads on the Tube! In addition to advertising, I usually browse the O2 website as well mobile phone reviews sites hence the importance of viral marketing especially in the case of O2 who do not advertise their phones.
I had a little look at the phones available and the Cocoon is currently featured on the front page under the phones section – so far, so good!
However when I clicked on the picture of the Cocoon to get more info about it, I felt the description on the site was letting the phone down – what about the alarm clock feature, the nest, the map of the O2 arena? In addition, I could not find a link to the Cocoon’s blog or the Cocoon’s webpage!
Can someone point me in the direction of these links?
Why did O2 set up a webpage for the Cocoon, a blog as well as sending a free phone to bloggers if they are not going to clearly advertise it on their site?
Peter Kwong of advertising agency VCCP in London recently approached me about a project he is working on for mobile phone supplier O2.
O2 recently launched a new 3G quadbrand mobile phone called Cocoon and the guys at VCCP contacted me to blog about it. Very much like Neville Hobson, I do get quite a lot dodgy pitches, most of the time from the USA but:
1) The folks at VCCP actually took the time to read my blog and leave a comment
2) Their pitch is of interest to me - I try to understand consumers for a living and just thought it would be a good idea to check out and get involved with the O2 Cocoon blog.
I have been an O2 customer for years and as ‘a valued customer’ O2 upgrade my phone once a year no questions asked. I have now had a Samsung phone for the last 3 years, and I upgraded to a Samsung E [insert number] back in May. Well that’s right – I don’t even know what my phone is called! Kudos to O2 for using an actual name rather than some random code we consumers, can never remember!
The Cocoon project
Source: ‘Taking inspiration from real life, we asked designers, fashion students and musicians from London to Tokyo, Shanghai to Rio, “what inspires you, and what do you want from a mobile phone?”
The answer? Something emotional. Original. That doesn‘t look like a phone or a music player - something more natural, that‘s visually stunning and functions perfectly.’
I usually go for branded phones (Nokia, Samsung) even though I perfectly know that the O2 phones are out there… but why?
1) O2 phones are not advertised resulting in limited awareness of these phones
2) Consumers tend to go for well-established brand.
I won’t spend too much time reviewing the Cocoon phone at this present moment as I only received the mobile phone on Saturday – saying that the phone is pretty good and looks great and more will follow on the subject. I’d like to discuss the O2 Cocoon blog for now.
First of all, I am glad to see that the Cocoon was developed with the help of consumers. Marketing lesson #1: marketing is about meeting your customers’ needs and wants.
I think the blog is a great idea – viral marketing can do wonders especially for an ‘unbranded phone’. The folks at VCCP told me that when purchasing the phone, O2 customers had the opportunity to blog about it on the O2 blog and they have also been approaching bloggers since July.
Although I think the O2 Cocoon blog is a great idea, interaction on the blog is still fairly limited even though all technical problems reported seem to have been addressed. The posts are generally good however the blog does not necessarily cover all technical aspects of the phone.
As a qualitative researcher, I like to understand the ‘why’s’
Although the feedback on the blog is certainly insightful to O2, I would like to see the blog’s administrator ask specific questions on the phone and get bloggers to leave a comment, something similar to a bulleting board.
Saying that I am very impressed by O2 efforts and I’ll be reviewing the phone very soon!
Although I absolutely love Facebook, knowing that anyone will be able to search my profile using a search engine worries me a little… I recently read that online identity theft is on the increase in the UK and the British authorities are currently struggling to tackle this. Facebook is fun but I am still careful with the information I put on my profile.
Although you can edit your privacy settings so that your profile does not appear on a search engine, Facebook’s privacy system is not so straight-forward. I realised the other day that my profile was public (i.e. anyone could look at my photos, messages etc), and it took me 15 minutes (call me stupid!) to set my profile to private!
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