Adverts from Poland

I just thought I would share with you a few adverts I saw whilst on holiday in Poland (more about this on my travel blog shortly!)

Poland is a country of contradiction – on the one hand, thousands of pounds are being spent on advertising, but on the other hand, the average Pole earns around £200 per month! But what amazed me even more, is the size the adverts over there – they are absolutely GIGANTIC and very interesting graphically speaking.

• A Pespi can on Lodz’s main commercial artery, Piotrkowska – I also also saw this Pespi can in Krakow and Warsaw

• An inflatable dog advertising Velvet toilet paper on Piotrkowska in Lodz (photo taken from a rickshaw)

• A gigantic advertising screen in Manufaktura (shopping centre) in Lodz

• A Converse ad in Warsaw 

• An Era (mobile phone supplier)/Sony Ericsson ad on Market Square in Krakow

And finally, a Play (mobile phone supplier) ad in Warsaw

I was really surpised to see that both Eva and Play (mobile phone suppliers) advertise their products in a sexual way - do you think this type of advert would be acceptable  in your respective countries?

iPod mania

They have made a billion journeys on the Tube (London subway system) bearable and been flourished by the rich, famous and powerful.

The super slim music player with the shuffle function is simply the first indispensable style icon of the 21^st century, and last Tuesday (10^th April), the 100^th millionth iPod was sold.

Apple sold its first iPod in October 2001 and since then has introduced almost a dozen new models, including 5 generations of iPod, 2 generations of iPod Mini, 2 generations of iPod Nano and 2 generations of iPod Shuffle.

 Some cool facts:

•  To listen to all the 7,500 songs on a 30GB iPod can hold non-stop would take 375 days

• And if all the iPods were stood end to end, they would stretch roughly 10,000 km, from London to New York and back again – that would make a pretty cool bridge

• Even The Queen owns a silver iPod!

More Apple news over here.

Dove Pro-Age Campaign

 

A recent research study demonstrated that adverts featuring celebs such as Angelina Jolie who has been the face of fashion label St John are less effective than those showing ordinary people. Do you remember the Campaign for Real Beauty video that came out last year?

 

Ladies and Gentleman, I am pleased to announce that Dove are back with their new controversial Dove Pro-Age video. Apparently this commercial was banned in the
US.  

 

I love the way Dove have managed to differentiate themselves with the branding of their new Pro-Age range as opposed to anti-ageing. ‘Anti-ageing’ sounds like it’s a crime to age!

 

Dove delivered their brand promise with the Campaign for Real Beauty and they continue to deliver with the Pro-Age campaign.

More Dove magic over at Chris Brown’s blog

Ipod Shuffle - Put some music on!

Loving the new Ipod Shuffle ad! Clever music (ok I may be slightly bias… the lyrics are French), clever concept, clever catch phrase! I’ve always wondered why Apple products are so popular despite receiving (at times) negative publicity. Perhaps because their products look good and their marketing awesome? What do you reckon guys?

UPDATE - 24th January 2007: I just noticed that they are also embracing the gay community - there’s a guy clipping his shuffle to his rainbow scarf!

Seth Godin, Advertising and Fashion Faux-Pas

 

Seth Godin says that companies should spent an enormous amount of their time and budget to focus on becoming ‘the’.

I say that companies should stop using so much in advertisements the pronoun ‘you’. That would be a fashion faux-pas.

Music gets you talking

 

I love the new print advert for the Nokia 5300 Xpressmusic. I have only seen this advert on the Tube so far but it did certainly catch my eye!

 

It’s amazing to see how much the cellular technology has improved in the past few years – I started off with a ‘brick’ phone that should certainly be in a museum, then had one of the first Nokia camera phones, and the trend nowadays seems to have an integrated MP3 player. Although I was an early adopter as far as camera phones are concerned (don’t we all love finding dodgy snap-shops or videos in our mobile phones after a night out?), I never felt the need to have an integrated MP3 player with my phone.

 

The new Nokia advert somehow excites me and makes me want to find out more about the product. I am not quite sure which agency created this ad but the simplistic picture along with the pay-off ‘the song that makes you call a number you should have deleted a long time ago’ would certainly appeal to 15-35 years-old trendy females. Interestingly, the positioning somehow makes we want to check out music phones as I do I certainly do associate music with time and place.

 

 

They also created a male variant of the advert which I unfortunately couldn’t find. The caption says something like ‘the song that makes you want to call the friends your girlfriend doesn’t like.’

 

Music does indeed get you blogging!

 

ABSOLUT(ely) fabulous!

 

I went to the ABSOLUT ICEBAR in London last night and what an experience! One piece of advice – make sure you wear big woolly socks if you don’t want to freeze! It’s a bit pricey to get in but definitely worth it!   The Ice Bar opened a few years ago and has been a real success – a premium bar sponsored by a trendy and innovative brand to create a once in life-time experience.  

Believe it or not, ABSOLUT was introduced in 1879 in Sweden and is the third largest brands of alcoholic spirits after Bacardi and Smirnoff, marketed in 126 countries.  Much of ABSOLUT’s fame is down to its clever marketing. The distinctive bottle is rather old-fashioned, some would even say medicine-like, while the brand name and art-work on the bottle is trendy and modern – I simply love this combination!  

The versatile brand name has also allowed versatile, ‘think global, act local’, advertisements, and with more than 1500 ads, the campaign is the longest running ever. Let’s take a look at a few examples: ABSOLUT London, ABSOLUT Naples, ABSOLUT Paris but to name a few. In addition, ABSOLUT was one of the first consumer brands to embrace gay advertising, reaching an important segment of the market. In fact, very few brands have achieved this without offending gay or straight communities.  

What should ABSOLUT do next?

It’s often difficult when launching an extremely successful campaign do find a good follow-up. For instance, the 2006 French Connection Campaign was heavily criticised.

Firstly, I think that they should try to engage and reach their community via the www. For instance, I particularly liked the different cocktails recipes, where the site’s visitors can rank their favourite drink. 

I think that ABSOLUT were very clever by getting the consumer to design adverts for other consumers via their ABSOLUT LOMO contest. I also like the way they cleverly used the word contest rather than competition. The mission: to shoot one or a series of images capturing the spirit of ABSOLUT. Check out the ABSOLUT website for further details.  

Pepsi gets fizzy with youtube

Despite the fact that we aren’t all switching off the BBC and watching brand-funded programming as was once predicted, there are still some interesting partnerships out there. Take the one between Pepsi and the newly-Google-owned youtube. Pepsi is launching a branded channel on the site to drive traffic to its own video site. It encourages users to create and upload video clips showing how they would ‘max’ their day with £1000. Will this promotion give Pepsi some extra fizz in its marketing or will the plan fall flat? To be continued…

The Campaign for Real Beauty

 

My blog stats meter tells me that you rather enjoyed ’The Evolution of Beauty’ clip I posted last night. How would you feel if I told you that this clip is in fact Dove’s  latest advertisement?  

This clip certainly was an excellent effort intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty. 

The campaign for real beauty’s mission is to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves.The brand’s commitment to the mission starts with using real women, not professional models, of various ages, shapes and sizes to provoke discussion and debate about today’s typecast beauty images. The women proudly show off their wrinkles, curves and bumps provoking a debate through communication initiatives including advertising, interactive Web programs and attention-getting billboards. The program is also enriched by town halls, panel discussions and the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. The global campaign encourages women to join in the discussion about beauty and share their views on real beauty with women around the world.

What particularly amazed me about Dove was their ability to use and orchestrate various medium over a period of time starting off with 2 series of print and TV ads and now carrying on online. Here’s the best bit – Dove’s clip was a viral success but they also managed to communicate with their audience with their ‘share your views’ blog.

And with a mixture of online and offline marketing activity, Dove have probably managed to reach every single segment of their target market.

HSBC - The World’s local stalker

If you watched the news last week, you might remember that HSBC was shamed over the suicide a student who was bombarded with letters and phone calls for a £1000 overdraft. After the news broke out, a number of people complained that HSBC was harassing them over their debts.

The total UK personal debt in September 2006 will have exceeded £1 ¼ trillion and somehow this figure does not surprise me; student debts, credit cards and mortgages all contribute to personal debt.

I therefore feel somewhat uncomfortable when I see ads like this…