Its been an interesting few weeks in the advertising world. The concept of “branding” has reached new levels. Its really quite interesting to watch big companies run around looking for the next big way to attract customers. I guess like with anything else in life; the results are at times pathetic and ingenious. The image my mind conjures up is that of a frustrated magician performing tricks for a little kid. Some make him laugh, some make him scared, some get no reaction at all. But the bottom line is, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. The magician has to just keep thinking of new tricks…
Some highs and lows:
The new HP TV ads are really really good. How much money does it take to get Jay-Z, Pharell, Billionaire Mark Cuban, Pro Snowboarder Shaun White, and Survivor creator Mark Burnett all to do an ad that won’t even show their face? Apparently $200 million will do the trick, but I thought it would be much more than that. We do a lot of ad work at Staple and one major process for the ad agency (in this case McCann-Erickson) is pitching the client (in this case HP) on the concept of the ad campaign. The dilemma is, you can’t really go and spend millions on creating it and hope the client says yes. So you have to create an “example” of what the ad will be, but try and make it so close to the real thing that the client easily understands what you’re trying to do. I would LOVE to see the pitch for this campaign. It must have been pretty diffiuclt to do. Kudos to them for A) getting HP to sign off on spening millions to get these celebrities and NOT show their face. And B) executing the TV spots in the manner they did. If you think about how these are made, it must have been very akward to shoot and produce. Props to the design team…
SIDENOTE: Wonder why no women were chosen for this? I wouldn’t be surprised that they decided to launch with men first because they were afraid that viewers might think HP wants you to just stare at tits all day long.
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A women recently offered up her FOREHEAD for anyone that wants to tattoo their company logo on it. The Golden Palace casino paid $10,000 for the ad space. Thumbs up for the creativity. Thumbs down for the negotiations. $10,000 to tat your head? The press they got on this blog post alone is worth more than that. Holla.
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A company (not Nike hopefully) figured out a way to laser artwork onto the side of eggs without damaging your scrambles. The first bidder came from CBS News. Guess they think while you cook your breakfast, it might trigger you to turn on the TV and watch CBS? I don’t know about you but I would go out of my way to buy eggs with no logos on the side. Some things just need to be left sacred. I mean, what’s next? An advertisement when I take a piss?
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And finally, Pizza Hut offered approx $1.25 million to put their logo on the side of a Russian Rocket being sent up to space. Get this: “Pizza Hut marketers first considered trying to put the image of the updated logo — the company’s name beneath a red roof — on the moon with lasers.
But, after consulting with astronomers and physicists, they found that the image would have to be as big as Texas to be seen from Earth. The project would also have cost hundreds of millions of dollars.” STOP THE MADNESS PEOPLE! PLEASE! Whoever manages to finally pull off putting an ad on the moon should be shot.
UPDATE:
KARMA WINS: 29 seconds into lift off, the Russian Rocket exploded. Hope Pizza Hut got a refund on that one!
so i was sleeping with my ipod on and i had a dream that involved you and shoes. i woke up and realized that i was listening to the weeklydrop where you were the guest. inspirational.
the making of the shaun white commercial..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu0b348A1CU
motion theory did the ads.
how hard would it have been to mockup and pitch? it’s a single camera, no face shot and all afterefx or whatever that could get “mocked” up relatively quickly and efficiently… doesn’t seem to near as hard of a commercial to pitch as say those VW ones where people are doing stuff and BANG!… they’d have to wreck a car for every take and every version of the commercial even in the pitch right? I dunno. great commercials though!
Ads with famous name endorsement, tattoos, and Rockets aren’t really suprising to me anymore. I feel like its apart of the norm in everyday life and culture. I see it everywhere esp. when I’m watching sports events. I know Nascar’s cars has a whole zillions of ads but if you watch any tv shows, the advertisement are always together with the segement. For example ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption by Red Stripe, SNY’s Daily News Live, The “put your ad or sponsor here” Half-Time Report or Post Game Report from “any sports league”. I don’t think this MADNESS is going to stop. Somehow I envision it might be like the movie “Minority Report” with those hologram ads in the coming years to come.
Just a heads up … the ads were made by San Fransisco agency Goodby, Silverstein + Partners, not McCann.
Also, they were good advertisements for entertainment, but the overall brand idea by HP is very lackluster. The computer has always been personal. They’re just trying to appeal to a younger audience, look cooler and compete a little more with Apple by choosing the people they did (Jay, Shaun White, etc.)