Blogbook
We get it. It’s hard for ads to stand out from the crowd. There’s a lot of noise out there and it can feel like the big, expensive, TV campaign you’re funding is just going to sink into the void, making only a tiny splash for your efforts. Stuff like ad jingles don’t just cost money, nowadays they might not even be an appropriate use of your budget spend, given the number of options out there. TV viewership is dropping, especially in the younger demographic, who probably watch more Netflix and YouTube than TV, and likely have adblockers to skip past any prerolls on YouTube. To get wide viewership on your ads, chances are you’re going to have to get people to share it around and choose to watch it. How do you get someone to watch your ad when people are increasingly time-poor and there’s so much free content about cute animals out there?
Do you touch on an issue that you know is going to get traction by being “controversial”, like Gillette?
(We watched the ad and don’t understand why it’s considered controversial.) Spend big money on a star who’s highly popular on social media?
Or like Skittles, make an ad that isn’t an ad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nIJCtq9KOk
How about Ricky Gervais’ hilarious non-ads for Optus?
Or Geico’s unskippable and unusual pre-rolls?
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Anti-ads are funny. They tend to get shared, because face it, if you ask any non-agency member of the general public out there whether they like being served ads, they’re likely to say that they don’t. But they’re likely also to have seen ads before that they liked, even if they don’t like ads in general. Chances are, that’s because the ad that they liked was not at all like ‘ads in general’. They were funnier, different, useful, or touching — in some way, the ad had risen above the usual crowd. They were, in some way, not a waste of time.
How To Make Ads That Aren’t a Waste of Time
The reason ads get such a bad rep is because a great deal of advertising is useless fluff created to get people to do something that they don’t want to. The harder the thing is to do (change their insurance provider, for example), the better the ad has to be. The ads have to be entertaining, one way or the other. Either by being educational, or touching, or funny, or something else. That’s one thing that some clients and agencies don’t quite get. An ad — whether offline or online — is at its most effective a piece of entertainment created with a message. Unbranded content is all well and good–the sponsored short film without direct product placement is popular nowadays, like this collaboration between Morton Salt and OKGo:
These films do go viral, but after watching that OKGo film, do you feel the intense need to buy that particular brand of salt? Or salt in general? Thought not. Maybe the stills can go into a tacked-on addon campaign or onto other touchpoints, and they definitely haven’t wasted the viewer’s time, but was it worth making? Maybe. Consumers might now be aware that this particular brand of salt exists. The next time they buy salt, they might — maybe — give it a go.
Good advertising, anti or not, is pretty about finding the sweet spot between creating a piece of entertainment that someone is going to like to engage with and a product that has a decent return on investment for a client. Think of it this way: there’s so much free unbranded content out there, like funny cat videos. If your ad is somehow even fractionally as worth watching as a cat trying and failing to make a jump, you’re nearly there.
The Elephant in the Room
The elephant in the room in advertising is cost. Anything in life that’s worth anything costs something. Same goes to a good ad — although nimble agencies like us can do a lot with less, we can’t do a lot with nothing. You do often get what you pay for, especially if your ad needs voice-overs, talent, CG, or styling. Advertising can feel like a risk, we understand that. And for certain organisations (NGOs, government etc), a splashy ad budget can look out of touch and lead to bad press. That’s where anti-advertising can come in. If you have a small buck and want to make a big bang for it, it might not be a bad thing to do something different. It’s best to talk to a few agencies to figure out what can or can not be done with the budget you have, if you aren’t sure. And you’d be able to get a decent feel for the industry. Want to have a chat about it, no strings attached? Get in touch.
Rams (2018) is a documentary film about German industrial designer Dieter Rams, directed by Gary Hustwit, initially funded via Kickstarter. Through the NYTimes:
Boiled down to one thought, the ethos of the industrial designer Dieter Rams is this: “Less, but better.” That phrase is repeated almost like a mantra in “Rams,” a documentary portrait of a man who is still active and vital at 86. Rams’s work emphasizes clean lines not for their own sake but in the service of making products easy to understand and use. He was the chief designer at the German company Braun for decades (he retired from that job in 1995), and his designs for tape recorders, radios, coffee makers and other products have a simple beauty that remains striking and also timeless.
The movie tells his life story, punctuated with interviews and sometimes astringent asides from Rams. (His low opinion of the architect Frank Gehry is dropped so casually and drolly it’s easy to miss.) Rams’s influence on the products of Apple, a company he has never worked with, is discussed; less discussed is Apple’s aggressiveness in pushing new iterations of its products, which indicates that the company is merely cherry-picking Rams’s principles, which also stress sustainability and corporate responsibility.
The Game of Thrones SXSW activation literally invited people to bleed for the throne — by donating blood to the Red Cross. Via Endgadget:
Like many activations — the gross industry term for these events where consumers interact with brands — it’s both a way for HBO to promote itself while letting fans step into a world they love. But instead of just being yet another depressing example of media excess, Bleed for the Throne is also something that’ll help save lives. It’s just a shame that it’s limited by archaic FDA restrictions.
Under the agency’s current rules, laid out in 2015, gay or bisexual men who’ve had sex with other men within the past 12 months aren’t allowed to give blood. That’s actually an improvement on the FDA’s prior rules, which banned gay men from donating for life, but it still feels unnecessarily punishing. Once they were made aware of the restrictions, gay men online called out HBO for running what was essentially a discriminatory contest, The Daily Beast reports.
“The ‘Bleed for the Throne’ campaign is and has always been open to everyone,” an HBO spokesperson said when asked for a comment about the FDA’s restrictions. “Knowing that FDA regulations may prohibit blood donation by some, we have created multiple ways for fans to interact with the campaign, including entry to the activation at SXSW and the season 8 premiere sweepstakes … Those unable to donate blood in national blood drives can still enter the sweepstakes by contacting the Red Cross Donor Support Center with a request to be entered, along with their name, mailing address and a valid email. Inclusivity is a key HBO value, and we have long been supporters of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Coach has tapped Spike Lee to direct an ad for it, and he’s brought in Michael B Jordan in a black leather jacket on a motorcycle, much appreciated. Via Variety:
Newly minted Oscar winner Spike Lee is teaming up with “Black Panther” star Michael B. Jordan on a new short film for Coach that explores the way we hold words and objects close to our hearts – and how they can impact the way we live our lives.
Titled “Words Matter,” the 90-second spot was released this week and features Jordan, the current global face of Coach menswear, riding his motorcycle through the scenic landscape of the Southern California desert. The actor pulls up to a dusty clearing, where he soon spots rocks scrawled with negative words hidden among the cracked desert floor. Taking action into his own hands — literally — he casts the bad stones aside and replaces them with rocks engraved with more positive words. “Bigotry” becomes “Love”; “Lies” becomes “Truth”; and “Evil” becomes “Dream.”
Lee directed and co-wrote the film with his children Satchel and Jackson Lee, while Coach says both the director and Jordan hand-picked the words seen on the rocks. The two shot the film in Southern California this past fall, just before the busy awards season which saw Lee garner multiple nominations and awards for “BlacKkKlansman” (get the film here), while Jordan campaigned for “Black Panther” (get the film here).
Working together for the first time, both men said they were excited to collaborate on a project that spoke to their shared values of inclusion, optimism, and storytelling.
Vitaminwater will pay a millennial fantasy author (who won their challenge) $100,00 to switch off her smartphone for a year. Via Geek.com:
A New York-based millennial is giving up her smartphone for a year to try to win $100,000 from Vitaminwater.
In December, Vitaminwater introduced its phone-free challenge on Instagram and Twitter, which asked the social media community if they would ditch their smartphones for 12 months in exchange for the ultimate reward: $100,000 in cash.
On Friday, Vitaminwater, which sorted through more than 100,000 entries submitted on Instagram and Twitter, named its chosen candidate: Elana Mugdan, a 30-year-old filmmaker and young adult fantasy writer who lives in the New York City area, CNBC reported. Mugdan, who submitted an informercial-style video on Twitter, impressed judges with her humorous perspective on smartphone addiction.
Mugdan will trade her iPhone 5S for a throwback cellular device from Vitaminwater: A Kyocera flip phone without modern smartphone amenities like social media apps, direct messaging, and photo editing. For the next year, she won’t be allowed to use any smartphones or tablets, however, she can use desktop computers and laptops. If she wins the challenge, Mugdan plans to donate some of her funds to charities and financially support her writing career. With the challenge, she aims to show other millennials that it’s possible to enjoy living in the moment without having a smartphone.
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse has taken the Oscar award for Best Animated Feature, unseating Pixar (who was in the running) for the first time. It was my favourite film of last year, and you can catch the first 9 minutes above. Via the Verge:
Back in 2013, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced plans for its own elaborate, interconnected universe based around Spider-Man. Among the planned titles: Amazing Spider-Man 3 (which never happened), Venom (which arguably shouldn’t have happened), and The Sinister Six (which hasn’t happened yet, though writer-director Drew Goddard would still love to tackle it). Instead, Sony went a different way, partnering with Marvel two years later to make Spider-Man part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to Tom Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming and other MCU films.
It was a concession that perhaps Marvel Studios knew how to best handle the marquee version of the character. But in spite of Spider-Man’s successful MCU integration, Sony continued to work on many of its expanded universe ideas. The most intriguing of the bunch was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated film meant not only to step away from the world of live-action superheroes, but to put the spotlight on Miles Morales, the character writer Brian Michael Bendis created in 2011 to take over the mantle of Spider-Man after Peter Parker was killed. With the project being creatively shepherded by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo behind The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street films, the project had the potential to offer a fresh, radically different take on the character that would actually warrant a standalone film in a sea of interconnected franchise titles.
Plastic has been found in seafood and in animals even within the deepest oceans, according to more and more scientific reports. Plastic microfibres are getting into seafood. Via Vox:
It’s no secret that too many of the plastic products we use end up in the ocean. But you might not be aware of one major source of that pollution: our clothes.
Polyester, nylon, acrylic, and other synthetic fibers — all of which are forms of plastic — are now about 60 percent of the material that makes up our clothes worldwide. Synthetic plastic fibers are cheap and extremely versatile, providing for stretch and breathability in athleisure, and warmth and sturdiness in winter clothes.
These fibers contribute to ocean plastic pollution in a subtle but pervasive way: The fabrics they make — along with synthetic-natural blends — leach into the environment just by being washed. Estimates vary, but it’s possible that a single load of laundry could release hundreds of thousands of fibers from our clothes into the water supply.
And these tiny fibers — less than 5 millimeters in length, with diameters measured in micrometers (one-thousandth of a millimeter) — can eventually reach the ocean. There, they’re adding to the microplastic pollution that’s accumulating in the food chain and being ingested by all sorts of marine wildlife, and even us. Most of the plastic that’s in the ocean, in terms of number of pieces, is not in the form of whole products like cups or straws, but instead broken-down shreds of plastic.
“Period. End of Sentence” is the winner of this year’s Oscar Short Documentary, a short film about menstruation stigmatisation. Via ABC News:
When director Rayka Zehtabchi walked on stage to collect her Academy Award for best documentary short, she was crying.
“I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything,” she said.
“I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!”
Her documentary, Period. End of Sentence. shone a spotlight on how menstruation can impede a girl’s ability to continue with her education.
It also highlighted the work of an organisation called The Pad Project, which aims to deliver sanitary products to women in developing countries. hen women do not have access to sanitary products like tampons and pads, they are forced to resort to unhygienic alternatives to absorb the blood, sometimes using dirty rags, leaves, newspaper and ashes.
This leaves them open to infection and creates a feeling of shame about what is a natural bodily function.
According to The Pad Project, girls are often forced to stay home from school while they are menstruating, which can sometimes equate to missing a week of school each month.
The more school girls miss, the more likely it is they will fall behind and drop out completely.
“Culturally in many parts of India, menstruation is still considered to be dirty and impure,” scholars Suneela Garg and Tanu Anand wrote in a study about menstruation myths in India.
“Taboos surrounding menstruation exclude women and girls from many aspects of social and cultural life.”
Go behind the scenes with Star Trek: Discovery in this featurette on the mysterious Section 31. Yes, that’s supposedly the Michelle Yeoh spinoff. Via io9:
Section 31. The Starfleet mystery that’s a bit less mysterious than it used to be. Star Trek: Discovery has been heavily invested in exploring the organization and their vibe. In a new behind-the-scenes video, the show’s creators offer insight into how they designed the look and feel of the clandestine group.
Turns out, it all started with the dark, sleek badge used to identify its members. From there, came the leather, the black, the moody kinky vibe of the Section 31 outfits.
“It’s like walking around in dominatrix gear all the time and having so much fun with it,” Michelle Yeoh says.
We tried watching the new Discovery some time ago and was disappointed when Michelle Yeoh’s character seemingly died in an unnecessary way. So we’re definitely looking forward to the spinoff. Star Trek has also tapped Hanelle Culpepper to direct the Picard series, making it the first female director to launch a Trek series in its 53 year history. Looking good:
To date, Culpepper has directed two Star Trek: Discovery episodes, season one’s “Vaulting Ambition” and the upcoming tenth episode of season two. One of the top episodic directors working today, she most recently directed multiple episodes of Counterpart and Shooter, as well as AMC’s forthcoming show, NOS4A2. Her many other credits include How to Get Away with Murder, Gotham, Criminal Minds, and American Crime. Culpepper got her start by assisting Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri on her directorial debut, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. She followed that experience by participating in AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women, where she quickly found her vision and voice behind the camera.
Nike’s shareprice took a hit earlier this week when basketballer Zion Williamson had his Nike shoe blow out in a game. He suffered a sprain. Nike quickly went into damage control mode. Via CNN:
Nike is playing damage control after Duke basketball phenom Zion Williamson tore his sneaker in a game Wednesday evening.
Nike’s (NKE) stock was down more than 1% on Thursday. Nike builds its reputation around creating premier shoes and clothes for athletes, but that image took a hit with Williamson’s sneaker snafu. Analysts attributed the stock move to Williamson, the presumptive top pick in this year’s NBA draft and the hottest prospect since LeBron James entered the draft from high school more than a decade ago. Within the first minute of Duke’s blockbuster matchup against rival North Carolina on Wednesday, one of Williamson’s Nike PG2.5 shoes split apart.
Williamson left the game with a knee injury. Former President Barack Obama was sitting courtside, and clips of Williamson breaking his shoe and Obama pointing to it immediately went viral. Nike, which exclusively supplies Duke’s basketball team with uniforms, shoes and gear, quickly released a statement.
“The quality and performance of our products are of utmost importance,” the company said. “While this is an isolated occurrence, we are working to identify the issue.” Endorsement deals with star athletes, including LeBron James and Serena Williams, and sponsorships with pro sports leagues and top college basketball and football teams are a crucial part of Nike’s growth strategy.