BrandsAmongMany

Part of today’s talk that’s making the rounds is the announcement of SI One, Southwest Airlines’ newest custom jet design. I remember when the Shamu plane was launched - probably about 15-20 years ago. It was right around the time that Sea World opened in San Antonio, and there was a bunch of chatter about Shamu One, a Southwest jet painted to look like an Orca whale.

Unlike the more wholesome, endearing patterns of the past, however, SI One is undoubtedly more risque. I’m all for branded airline partnerships. In fact, this is a great idea. If you can bring my ticket price down by putting an image on a plane in a place where I don’t even have to see it as a passenger, more power to you! This one, however, just feels a little…off to me. Not to complain about scantily clad women, but from the brand’s perspective, exactly what value does this bring? Other than giving the plane an undoubtedly Hooters-esque appeal I mean?

I think Kevin’s comment on the Southwest Airlines Blog put it pretty succinctly:

Burger King and the folks at Crispin Porter Bogusky allegedly severed 233,906 Facebook friendships.

That’s right, 233,906 people were defriended in return for a single free Burger King whopper.  That was the idea behind the Burger King Facebook application: The Whopper Sacrifice.

The rules are simple

1. Add the application
2. Delete 10 of your friends
3. Get a coupon for a free Burger King Whopper

But there is a catch.  Those ten friends are sent a message that you traded their friendship for a delicious Whopper.

I hope it was worth it.  And this is truly a brilliant way to use Facebook to advertise.

This morning The New York Times featured a great article about the Presidential Inauguration that is right around the corner and corporations jumping at the opportunity to stamp their brands on it.  I don’t know if it was because I spent the majority of my day yesterday in Ikea, but this definitely caught my interest:

That’s right. Ikea has recreated the Oval Office in Union Station (check out more pictures here).

Other brands taking advantage of the Inaugurations’ captive audience are Quaker Oats (by holding Quaker Oat parties featuring mom’s that blog), Hennessy with limited edition bottles and Pepsi-Co.  It’s a new wave of political consumerism.

And I think it’s pretty amazing how many brands are excited to align themselves with the new presidency. While it’s not surprising (what company would want to miss a captive audience) it is a sign of ‘change’ — I don’t remember many Ikea recreations of Guantanamo.

Its that time again.

Time for agencies to see what they can come up with to show just how merry-creative they are in lieu of the holiday season.  Here at Brands Among Many we have been compiling the cards. We’ll be updating and rating them. In the meantime feel free to e-mail us any we have so far left off the list:

AKQA LONDON: Jingle Microwave Bells.

Publicis Hal Riney: Prepologize.com

POKE NY: Global Naught & Nice List

Colle McVoy: Snowedin.com

IQ Interactive: Merry Match

ClickFireMedia: Rejoice Holiday Card

Bernstein-Rein:  Bernstien-Reindeer Rodeo

Firehouse: Christmas Pickle

W+K London: Christmas Card Maker

Campfire NYC:  Cards

Thunder:Tech: Holiday Card Preview

Bar 1: Video (apparently this is really bad)

Avenue A/Razorfish: Wish Something

Colorado University: (random) Make A Snowman

*****NEW UPDATES****

St. Lukes UK: Global Snowball Fight (I wonder if this can impact your status on the Global Naughty & Nice List)

LOVE Creative Manchester: Green Santa

Over the weekend I received an email from Todd Bishop, co-founder and writer of TechFlash, regarding a post I wrote a while back about the Life Takes Vista campaign. While I hadn’t given the campaign much thought since, Todd appears to have taken quite an interest in it. In fact, he’s put the time into revealing exactly who’s behind the curious campaign. And it’s quite a story…

In short, the campaign was NOT created by rogue Crispin agents (as yours truly thought was a distinct possibility), but rather by one Shmuel “Shmuly” Tennenhaus. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of him either, but apparently he’s “making a name for himself” - guess I can’t knock him too much though since I haven’t been written up in the NYT. Well, Microsoft was none too humored; they’ve served Shmuly a cease-and-desist order citing copyright infringement of the M$ logo. The letter now resides on the Life Takes Vista site if you want to give it a read. Personally, I can’t say I’ll miss the campaign much…

Thanks for the heads-up Todd!

Well first of all, obviously here at *AmongMany we do care, a little. I was asked to look into this Motrin Mom’s debacle after seeing the ad on youTube. I read the comments, I watched the responses, I look at the twitter backlash, the websites devoted to writing about and/or slandering Motrin, and the Motrin Response Apology:

And what’s my take on this all? Am I personally offended? No. Do I think Motrin deserves to be boycotted for making this ad? No. Do I find it distasteful? Eh, no. And that led me to think… who made this ad? How did it get greenlit. I know I have tried to do much more distasteful things and was met time and time again with –’ but we might offend old people,’ ‘what about all the people who are bowlegged,’ ‘but some people are afraid of pigeons.’

Anyway this train of thought led me to wonder, who made this ad?
Some would argue, there is no way this ad was made by a mother. Maybe the person was young, and thought they were being clever. Or maybe some man, who hated how his wife was always wearing the stupid sling and complaining about her back, sent his wife to go see a chiropracter, who she fell in love with and then subsequently left him, wrote the ad. Who knows. But more importantly:

Can you tell if an ad is made by a man or a woman?

Remember this pregnancy test ad?

I remember the first time I saw it I thought, there is NO WAY that ad was created by a woman. I could envision two dudes, sitting in their office being handed this pregnancy testing brief and freaking out. They would begin by exchanging stories about girls they were with, and then they’d focus back down on the brief. They’d read all these impressive stats on the accuracy of the test and then they’d learn you PEE on it. They’d chuckle and then BAM. Technology you pee on, an ad is born, with a man stamp of approval.

A few weeks ago I came across this site called GenderAnalyzer.

It claims to have the ability to analyze your website using the text-classifier uClassify that “has been trained on 2000 blogs written by men and women.”

When I had it scan my personal blog, it predicted I was a man. FAIL.

I had a friend in school who claimed he could always tell the gender. Sweet, sensitive, hand-written, borderline-kinda-maybe funny — it was by a girl. He was a jerk (chicks do love hand-written type).

So back to this Motrin ad. Who made it? Could a female be as insensitive as the blogs make them out to be? Wouldn’t she recognize with all her maternal instinct that holding a baby in a trendy sling was meant to increase the bond between mother & child and look trendy at the same time? I don’t know. When I watch the ad I don’t hear a woman the same way I do when I hear Kashi ads.

What do you think? Can you tell the gender of an ad?

I love the Nissan Shift campaign, probably one of my favorites in the world of car advertising. Yet, their most recent truck commercial seems familiar. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great spot, horrid music aside, but there something wrong here.

Now, compare and contrast.

See what I mean?

One of my favorite writers is Paul Arden, author of Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite and It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be. The books challenge everything, from ideas to thinking, and are the most inspirational pieces of literature I have ever read. I have read hundreds, maybe even thousands of blogs, but it wasn’t until I came across Dave Trott’s Blog that I was immediately reminded of the late Paul Arden. Dave Trott, CD at CST Advertising, fills the void left after Mr. Arden’s passing with his unique anecdotes and advice for young up and comers in the industry. I recommend anyone clamoring for some daily inspiration or words of wisdom to bookmark or subscribe to the blog.

In my first post I mentioned a few good reads that included ihaveanidea or American Copywriter. Additionally, don’t forget to take a glance at Ad Age, AdWeek, or Creativity Online, especially when it comes to the interactive front of advertising. Lastly, anyone interested in a more in-depth analysis about the business and ideas, I recommend reading the books Ogilvy on Advertising, Purple Cow, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This or anything by George Lois. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to stay relevant and keep up with popular culture, read the Gawkers, Perez Hiltons, and a gem I recently came upon, Magnificent Bastard. And watch Saturday Night Live, it’s pure hilarity.

These days, you can find a Facebook group (or six) for just about everything under the sun. Want proof? Do a quick search through the groups section for “Saved by Zero” and you’ll find nothing short of 11 different groups dedicated to Toyota’s newest television commercial touting their extended 0% financing program. While most advertisers pray for their work to “go viral” (I shudder at the phrase), I don’t think this is what Toyota’s agency (Saatchi?) had in mind.

The backlash against this diminuative little piece of film is nothing shy of impressive. The largest of the Facebook hate-groups has swelled to more than two thousand members in only ten days. But the discussions don’t end on Facebook - in fact the social community is perhaps just the tip of the spear. Enraged (and rarely do I use that word to describe viewers of a TV commercial) viewers are coming out of the woodwork in communities of every type imaginable across the web.

Rants can be found on CraigsList (more than one), on sports forums, on gambling sites, and even on Esquire’s website. Major news sites including Forbes have picked up on the story. Someone even went so far as to create a petition to have the ad pulled.

I think we can safely say that this effort has “gone viral”. But perhaps not in the manner that anyone would have hoped for. In fact, I can’t imagine that anyone expected too much of this ad at all. At a glance, it just another mediocre-at-best car advertisment screaming about finance rates on a dozen models - something we’ve all heard thousands of times by now, unfortunately.

But tick people off just enough and you’ll find exactly how powerful an outlet the web can be. People who use the web to foster any number of diverse interests have found common ground on this one, and they’re not going quietly into the night this time. Sure, plenty of ads have been pulled because they outraged this group of fanatics or that one, but can anyone else remember a commercial that’s been pulled - not that this one has…yet - because it was just plain bad? Keep an eye out. This could set an unusual precedent.

Oh, and if you haven’t seen the spot yet, here it is:

Advertising, in its most rudimentary state, is supposed to inform people on products and services. For me, advertising is so much more than just a, “paid form of communication.” The ideas and creativity in advertising is inspiring and it’s not just me.  Sure, I hope to make a career in advertising and I’m probably not the best example, but if people weren’t so inspired by great ads, why would someone view this commercial 3 millions times? Or this commercial 2.8 million times?

Many ad-gurus have been calling the television spot dead for years, slain by the internet and user-generated content. That’s ridiculous. Whether the spot is on YouTube, Vimeo, or the regular old television, a good ad evokes emotion and ignites action. Seems to me, with the help of the internet, the so-called “dead” television spot has even more potential. With Facebook, Myspace, e-mail, blogs, forums, message boards, and whatever other ways people connect on the world wide web, a television spot has literally unlimited reaches. The interactive age of advertising calls for better, more creative, and more inspiring commercials. And heck, a nice micro-site that tags along with a spot doesn’t hurt either.

Brands like Nike, Burger King, Volkswagen, Toyota Trucks, and Apple have been pretty successful on the web. Windows was doing pretty good when they had Seinfeld in their ads, but once they dumped the project, who even cared anymore?