Awesome Ad for the 2005 Honda wagon

Came across this again today but figured some of you may not have seen it. It's a British ad for the 2005 Honda Accord Wagon. The ad was made using only parts from the car itself and took them over 600 takes to get right.



In case you're wondering the reason the wheels roll uphill is because they were loaded with counter weights.

Read more about the ad here

Be cool with the coolhunter!

I found this really neat site that you should definitely check out. Be warned that some of the stuff is very edgy and not for everyone and NSFW (not safe for work)! The site is dedicated to finding all things cool and it definitely succeeds. They have some cool marketing stuff on there too like this ad from Folgers that covers manhole covers in NYC:



Or this ad for addidas soccer featuring the German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn (that's huge!):

Issue 9: Is everything offensive these days?

I was thinking I would do a more light hearted response article to someone else's blog but Abby's blog entry regarding Sony's "racially charged" PSP ads (shown below) really caught my interest.


I had heard about the ads earlier from several other blog and news sites that I visit. The furor over the ads is, obviously, that it depicts a white model aggressively holding a black model. This ad is intended to announce the coming white iteration of the Sony PSP whereas previously it was only available in black.

Now I understand where some people may be offended by the ad. There are a few reasons actually. First, of course is the racial angle: a white model is the aggressor against the black model. Second, the sexist angle: they are "sexy" female models advertising a piece of consumer electronics, in a fairly unobvious way (why do they need to be scantily clad?). The ad was placed in Europe, as Abby points out, but in these days of the internet news and information spreads, quite literally, at the speed of light.

I am a fairly tolerant person and my personal view is that maybe we have forgotten what offensive actually is. If putting a black and white person together in an ad is instantly "racial" then we haven't really come very far in the last few decades. The ad to me does not allude to slavery or the civil rights movement but I can see how some people would see that as their first impression.

I do understand the need for sensitivity in ads but at what point to do we stop being edgy and just end up being boring? Edginess and humor is almost always targeted at someone and thus can always be construed as offensive. Should we stop making funny ads just because they offend people? I am kind of playing devil's advocate here because I believe we should work to destroy racial and cultural sterotypes. There are actually several websites that track offensive ads in the media, somthing that I found kind of interesting. Do you think the following ads are offensive?

Is this ad offensive to the guy or the girl? Is the guy so superficial that he would rather make love to his car or are ladies offended because they can be replaces with automobiles?





















Is this ad too gruesome or does it relay it's message effectively? Is it offensive to heart disease victims? I think this is a great ad that fits in perfectly with the brand message that Benetton tries to portray.











This is the logo for French Connection United Kingdom (FCUK) a clothing line based out of the UK. Obviously the abbreviation is very close to another 4 letter word with an entirely different meaning. Is it wrong for the company to build it's whole brand around this name?

The answers are not easy and I don't claim to have them. As Abby points out, we must be sensitive towards our target audience and also to others who may see the ad. With ncreasingly targeted advetising is it worth it to entertain one target segment while offending others outside your target market? These are the questions that marketers face in this age of increasing vigilance over ad's subject matter and the internet, where news both good and bad can spread like wildfire.

You MUST watch this ad!!

NikeGolf

This is Nike's new Golf ad featuring Tiger Woods. Knowing that golf swings are one of the biggest obsessions for golfers Nike took a 4000fps (yes that's 4000 frames per second... ordinary film is 28fps) and recorded Tiger's golf swing.

The result is a mesmerizing, minimalist ad that is appealing even if you have no interest in golf. The online version is even cooler than the TV version since you can watch individual portions of Tiger's body (feet, head etc) during his swing motion. The musical accompaniment is great as well seeing as the swing is a "symphony" of movement.

Moto-Razr 2

Pics of Motorola's KRZR for Verizon - Engadget Mobile

In case any of you were wondering what the new version of the RAZR will look like here it is:

Looks a lot more narrow than the original which was my gripe with the first one.

Figure 8: How small changes can make a big difference

The Alamo Drafthouse theaters are my favorite movie venues in Austin. Not only are they a local business (always a plus) but they have quirky and individualizing differences that make the movie going experience there that much more pleasant. They accept student ID’s for cheaper tickets and offer a food and drink experience that is very different from your general mega-plex experience.The changes start from the location of the theaters. Alamo theaters are generally unassuming little buildings integrated into strip malls. The parking is no different than the parking for the hair salons and restaurants next door. For special events and “big” movie releases the Alamo will sometimes decorate their lobby and the exterior of the buildings. For example, prior to reaching the theater to watch “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” moviegoers had to step through an actual wardrobe which led to a snow covered area with real evergreen trees!

Upon entering the theater you notice that they play off-beat little videos prior to the movie. These are generally related to the movie that is about to be played. Some of the clips may be before-they-were-famous flashbacks of the movie’s stars, or original versions of remade movies, or very strange international versions of the movie (Turkish Wizard of Oz?!). Even the cell phone and noise discretion notices are different. Presented in the form of mini movies, they incorporate clips of old movies (Gremlins, Goonies etc) or local Austin celebrities (Anne Richards etc) telling you to “Be Quiet or We’ll take your ass out!” Once the movie starts you can order food and drinks (including beer and wine) by writing your order on a small sheet of paper and placing it in a slot on your table. The servers come by throughout the movie to bring out your food, give refills, and collect your payment.

None of these differences are huge by any means but put together they offer a unique selling proposition that no other theaters can offer. Combined with the fact that Austinites value local and “weird” businesses Alamo is a veritable hit! There is nothing stopping other business from offering similar, slightly augmented services or products to make them distinct from the competition. For example, other theaters could offer built in baby-sitting services where you leave your child at the door with a responsible adult and then collect the child when the movie is over. This would reduce the trepidation parents have of being too far away from their kids while still being able to enjoy a night out. Central Market and Whole Foods offer cooking classes in the store which makes for a novel attraction that HEB and Randall’s generally can’t compete with.

Offering a slightly augmented product or service can mean the difference between a blockbuster (Pirates of the Caribbean) and a flop (Lady in the Water)!

Jessica Simpson screaming your name

Yahoo! Music - Jessica Simpson

Again, not an official blog entry but as a follow up to my "Customized Customer" blog entry, this is just nuts. On Yahoo music you can customize Jessica Simpsons new song, "A Public Affair", and buy a version where she actually sings your name in the song!? How crazy is that?

It's kind of cool, but I'm sure it crosses some line in terms of artistic integrity. But we are talking about Jessica "Chicken of the Sea" Simpson here. I wonder if other ""pop" artists will follow suit. This reminds me of Lord of the Rings (LOTR as the cool kids call it) where if you signed up for their fan club, your name was included in the credits of the extended cut of the final movie complete with an orginal song score too.

McDonalds Sundial Billboard ad

McD’s launches next strike in breakfast war – in Wrigleyville


This is not an official "required" blog update, but I just wanted to share this really cool Sundial billboard ad installed by McDonalds in Wrigleyville. Based on teh position of the sun the golden arches point at a different menu item ranging from coffee to a big mac. Ingenious!

Part 7: Customized Customers (try saying that 10 times fast)

Ever wonder what that song is playing on the radio? It's got the catchiest beat and the most infectious chorus since Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" but the radio DJ never says the name of song!!?? Well, Cingular has got you covered. Using an innovative new recognition technology users can identify songs using their cell phones! You dial "#ID" on your phone and hold up the phone to the speaker playing the mystery song. A few minutes later you get a text message with the name of the song and artist and options to download a ring tone if it's available. Each time you use the service it costs $0.99, a relative bargain for some pretty cool technology.

This service is an example of a growing number of retailers offering differentiating and post sales service options to consumers. With many technologies and product becoming commoditized, firms face increasing difficulty marketing their products to stand out from the pack. Offering the customer innovative features (such as song id), customizable features (such as removable, colored, cell phone cases), and microtransactions (such as downloadable ring tones for cell phones) helps a product differentiate itself from its peers. In addition these features can represent incremental income for a company long after the initial product has been sold.

A good example of this is the ipod accessories aftermarket. While the Apple offers a limited selection of "official" accessories the 3rd party offerings easily dwarf those of Apple's own. Part of the reason the ipod is so popular is the range of accessories and after-market add-ons available for the device. The extensive list of add-ons is a selling point for the MP3 that is, in many ways, inferior to many competing playing. While the brand and cache of owning an ipod is part of the reason for its success, not doubt the accessory market helps more than hinders.

With the next generation of home video-game consoles, microtransactions are gaining momentum with companies as a way to market to consumers. By marking many small purchasers, users end up spending a significant amount of money a little at a time giving the illusion of value. Using their online infrastructure, called XBOX live, Microsoft has introduced a whole microtransaction marketplace where console users can buy new cars for racing games, remakes of old arcade games, and "skins" for their console's operating system.

As the marketplace gets ever crowded with more and more homogenous products companies will increasingly turn to after sales service, customization, and micropayments as differentiators. So next time you're in the market for a new phone make sure it has myspace connectivity!

Article 6: Forget Nostradamus, how about Google-damus?

I was reading a story in Wired the other day (and now I can't seem to find it) but the gist of it went something like this: If you look at what people are searching for on the internet, much of the information you provide indicates what your intent is. If you search for home prices you are probably looking to buy or sell a house. If you search for movie times you are most likely going to the movies soon. The article stated that if you could aggregate all that info from across the internet you could identify trends, desires, needs, and wants on a massive, macro scale.

Of course being able to predict future trends would be a boon to marketers. You could use the information to react to your customers before they even knew what they wanted. Say, as a clothes designer, you saw an increase in the number of searches for distressed, logo t-shirts. You could infer information from that and offer a line of clothing that fit in with that style before there is mass demand. At least theoretically that's how it's supposed to work I think!

Google ran an internal experiment to see if this mass psyche could be correct about market information. From their results (shown to the right) the "crowd" was fairly accurate at predicting the true market price of whatever they were measuring. This explanation of the experiment reveals that the more people involved in the experiment, the more accurate the results are expected to be. Enlarge this to a global scale and you can see that leveraging the planet's collective psyche could yield some interesting results.

Another experiment at MIT logged activity of staff and professors for an extended period of time using their schedules and cell phones. The resulting model could accurately predict the future actions of any of the users within an accuracy of 85%.

So what does it all mean? And how does it pertain to marketing, advertising, and insights? Companies have already released predictive analysis software to help data mine and databases and predict consumer behavior. If the algorithms work, I think the added value is readily apparent. Being able to know what your consumers want before they want it is surely a dark art (in the world of Harry Potter) but would be priceless!

It remains to be seen if this cutting edge technology actually pans out, but if it does then marketers (and many scary, government bodies no doubt!) will be very interested in it. Identifying trends in any macro system is tricky but with a ubiquitous system like google, with billions of people jacked in, logic tells us the sheer amount of data being scoured should reveal some trends. Next time I decide to visit Starbucks will my skim-milk Mocha already be waiting for me?

Section 5 (Response blog): The dog say "woof", the cat says "meow", the frog says "rebate rebate"

Many people browse through their local Best Buy circular looking for deals on gadgets and electronics (or you can go here and see all the circulars for your region at once). Often a price will look amazingly low and you rush off to the store only to find that the you neglected to read the small print to see that the price is AFTER REBATE!! Ugh.

Much like prices ending in .99 to make things seem cheaper ($249 equates to $240 and not $250 for some reason), rebates have long been used by retailers to entice users to make a purchase that would otherwise be out of budget. The rebate normally requires you to mail in your entry within a specified (and typically obscure) time frame, include receipts, UPC symbols, a filled out form, return postage (sometimes), headshots of your first cousins, your foot size, a fresh baked cookie, and a urine sample. Fine I made up that last stuff but oftentimes the rebate form is made deliberately difficult to deter people from sending them in, or to cause confusion and errors so the manufacturer is not obligated to send any payment back. On top of that, the time between when you mail in your request to when you receive payment is juuuuuuust long enough (6-15 weeks) so that you have forgotten about the rebate altogether. Thus if you never get anything back you don't care because you've forgotten anyway!

I regularly read slashdot (it's a tech/nerd blog) and recently saw a story regarding Office Max and how they would cease using mail in rebates. According to the story MIR's (mail in rebates) were the number one complaint they got from customers so they decided to act on it. Best buy is reportedly going to drop rebates as well. The new prices will include any rebates or offer in-store rebates. Slashdot linked to a website/blog called rebate roulette which in turn linked to ZDnet news. This illustrates the way news spreads through the proverbial blogosphere. Share a customer experience and it's "headline"' news to the masses.

The Rebate Roulette website was really interesting in that it offers a forum for people to discuss their rebate experiences in dealing with different stores and websites. The slogan for the site is "Get your rebates, not thee shaft". In browsing the site you can see they have overall ratings for retailers and e-tailers. Best buy has a 4.5 star rating (out of 5) which indicates they are fairly honest and quick with their rebates. Cingular on the other hand has as 1.5 star rating indicating that the users weren't too happy with their experiences. Granted only 2 people submitted reviews for Cingular, the data may not be accurate. The site does encourage users to submit good and bad experiences so that the data is not skewed one way of the other. It is easier to complain than compliment right?

The website is a useful tool for businesses to get a good idea on the perception of their company and their rebate services. There are other retailer review sites like bizrate and epinions but I was focusing only on the rebate experience aspect. All these forums are a good way for management to step down from their ivory towers and see how regular users perceive their businesses. It's true that bad news spreads quickly but retailers with good ratings get positive word of mouth and develop very positive online reputations. I myself have spread the gospel of newegg.com (PC accessories) and monoprice.com (high end but cheap AV cables... NEVER buy Monster cable!) since the service, speed, and integrity of those stores has impressed me so much. I, in turn, heard about those stores from other users.

In short, it's a good idea for companies to use these review and rating websites to see how they actually perform compared to what their self perception is. I guess the next step would be for social networking sites to offer "personal reviews" so that people can rate and review their friends! Surely I must be worth 5 stars.... :)