Two Cents

The race that stops a nation seemed like a perfect occasion to get the nation to stop and think about the Artline brand.

And so on Melbourne Cup Day as well as the two days approaching it, we ran full page and page-dominant versions of this ad right around the country.

As usual, Martin ‘The Shark’ Durek wrung incredible value out of our media dollar while Sutts and the studio made it really jump off the page.

Special credit and our farewell wishes go out to Artline’s departing marketing manager, Lynn Dewick whose trust has helped produce some memorable work on the brand which includes executions for Red Alert, Deficit and April Fool’s Day.

Geoff Reid is BCM Sydney’s Creative Director

“Quick! The Daily Telegraph has a 10 x 7 going for a song on page 9 tomorrow which happens to be the 9th of the 9th, 2009.”

Sounded exciting at first, then rather ridiculous a second later. Until after some thought, we realised that Artline’s biggest seller, the Artline 200 Fineliner comes in 9 colours.

Thanks to Sutts’ wrist, a positive client and our trusty studio, it was all over in a couple of hours and in the paper the next day. So much for research.

Geoff Reid is BCM Sydney’s Creative Director

If there’s one thing that Mums are sick of, it’s having to ask family members to do the same things over and over when they don’t listen.

And if there’s one thing Dads are sick of, it’s listening to Mum saying things over and over (because they really don’t listen in the first place).

That dangerous thought is behind BCM’s latest campaign for Pelikan Artline’s permanent markers. It’s entitled, ‘Stop repeating yourself’ and presents the markers as the solution to this problem in and around the home.

Lynn from Artline said, ‘It’s a fun concept and will definitely strike a chord with all Mums and with any luck, strike fear into those family members who don’t listen the first time!’

I just think the approach shows Artline understands their (rather bossy) target. And with any luck it should do a lot for noise pollution in this country. (I hope my wife doesn’t read this blog.)

The campaign has just started running in womens’ magazines and newspaper supplements and we’re now looking to extend it online, where women might be able to send in their own shots and comments’.

By the way, if anyone’s interested, that’s Sutts’ dunny.

Geoff Reid is BCM Sydney’s Creative Director

Like with our recent Aprils Fools Day microchip campaign, it was satisfying that our client Pelikan Artline implemented our idea to take the only responsible course of action in The Weekend Australian, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age by informing the country of the upcoming federal government budget deficits.

It was not something that Artline took any joy in having to announce. But when we suggested that last Tuesday night Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan neglected to even mention what must be now known as the ‘D’ word in the halls of government during his budget address, they asked BCM to book some ad space in the weekend papers.

We obliged knowing that Artline are providing the necessary written public service announcement for when the thought of saying deficit was a little too much for the country’s Treasurer.

Still, chin up Wayne. We know that you, Kev and Julia are hard at work helping to get Australia through the seven difficult budget years ahead.

What started out as boardroom banter a few weeks earlier, this morning ended up being showcased on Channel 9’s Today Show and Reuter’s international news service as a cut-through April Fool’s Day joke.

BCM, together with client Pelikan Artline, brought the Artline brand positioning of ‘The pens more people pinch’ to life by introducing a groundbreaking, new technology - trackable microchiped Artline pens that allow people to track the whereabouts of their missing pen to within a metre, anywhere on earth.

Press ads promoting this new whiz-bang technology appeared today in The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Perth’s Western Australian, slipping under the ‘hoax-radar’ of countless readers.

A happy client.  A thrilled agency. And a keen public who once again appreciated the quirky, topical thinking that is becoming a hallmark of Artline marketing.

Check out the coverage on the Today Show. 

There’s plenty of Tweets on Twitter about it too. Follow them here.

http://twitter.com/honoursstudent/statuses/1440681531

 http://twitter.com/LesleyDewar/status/1435906986

 http://twitter.com/linkbitch/status/1435530188

 http://twitter.com/liedra/status/1428462214

http://twitter.com/ozwebfx/status/1428303217

http://twitter.com/chiewy/status/1428032724

http://twitter.com/danielbowen/status/1427995917