Two Cents

I get very excited the first time I see one of ‘our’ commercials on TV.

The countless hours that go into creating a new campaign – the market research, competitive analysis, talent selection, soundtracks and supers – all dissolve in those first few seconds of victorious recognition: when finally it appears on my humble home TV. Hooray!

And it’s not unusual for clients, who have been just as much a part of the campaign journey from conception to birth, to be as excited as I am when their ad hits the market for the very first time.

We’d be forgiven for thinking that the rest of the world shares this enthusiasm, and that all that’s needed is to upload our new ads to our company websites to generate a flurry of tweets and posts about our new campaign.

But analytics data tells us that this approach rarely generates any real consumer interest. Why?

Well, as much as we’d like the case to be different, the lives of our consumers don’t actually revolve around our brand, and that they may not be quite as enamored when our new commercial hits the airwaves as we are.

The challenge is nothing new and the rules are still fairly simple: Speak to your audience with a message suitable to the environment you find them in.

For QUT… a university for the real world, it was about delivering a unique brand promise in a way that went beyond simply making their TVCs available online. Let me explain.

Every day hundreds of videos are uploaded to you tube, showing tricks, hoaxes and questions about authenticity.

Enter Real Not Real. An entertaining online challenge that invites you to make a call on the authenticity of a series of (potentially fake) videos.

Your skill at picking a real from a hoax is scored against the scores of others who’ve done the test before you, and your ‘Realness Percentage’ calculated.

Just before you spread the word to your friends and family, you’re challenged once more – to get a real dose of reality: QUT’s three commercials.

A university for the real world has certainly been a powerful differentiation for QUT. And creating a channel to deliver this in a brand new way, taps into a truth about a web-savvy, interactive-literate audience.

Check out Real Not Real and see how you fare. And if you like, pass it on.

Rebecca Tame is an Account Manager at BCM Brisbane

I have to say, I am enjoying the controversy and media attention that has snowballed over the past week as two now infamous viral stunts have unraveled and become exposed.  Tourism Queensland successfully generated free global publicity from their so called ‘mistake’ related to ‘the best job in the world‘, and it’s now official that the Naked clothing line from Witchery are in fact the modern day Cinderella… only after receiving significant prime television coverage, Nationwide press and became the latest hot blog topic to trot.

With the media’s spin that we as marketers should be ashamed for sneaking our brands into the lives of unsuspecting consumers, it has made me wonder; where do we draw the line between developing innovative ways to engage the increasingly indifferent consumer, and propping up the stereotype of advertising seen as simply shallow sales antics?  Are we risking the trust of our bloodline with reckless and deceptive acts? Or is this the evolution of the traditional PR stunt gone viral?

In this technology-driven and busy world we exist in, it is a necessity for survival that we place our brands firmly in the eye of the world where possible, and granted these recent events have done just that, but what are the long term costs which result, if any? Are we helping or hindering our brands? Or will these stunts just become ‘yesterday’s news’?

Banner ads. Love them or loathe them, they’re an integral part of the internet experience. They remain the primary source of revenue for many of the sites we love to visit.

That said, there’s plenty of room for innovation. Not only in their creative execution, but also in increasing their relevancy to us. There are currently great strides being made in behavioural targeting to increase relevancy, but privacy concerns over intrusive methods of tracking your behaviour could well hold those advances back. And rightly so.

But back to creative executions. You can see a plethora of really cool stuff over at Eyeblaster’s Creative Zone. But there were a couple of very-above-average ads which came to light this week that I want to share.

The first is this execution for Jeep. It gets points for utilising 3D within an ad. Can’t say I’ve seen that before! Have a play around and cruise around terrain within the ad in 3D.

This takes the cake though – it’s been a viral hit so you might have seen it already. I don’t want to give anything away, just check it out! And be sure to watch the whole thing!

Unfortunately creative executions like the above are probably outside the realm of any Australian advertiser (I’ve heard rumours of what it costs to partner with Youtube to do something like that, and you don’t want to hear them). That said, BCM has some pretty cool online display ads in the works for clients, so keep an eye on Two Cents, I’ll be sure to post them up.