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Category — TV Commercials

New Ads – Budweiser Attempts to Reclaim the ‘Cool’ Mantle

The Problem: Budweiser’s sales were down 9% last year and are down another 9% this year. The brand’s been losing customer loyalty consistently over the past 5-10 years, as can be seen in their ranking among national product brands – which slipped from 16th in 2003 to 220th in 2010.

The Reason: The major beer drinking age demographic, 21-34 year olds, consists of ironic hipsters and testosterone-challenged “progressives” who are switching to microbrews, wine, and abominations like Smirnoff Ice in droves. In fact, microbreweries specifically have more than doubled their production since 2004.

What Budweiser is doing about it: Good advertising…
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October 3, 2010   Comments Off

The Mind-Blowingly Vast Scale of Honda’s New Insight Commercial – “Let It Shine”

Honda’s new commercial for the 2010 Insight has a deceptively simple appearance. A series of shapes and patterns flash across what looks like an old Lite-Brite set, or maybe an LED panel, or perhaps even just a series of computer generated dots on the screen. It’s nice to look at and nice to listen to, due to the pretty music playing along. Simple and nice. The interesting part is that the flashing dots are actually the flashing headlights of 1,000 actual Honda Insights. One thousand full sized automobiles, arranged in a gigantic grid in such a way so they appear to be a perfect rectangle from the camera’s vantage point.

Check out the “Making of…” video near the end of this post:
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June 30, 2009   1 Comment

Bontrust Finance’s MoneySex: “Increase In Currency”

This German ad for Bontrust Finance is… unexpected, to say the least. This sort of thing would never fly in the US. Well done though. Unfortunately, it looks like the Bontrust girl is a total whore. How dare she cheat on Lincoln… and with Mao of all people.
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May 13, 2009   Comments Off

FormulaSexta: Formula 1 on Spain’s laSexta Channel

LaSexta is the sixth nationwide broadcast television station in Spain and, starting this year, the only channel in Spain that broadcasts Formula 1. So they commissioned the creative agency Kotoc to make some intro spots and they came out really nicely. My only complaint is that the ships don’t look like their going fast enough. Other than that, the pod racer feel of the whole thing is pretty interesting and the look is definitely nice.

Check out the rest of the intro spots:
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May 12, 2009   Comments Off

The Beautiful Word: Very Cool French Scrabble Commercials (Is That Ween I Hear?)

These are some super fantastic new Scrabble ads designed to liven up the game’s image a bit. Over the past 60′s years that it’s existed, Scrabble has sort taken on a reputation as a favorite of only English majors and elitist word geeks; so it looks like their trying to reach out to a wider audience. They get it, they’re “hip”. Also, is that Ween playing?

The concept of all the words on the board coming alive and interacting is great, but I’m not so sure everyone will “get it” at first. I mean, the people who already like Scrabble probably will, but the more mainstream people they’re trying to recruit, less likely. Still, I love this ad, and the other two in the series:
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April 27, 2009   Comments Off

How Accurate Were AT&T’s “You Will” Ads From 1993

AT&T had a series of commercials back in 1993 that had examples of some of the cool new technologies that the company had hoped to develop in the future. The ad agency that did the commercials must have had a professional futurist working for them, because they were strikingly accurate.

It’s now 15 years later, lets see how well they did:
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March 4, 2009   Comments Off

TiVo Debuts “Pause Menu” Ads During Fast-Forward And Pause

tivo.jpg

One more reason to get a TV tuner card for your computer:

In the eternal arms race between advertisers and viewers, the DVR is the viewers nuclear weapon. Finally we have a way to completely bypass commercials. It doesn’t matter how clever or interesting or infectious the ads are, we just hit fast forward and don’t have to deal with them; or at least that’s the way it was, until now. There is no equilibrium in any arms race, and advertisers, who were immediately looking for some way around the DVR loophole and back into the brains of viewers as soon as the digital recording technology came out, have been offered a clever new way to display ads by TiVo.

The new “Pause Menu” feature from TiVo will insert single-line, targeted ads whenever a user pauses or fast forwards a program. Advertisers will be able to pick specific genres or keywords of program descriptions so they can reach the right audience. The ad will be on single line of text, and another line will link the viewer to TiVo’s Universal Swivel Search. Swivel Search lets viewers find info about the program and the any related content via the programming guide. TiVo is selling the new Pause Menu as an “upgrade“. Check out the official press release:
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December 10, 2008   Comments Off

Kitten-Headed Ninjas Drive Toyota Corollas

Toyota’s new Australian ad campaign for their 2009 Corolla hatchback is freaking solid gold. It’s just this kind of bizarre stuff that gets people interested and talking about the product, especially in their target audience, youth. “We just really wanted to make something a younger audience could be intrigued by, and sell a different side of Corolla, other than how practical it is,” says Micah Walker, Creative Director, Mojo Sydney.

The kitten headed hero’s story doesn’t end with the commercial though, his story is fleshed-out in an animated graphic novel online called The Getaway. We learn his name is Max and he has a sidekick named Misty; and he gets into a series of adventures: 9 Lives and Counting, Landing on all Fours, and The Sound and the Furry… clever, right?
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November 13, 2008   1 Comment

All Three Episodes of Audi’s New “Meet The Beckers” Campaign: The Start of Attack Ads?


Episode III: Raising the Stakes

The final episode of the Audi’s Arrested Development inspired advertising campaign, Meet the Beckers, has been released, and I’m excited.

In a world without new episodes of Arrested Development, it doesn’t take much to excite me. Even a commercial that’s vaguely similar to the greatest show of all time can give me a reason to get up in the morning.

Anyway, in the first episode, we meet the whole family. Jason is the regular guy, and the Audi driver of course. He’s bringing his girlfriend to meet his dysfunctional family for the first time. His aggressive brother Billy drives a BWM cuts off a Prius. His drunken, country club-visiting father (The Commander) drives a Mercedes. And his doormat brother (or brother-in-law, maybe) Lewis, drives a Lexus. It’s hilariously accurate and has lots of subtle jokes you may miss if you’re not paying attention.
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November 4, 2008   1 Comment

The Fall of Arrested Development: Fox’s Ultimate Marketing Failure

The Bluth Family from Arrested Development

Arrested Development (AD) was considered by many people to have been one of the greatest television series of all time. It won countless awards and was acclaimed by just about every critic on Earth, and yet, it was canceled after only 3 short seasons. What happened?

Essentially, Fox dropped the ball. They had a potential hit and they failed to properly promote it. It was a classic example of poor marketing. Hopefully, future executives will learn from Fox’s epic mishandling of the Arrested Development situation.

What they did wrong:
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September 10, 2008   1 Comment