Interactive media “best in class” award… Really?

This Loreal campaign “Worth it effect” is a play on the butterfly effect, trying to create ripples for International women’s day (2007)

People were invited to send a butterfly message to important women in their lives, a nice idea, but not promoted well at all, check out the see the effect tab on the microsite. Nearly every butterfly has been sent from the same person! yet it still won an interactive media “best in class” award… it seems to me something is wrong there. A site needs more than just the potential to be interactive, it needs to be interacted with, or what is the point! Not exactly the kind of thing agencies should be awarded for if you ask me.

Tails for Whales

While procrastinating around IMS revision (not really too sure what it is I’m supposed to be looking at so seeing as this constitutes  interactive advertising, we’ll argue I’m doing the right thing…) I stumbled across this pretty cool social media campaign; Tails for Whales, inviting people to pledge their support for saving the whale. Check out the site.

Throughout the year myself and bubblewrap spent a great deal of time brainstorming ideas that could effectively bring people together around our environmental campaign / social change movement, and all recognised the huge value in participation and reward. We toyed with the idea of introducing an interactive element into our campaign similar to the video (click the link) below, inviting people to be part of the communication. We felt it would be powerful on billboards – either static or digital – in the feedback stage of our campaign in order to both thank people for their engagement and show that others are involved, introducing an aspect of social pressure and call for conformity.

Lily Allen “The Fear.” mk II from phil tidy on Vimeo.

It seems we were not the only ones to think it a nice idea however, and the tails for whales have produced a cool version of exactly what we had in mind! It’s the kind of campaign I really appreciate, and if executed properly can really work well.

Marketing Conference; 18/03/2010

Back in December, this leaflet fell out of my copy of Campaign. ‘Cut through to today’s ever-changing tech-savvy students’ Well I fit that bracket right? So i read on…

12.35    Students tell you the channels they use, how they buy, what brands should and shouldn’t do…it goes on. But they need something back! Bring your incentives, offers and discounts and give students something for their insight. They might
even give some to their friends…

Well anyone that knows me, knows I’m not one to let an opportunity slide, they need tech savvy students, I need a foot in the door, surely a match made in heaven! I rang James Bogle, the events co-ordinator at Haymarket, and luckily he hadn’t arranged a student panel, I eagerly put myself forward and he actually said yes! I can’t say I was expecting it, but it just shows, if you don’t ask you never get!

The conference was yesterday and myself and my housemate went up to London together to attend. The whole day proved to be a great networking experience, and gave us the unique opportunity to hear first hand of brands successes, and in many cases  challenges and failures in using social media, something we simply don’t learn enough about on our course. STA in particular gave a very interesting presentation. I was already familiar with much of their social media work following the best practice report I created for Designate, and have always admired what they do. Hearing directly the process and the background to implementing the campaign, and the different routes taken to make the space successful was hugely insightful, and I feel lucky to have been given the opportunity to hear such accounts.

To top the day off, James asked me to sit on one of the panels after one of the speakers dropped out! Wow… It’s not everyday you find yourself speaking at a conference in London surrounded by representatives from some of Britain’s biggest brands! It was incredible to be asked, and as a student – the focus of the days discussion – I had several questions directed at me. I really hope I was able in that sense to bring something of value to the day, as well as receiving such a lot myself, and hopefully I have made some strong contacts for the future.

The Study China Programme

I have recently been introduced to the Study China programme through the international office at my university. I went to inquire about international opportunities for once I graduate and expressed an interest in America, Amsterdam and China itself due to the nature of the advertising industry and / or market potential within these countries. I have since put together an application to take part in the scheme, which I will be sending off today!

If I were fortunate enough to gain a place on the programme, I will have the opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Shanghai!! 😀 SHANGHAI! What a great way to celebrate the end of Uni! It would allow me to learn a great deal more about the country and the internal culture and way of life, something i’m sure you’ve gathered is a great passion of mine! The programme also includes 40 hours of Mandarin lessons which I believe will be invaluable to a career in a global ad market, especially in light of China’s growing consumer power – As an example, Proctor and Gamble spent $1.3 billion advertising in China last year! I have started looking at the BBC language resource to gain a basic knowledge of Chinese, but it is… as you can imagine, unbelievably difficult to learn alone!

It would be such a fantastic opportunity to begin my professional career with an experience of this nature, however my desire to visit China has only intensified by filling out the application, so I am sure my journey will take me there at some point in my life, be it now or in the future. Obviously, I am hankering after the former!

I will post updates both on here and on Twitter to let you know how I get on, and if I get onto the scheme I will be sure to provide lots of content as to what its like over there in case anyone wants to apply next year!

Wish me luck! 🙂

Copy Cat Advertising

This summer I spent 8 weeks at an ad agency called Designate (they specialise in tourism brands) working closely with the Nielson team

The creative concept they were going for at the time was “Meet someone new on holiday – You

Now I went up to London recently to visit one of my old housemates, and spotted this at Waterloo station:

Look similar at all? Near identical I’d say! Not at all good for brand identity!

And that isn’t the only example of campaign plagerism I have spotted either, Designate sent me over to France on a P&O Familiarisation trip, and while i was there I spotted this in a Walmart (I’m sure it was Walmart?) carpark:

Now cast your eye over this work for WWF, one of my all time favourite campaigns – and probably the reason why the former ad caught my eye, notice anything familiar?

Identical concept yet again (although WWF clearly have the edge). Makes you wonder if the different brands were unaware of the existence of the other campaigns when they created their work, or whether it was an intentional rip off – after all the Nielson and WWF work both came first and, in my opinion, both are exceedingly better executions. What do you think?

Has anyone else found any similar campaigns they would like to share? Post them up.

Dissertation Blues

I have always had a habit of setting myself tasks that are far too challenging…. And my dissertation topic is definitely one of those challenges I perhaps should have given  little more consideration to before embarking upon. If anyone out there in blog land knows of any Bloggers who use sponsored conversation on their site, and would be happy to post a link to my survey I would be eternally grateful. I only need 100 responses, a small amount you would think in a blogosphere so big, however I am currently stuck at 20, with little movement at all.

I am determined to do well in this dissertation, my degree means so much to me but this is becoming stressful above and beyond that which I had expected! Any help or direction anyone could offer would be highly appreciated!

Thanks all. xx