Speed Reading Required?

How fast can you read?
This animated gif needs to slow down a bit in order to be read.



I guess the advertiser figures it's better if you don't have enough time to read this so that you won't get too distressed by their blatant disregard of the English language.

Un-worry?
Un-old?

uninspiring + unreadable + uninteresting = NRMA insurance ad

Compare Earth Hour Ads......

"To show their support for Earth Hour, SBS via US Sydney have scattered Sydney parks with life-sized tree-huggers. Using 100% recycled cardboard (of course), the life-like figures encourage people to Vote Earth this Saturday and show Mother Nature a little love."
(Other agencies get behind Earth Hour)

Now this is an example of great advertising, a simple message delivered in a highly effective way using an appropriate medium.
And if you feel a bit cynical about Earth Hour, then this ambient advertising stunt also works, fake people making a pretence of taking action.
It's a win-win on both levels!

Compare the above to the self-indulgent w**k that is the Official Earth Hour 2009 Commercial

One might argue that Earth Hour itself is a bit of self-indulgent w**k, designed to make you feel good about doing something positive to improve the environment without having to commit yourself to any long-term action that might cause you inconvenience, so the video above is a good reflection of the true meaning of Earth Hour, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent.

My vote goes to the treehuggers.

And to ad(d) insult to injury ... Sydney went and wrecked any supposed environmental benefit of Earth Hour by letting off fireworks afterward! Now I'm sure the City of Sydney would respond by saying they "neutralise" their carbon emissions (probably by buying a few trees), but how do you "neutralise" particulates? Nitrogen oxides? Noise?
City of W**nkers!

Money for Nothing?

Yesterday I found myself involved in an interesting discussion about planning and executing a micro-budget campaign. As usual the "new media" types were strong on the offensive, digital gives you more bang for your buck.

Now, contrary to popular belief, I'm not anti-digital, but it needs to be well thought out, well-planned, well-executed, and properly targeted, in order for the advertiser to benefit.

In order to make my point, I spent some time, far too much time, on one of the sites deemed by the digital-dudes to be a good buy, ninemsn's hotmail. By constantly refreshing the content, I was served up these 160x600 ads on the right hand side of the page in sequence:
1/ Foxtel sports
2/ Vfestival
3/ Fox Symes
4/ Commonwealth Bank mastercard
5/ Earth (something about Westpac I think)
6/ Cornetto
7/ Commonwealth Bank pre-approved home loans
8/ HSBC serious saver
9/ ING Direct
10/ Citi Bank visa card
11/ Virgin pre-paid broadband
12/ University of Queensland
13/ Avon
14/ Bankwest eSaver
15/ NAB iSaver
16/ eBay.com.au
17/ ninemsn match.com
18/ Love calculator
19/ domain
20/ ANZ personal loans
21/ ancestry.com.au
22/ intel (or was the ad for Dell?)
23/ weightwatchers
24/ APM (College of Business and Communications)
(there could be more, but even someone as anally-retentive as I am gets bored at some point)

Now, assuming you buy a month of advertising here, and assuming each hotmail user visits their account once a day, your ad has a chance of being seen about once. You can discount that number even further though because hotmail users know this is an adspace so won't be looking anyway.

This is not cheap advertising, it is throwing the client's money away. You might as well donate the money to a (relevant) charity instead and see if you can work up some nice media coverage. Or better still, chuck the money off a tall city building into the street, I'm sure the media exposure you'd get from this stunt would far outweigh any response you might get from giving the money away to ninemsn in return for almost invisible advertising.

P.S. if you do decide to chuck money off a building, can you let me know in advance .... I have no objections to getting money for nothing!

Optus - the telco of choice for whales

Last night I turned on the television (something I rarely do anymore since the proliferation of 'reality TV', all-singing-all-dancing-talent-shows, CSI here-there-and-everywhere, etc) only to see one of the most beautiful ads I think I have ever seen.

Opening scene: section of orchestra afloat in the ocean playing 'whale song'
Middle scene: 2 microphones let loose in the water attracting a whale

(At this point I'm thinking that Greenpeace has outdone itself! Beautiful to watch, subtle subtext of intelligent animals living in harmony, just wonderful. Or, just maybe, the Sydney Symphony has found a way to communicate with whales?)

Final scene: tagline something about communication with a logo off to one side.

It appears this is not a Greenpeace ad, nor an ad for anything else environment or music related. Something about communication - is the message from IBM, subtly reiterating its 'Blue Big' image of years gone by? Or pentium linking the 'blue' men idea to novel communication?

I had no idea. So this morning I asked a friend (who is more addicted to TV than I am), it appears to be an ad for Optus. OK ... optus ... telco .... communication, I guess I get that connection. But whale song? Will all optus phone calls now be translated into whale song? Or maybe the idea is that optus has chosen to opt-out of the business of communicating with humans? The Indian call centres are a (frustrating) joke so maybe they will be using whales in the call centres from now on?

So, I thought, I bet this was intended as a you tube 'lets go viral' treatment, and instead of making a whole new ad for TV they just rehashed the video. I've done a quick youtube search, but to no avail. If this was the intent they have obviously failed.

I'm sure this ad will win awards for something. But will it win optus any more customers? I doubt it, there is certainly no 'call to action'. Does it work as a brand awareness campaign? No way .... you'd have to watch that ad a few times in order to pick-up on the Optus logo and make the connection.

So what is the point of the ad? Any ideas? Anyone?

Digital Nightmares

"Digital" advertising, like advertising in print media, is inevitable but likely to be just as ineffective. In the same way that readers of hardcopy newspapers and magazines ignore the left hand side of the first dozen pages as being the "ad" pages as well as coloured headlines in boxes, online readers also ignore coloured (particularly animated) boxes. (Need I mention that I now refuse to read any newspaper online that uses those nasty expanding ad boxes that make it impossible to read the news?)
But the most obvious reason for avoiding "digital" media is the "quality" of the company you will be in. I offer this example from google ads,
"Time for earn $50000 and more monthly
Drive your mail traffic where it's paid"
Now, the only reason I notice this ad is because I have no idea at all of what it is advertising. I have never, and will never click on it on order to find out, because it looks, and reads, like a scam.
And while you sit and read that, no doubt feeling all smug and superior, you might like to think about the image your brand is communicating when you send out those "hip" SMS messages. I have to tell you that I for one am currently looking to change my mobile phone plan in order to find a telco that doesn't offend the senses with senseless SMS messages.

Brave New World for Mother

This is such a brave ad, in so many ways.
Yes, it's amazing to find a company relaunch a product by admitting that its previous product was horrible.
Yes, it's brave to show that energy drinks cause hyperactivity in those that consume them.
Yes, it's brave to acknowledge that the consumers of this product would find humour in innocent people being physically assaulted.
But the really brave part is the use of the laboratory, normally reserved for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In a time where there is increasing concern over what we eat and drink, growth of the "natural" and "organic" food market sectors, here is a brand that clearly acknowledges that there is nothing "natural" about their product, it is synthesised in a laboratory.
Does this mean mother is the mother of all drugs?

Ford G Series

The new Ford G Series: is the "G" supposed to imply green or just greenwashing?

OK, I get the message, you buy a G series car so you can trample over the whole environment, destroying grassy hills, fields of crops, and frighten the wildlife, but you and your family will be safe and snug inside the car.

So, while the music and imagery may be supposed to imply serenity and "oneness with nature" the reality is that the ad is also telling the truth, if you buy one of these cars you are indeed indifferent to the damaging impact you will be having on the environment.