Egg Strategy

Dog Days

rband — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:38:27 +0000

When I used to work in the agency world, clients would often refer to some of their advertising as “branding spots” vs. work that had a more concrete, rational claim or “sales” approach. This distinction always bothered me, because it implies that communication that centers on creating a feeling or stirring an emotion is less persuasive in making a sale than messaging that presents more rational evidence of uniqueness. Ideally, the most effective work does both (like Volvo, Cadbury Gorilla), but sometimes a beautifully filmed idea can simply work by creating a positive feeling of goodwill around a brand.

In the case of this wonderfully shot ad for Pedigree dog treats, I not only starting thinking about the brand in a different way, but also about dogs in a new way (elegant, emotional, so expressive). Such a great ad and no need to mention the “nutritional goodness” or other nonsense to make the spot “more believable.” The sheer vitality of the dogs says everything. This great work is from TBWA in Toronto.

Sure of Itself

rband — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:56:44 +0000

I’m not a fan of Axe products, but I am a fan of their ballsy (pun intended) campaigns that appeal shamelessly to men’s more base instincts. There’s been much written about Unilever’s alleged hypocrisy of promoting such a powerfully positive female brand (Dove) here and here and at the same time running campaigns like this and this for Axe.

Personally, I think the best brands know who they’re talking to and who they are not talking to, recognizing that getting the message really right for their true audience might mean offending the others….and boy, does this new campaign do both.

Savage Garden Never Sounded So Good

rband — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:37:49 +0000

When I think Puma, I think fashion, not authentic sports and in a quick word association around the office I hear “hipster, Brooklyn, single speed bikes and Wilco”. I think the move into more fashionable shoes and apparel has overshadowed Puma’s position as a footwear supplier and sponsor of athletes in both footballs (if you know what I mean). Back in the day Puma sponsored Joe Namath and Pele.

This recent viral piece, which is doing the rounds online is a lovely attempt to remind us who follow football (with a round ball) that Puma has as much love for game as it does for the catwalk. And I think it does it rather well.

The Best Outdoor Campaign Ever

rband — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:10:46 +0000

My friend Mark was recently interviewed by a business magazine in Vancouver. The subject was about different ways of using visual branding in outdoor advertising. Mark asked me about some of my favorite outdoor campaigns and the one I kept on coming back to just for its sheer longevity of brilliance is The Economist. Even though outdoor is the anchor for the campaign, they’ve done fabulous TV/cinema spots and blindingly great print. At the heart of all of it is the beautifully simple branding device of the red color which is sometime dominant (as in outdoor) or a subtle accent. Most of all, I love the fact that the advertising isn’t designed for everyone to get or enjoy. If you do get it, you should probably be reading The Economist, if you don’t you probably shouldn’t even be reading this blog. Here’s the most recent stuff, courtesy of Ben Kay in London and here’s a historical perspective of all the greatest work. I challenge anyone to come up with a better example of outdoor campaign brilliance.

Looking Through The Window

rband — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:03:33 +0000

At the start of my career in the early 90s, I interned at a new agency in London called Mustoe Merriman Herring and Levy. I was a wannabe junior planner, so when I met with the planning director, I was determined to learn as much as I could from him. He passed on this pearl of wisdom about planning that I still remember today. He told me a story about commuting on the train during the winter. It was a dark evening and as his train slowed down to a station, he looked out the window and was able to see into the kitchen of a house near the train tracks. In the kitchen, a woman stood at the sink doing dishes. The train stopped and he was able to watch her for a moment, and she was singing (maybe to a song on the radio, maybe not). The house was close enough to the train that he was able to see the brand name of the dish detergent she was using. He ended his story by saying…”that’s planning”.

I thought of that the other day when I came across this wonderful series of short films about the lives of New Yorkers run in the NYT back in the summer of 2009. It showed me that even though we are often looking for big insights or truths that resonate with huge numbers of people, it’s the individual stories within that reveal the gold. The piece is called 1 in 8 million. A belated Happy New Year from Egg - 2010 has started like 2009 finished, hence the rather late first post of the year!

Entry Level

amunsell — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:13:31 +0000

I thought this week’s Brand Camp cartoon was pretty spot-on and thought provoking. It talks about how excited we are about social media as marketers, and yet how little respect we give it as permanent and public representation of our brand. In many ways the rules and tonality with social media are much more complex than those of more traditional outlets, and should probably be managed as carefully as we fuss over the typeface in our advertising copy.

Heightening

rband — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:50:11 +0000

On a plane home the other day I saw the documentary “It Might Get Loud” - a film featuring three guitar playing legends - Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. The film shows how each of them were inspired and how their careers unfolded. One story in the movie touched a nerve for me. Jimmy Page was talking about recording the track When The Levee Breaks in an old manor house in the English countryside. They set up the drum kit in the front hall, above which was a vaulted high ceiling. Instead of moving the drums into the main room where the rest of the equipment was, John Bonham started playing out in the hall, quickly realizing that the uniquely high ceiling added a massive amount of “height” to his sound. This created the now legendary drumming sound on that track. Other bands tried to recreate it by recording in elevator shafts.

Loved this for a the marriage between serendipity and a great creative leap. It made me ask- what brands have recently “heightened” their sound in a unique way…and then one for you: what have you done lately to “heighten” what you do?

This post was originally going to be about Tiger Woods and Gillette, following on from the Thierry Henry post earlier in the month, but there’s so much stuff being written about him now, that I find the whole thing depressing. Far better to be inspired by something that adds height, rather than focus on a guy keeping his head down for the foreseeable future.

Hand of Frog

rband — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:43:32 +0000

Those of you who follow football will be aware of France’s qualification to the 2010 World Cup at the expense of Ireland with a controversial winning goal. The goal came after French star Thierry Henry controlled the ball twice with his hand before crossing to his team-mate William Gallas to tuck it into the net. The London tabloids (bless them) called it the “Hand of Frog.”

Thierry Henry is one of 3 men (Tiger Woods and Roger Federer being the others) who are part of a Gillette global branding campaign. A recent image on the Gillette website in France featured the 3 stars holding the tools of their respective trades. Rather than showing Thierry Henry with a ball at his feet, the picture shows him holding the ball with his “hand of frog”. As my colleague Ted commented: who should get a raise this year?

1) The creative director or pompous photographer who thought shooting this image with the ball in Henry’s hand was a better idea than placing it his feet.

2) The brand manager who called the agency first thing Monday morning to tell them to fix the site.

3) The producer and post house (web designer…?) that made it look effortless.

Personally, I still think it looks like someone’s chopped his hand off, but that might just be me

Happy Birthday Interweb

rband — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:40:03 +0000

The internet as we know it is 40 years old next week. October 29th 1969 was when the first two computers (one at Stanford, the other at UCLA) connected to each other. They were the first two “hosts”. At the end of the following year, there were 13 computers talking to each other and so it goes. The Guardian has a brilliant internet timeline, with milestones of each of the last 40 years. Glancing through it, it struck me how significant the pace of change has been in the last 10 or so years. Each year, something arguably massive emerges (1997 blogging, 1999 Napster, 2001, Wikipedia, 2004, Facebook, 2005, You Tube, 2006 Twitter). This brings us up to today and a story in AdAge announcing VW’s launch of the new Golf GTI - a car I once owned and absolutely loved. When the last version of the GTI was launched in 2006, VW spend $60 million on TV advertising. In 2009, they are launching the new GTI with an app only available on the iPhone, costing them about $500,000 to do it. I love this for a couple of reasons:

1. I’m guessing the correlation between iPhone ownership and VW brand love is pretty strong…so a decent partnership

2. Driving a GTI is like driving a toy car on steroids…a neat creative spin to promote the launch with a driving game

I also just want to see how it works out…what a brilliant case study if it does and a ballsy move by VW.

Where’s the blade?

amunsell — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:03:44 +0000

Ok this is really cool.

I always thought Dyson would be one of those one-hit-wonder kind of guys who had a great revolutionary idea that changed a category that no one had thought about in a long time. I figured he would have this splash and retreat to count his millions on the tropical island of his choice. But he has done it again folks, this time re-inventing the humble fan.

So for the twist on this one…no blades…sublime. He now goes on the list of people I want to have a drink with before I die. To be able to re-think the mundane and turn it into inspired innovation (which sells at a premium, mind you) is truly a gift.