While researching various channels and verticals for our sandboxsports.com theme, we’ve come across a number of creative adverts that are…. well let’s just say puzzling. It’s not too difficult to discover ads where there is an obvious disconnect between the creative imagery, cheeky copy and what it is that most advertisers’ hope to achieve with their marketing budget.

This is fine for the ad agencies and creative professionals who get paid to “create” but not so good for the paying customer who receives a disappointing consumer response in exchange for their valuable - and limited - advertising dollars. It’s also fine for Coke, Nike, Budweiser and so on because the big dollar outlay on repetitive advertising is almost exclusively geared to brand promotion and almost never an immediate call to action.

For small business it’s a mistake to follow this type of strategy. Some marketing experts suggest that as consumers, we are presented with over three thousand advertising messages in a typical day. Billboards, T.V. commercials, radio commercials, email marketing, banner ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, direct response mail at home and at work (aka junk mail), telemarketing, fax broadcasts - you get the idea. To break through and capture the attention of your target audience, your advertising message needs to interrupt and then it must engage the attention of your qualified prospects so that they’ll continue to search for more information.

No doubt you’re probably familiar with the adage that sex sells - right? It’s not true. Sex interrupts. If a sexy image captures your attention in an advertisement, then it has interrupted you, but it has not necessarily engaged you - encouraging you to learn more - leading you to a purchasing decision or some other immediate action such as opting in to a promotion with their name and email address.

This print ad for a sporting event is a pretty good example of a misguided advert. The image of the sexy female squash player does a decent enough job of interrupting. But then it fails to push the hot buttons of almost any potential spectator with the exception of the demographic that is male, twenty something, hormonally motivated and probably indifferent to the game of squash.

Think about it, if you are a heterosexual female, a homosexual male, a family, a legitimate squash fan, an elderly person, just about anyone else - are you really interested in going to a sporting event that is going to be packed with obnoxious, Neanderthal, male patrons? This advert would work better if it were promoting a brand of beer.

If female squash players are really that hot, how about an action shot that captures the essence of the game and presents an image of athleticism, skill, competitiveness and drama. If the athlete happens to be a babe (think Anna Kournikova, Chris Evert) and if she were attired in revealing athletic sportswear (think Anna Kournikova, Chris Evert), then the ad would still work for the Neanderthal but it would also appeal to a much broader market demographic. A whole market segment that just might be engaged enough to want to learn more - maybe even buy a ticket.

This may be a trend setting decision that becomes the immediate future for industry trade publications. InfoWorld has announced that they will discontinue their print component as of April 2, 2007.

“InfoWorld is not dead. We’re not going anywhere. We are merely embracing a more efficient delivery mechanism –the Web — at InfoWorld.com. You can still get all the news coverage, reviews, analysis, opinion, and commentary that InfoWorld is known for. You’ll just have to access it in a browser (or RSS reader) — something more than a million of you already do every month.”

Industry insiders are abuzz over the long rumoured news. Ultimately, it’s a strategic decision that is both practical and in sync with the realities of today’s contemporary world of information technology. It’s not unusual for IT information in a print magazine to be out of date simply because things can change by the nanosecond – and often do.

When you’re dealing with information that is actionable intelligence, there is a high probability that you’ll need to refer back to the source of that info. You may save it for future reference, categorize it within certain projects, email it to associates or colleagues and so on.

The new school of information sharing includes viral phenomenon such as social book-marking, tag and ping, and RSS. All of which are more progressive and effective in facilitating the use of new info compared to having a copy of that old, dogged eared magazine collecting dust on your office credenza.

Other trade publications and marketers can learn an interesting leadership lesson from this gutsy approach by InfoWorld. Delivery of information is the objective. Businesses need to be in touch with the medium that best delivers information in the most efficient and useful fashion for their target audience.

In case you were planning a test drive over the weekend, we thought we would post an excerpt direct from BMW promotional copy. Featured along side the copy, is a creative and interesting print advertisement.
The marketing copy and the print ad are both taken out of context but nonetheless, the brand messaging and the stated brand values are both part and parcel of BMW’s overall strategy for the positioning of their luxury brand identity.

Since its inception, the BMW brand has stood for one thing: sheer driving pleasure.

Sporting and dynamic performance combine with peerless design and exclusive quality, resulting in the unique appeal of BMW automobiles.

Experience the fascination of BMW.

What are BMW brand values?

The BMW brand is a blend of the company’s values, products, history, image and visions.
BMW brand values are:
• Joy
• Dynamic
• Cultured
• Challenging
They represent ’sheer driving pleasure’ in every model.
These are communicated to the customer through the end product.

With the print ad, we’re just wondering if BMW realizes that successful women like to own and drive upscale automobiles too. We doubt that this advert is the way win their business. A surprisingly bad taste ad!

The Ultimate Attraction

For an interesting analasis of another successful interactive marketing campaign from BMW marketing, check out Viral Marketing - Case Study - BMW Films

Our own informal marketing study has revealed that nine out of ten consumers surveyed, who are likely to own or lease a BMW are also likely to consume Lavazza Coffee

From script to screen, Connecticut based XVIVO is an award-winning animation studio that creates spectacular, custom visual productions for advertising agencies, broadcast companies, educational institutions and a variety of science, medical and technology companies.

Harvard University selected XVIVO to create an original animation that would illuminate the mechanisms that allow a white blood cell to sense its surroundings and respond to an external stimulus. The objective for the project was to introduce a medium that could take undergrad students beyond the more limited perspective of their textbooks.

The end result was a masterful feature that explores and illustrates the different cellular environments and the inherent communications within this micro universe. “The Inner Life of the Cell” is a hypnotic, three-dimensional journey through the microscopic world of a cell. It’s an eight and half minute feature that took 14 months to produce.

Since it’s release, “The Inner Life of the Cell” has been well received – to say the least. This is an excerpt from a recent Wired News interview with David Bolinsky of XVIVO:

Wired News: What was the reaction to it there?

Bolinsky: We started receiving tens of thousands of e-mails and phone calls, the hits on our website went from 200 a week to 650,000 a week and it was picked up by ABC News. We were getting e-mails from major universities all over the world asking if they could use this for their students (and) calls from high school teachers wanting it for advanced biology classes … and museums that want us to work on museum exhibits because they want to modernize how they teach science.
This is what I hoped when I started this company — that it could change how people saw things. We (thought) this great academic animation would be shown at Harvard and would disappear forever under the Ivy dome of silence - We didn’t really anticipate that it would go anywhere and when it did it took us all by surprise.

The complete Bolinsky interview is at Wired.com -
“The Inner Life of the Cell”

While this video excerpt is set to music - the full eight and a half minute version includes narration that explains the dynamic processes that you’re watching.

So what does this have to do with marketing news? Well there’s the viral concept in play here – good creative takes on a life of its own. The publicity has surprised even Bolinsky who expected that his creative feature “would disappear forever under the Ivy dome of silence”. But the story has legs.

The following advert is the creation of Brazilian ad agency; Dez Brasil for the Asics athletic brand. The ad copy featured with the print ad reads:

Left is rational. Right is emotional. Left, right, left, right, left, right is balance.
Running is in our DNA.
Asics. Sound mind, sound body.

We wonder if the creative elements behind the print advertisement were in any way inspired by “The Inner Life of the Cell”. Strong symmetry between the two projects! Both thought provoking and both well done. Click the image for a good look!

The observant among you will notice the muscle of the “sound minded” Asics runner. The progressive marketers among you who want to thrive in your own business universe realize that you need your own Real Marketing Muscle.

Now this is an advertising print campaign that caught our eye! The adverts are brought to the marketplace by the popular Lavazza Coffee brand of Italy. Interesting imagery but we’re not really sure about the correlation between naked bodies and coffee beans. Coffee is a stimulant and the images are stimulating too - OK maybe we’re reaching. The ad copy reads; “Italy’s Favourite Coffee”

The art direction and creative photography of the graphics were produced by renowned advertising photographer Eryk Fitkau. He is best recognised for his specialized methods of post-production which include unique techniques for double exposing images and hand colouring.

Too bad Lavazza beat us to it though because naked bodies and Caffeine Marketing – well that’s another story. Even if it is narcissistic, we think that these graphics are just the type of promotion that would better suit our own brand identity goals.

Nuf said, study the ads, critique the ads, debate the ads – we just hope you enjoy them over another cup of your daily marketing news.

Click on the posters above for a better look! This is a sneak peak of sorts. Our Mazda “marketing insider” sent us these posters with a bit of additional perspective and insight about the logistics that go into the actual production of a major ad campaign.

Whether your interests are those of a major ad agency executive, a marketing student or those of a small business marketing manager, it’s interesting to watch a new marketing campaign of a major global corporation unfold.

And while Mazda’s consumer reach is global, these advertisements are geographically targeted to a region - the European consumer. The lesson with small business marketing in mind is that, it can be a very effective use of your ad dollars - even corporations with massive marketing budgets - to market to a specific geographical region.

This concept, or strategy, is something that is very scalable for small business marketers and we’ll be adding some content on regional marketing for small business in our next post - so stayed tuned.

This is what our insider told us!

“Regarding the print work, I’m sending along two additional adverts for the “Desert Treasure” phase of the campaign. As of yet, they’ve only been published in the paper edition of a Swedish advertising magazine as the actual film is having the finishing touches made in post-production in London… So these adverts are still somewhat “exclusive”…

The photo-shoot itself happened alongside the film production in South Africa. Despite the fact that the films were being shot around-the-clock (“Desert Treasure” by day and “Casino” by night) the photo-team and film-team worked perfectly together and the entire project was as uneventful as a successful shoot should be…There are actually several additional versions of the “Casino” adverts, the differences being if the Mazda MX-5 is shot from the front or the back with the hardtop up or down… We’ve sent you the ones we like best…

The photographer was the same that we used for the “12 Second Thriller” posters; a German by the name of Peer Brecht. And all the “models” in the shoot were also the actors in the films. And the sets were the same too.”

Scroll down to our Zoom Zoom Grows Up post if you haven’t already and you can check out more of the new ads targeted at the European car buyer.

Have you seen John Madden naked lately? Neither have I and I certainly do not want to. Imagine what you would do if you were a parent and for Christmas you bought your kid a copy of Madden NFL 07 from Circuit City and when he popped it into his XBOX 360 he saw naked people? That’s exactly what happened to a 14 year-old whose parents bought him the game.

The kid’s parents called Electronic Arts (the game’s creator company) which is investigating the incident and giving the kid a new game for free.

Allens Arthur Robinson paired up with Westgate agency and friends for this ‘Doodle Campaign’ to demonstrate the creative nature behind the advertising industry. Check out the Campaign File from Best Ads On Tv.
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Hi-Fi Klubben illustrates a woman dressed as your favorite KISS character, Gene Simmons in this recent print advertisement which reads “Something wrong with your favorites? Change your stero! Hi-Fi Klubben.” AdPunch has more from this campaign including a ‘Like a Virgin’ spoof ad.

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If you ask Google how the Google Publication Ads ‘Beta’ round went they will likely respond that it is a major success and they are planning on rolling out even more features and stretching the program till it breaks. Ask a Publication publisher and they might as well shurg their shoulders and say “meh” over the whole thing. The biggest issue facing Publication publishers using the Google system is how small-scale advertisers can benefit from the program. Some, but not many, publishers have told the associated press that they have receive more traffic and sales where their ads were run.

This is one of those weird ads from the ‘Best Rejected Advertising’ website from the BenQ Taiwanese electronics manufacturer which was stopped from circulation in China. The ad was seized because many complaints objected the depiction of the boy in the ad emerging from the rubble of a post 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Obviously, many people were highly offended by the ad and the slogan of the ad. The company did not make a public apology for the ad mostly because they never thought that is what the ad depicted.

XpressDirect has launched this new innovative print advertising campaign to promote its’ services which are a true delight to watch. Although the imagery is innovative, the only downfall is that UPS and numerous other delivery services have used the age-old “delivery whenever and wherever” over any landscape idea before.

To exaggerate the idea of the campaign and wish to bring more innovation they use landscapes such as Antarctic, Islands, and Moutain Ranges to point out that they will deliver “whatever it takes.”

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Ikea has made a hilarious effort to promote its’ “Sultan Mattress” by focusing on the benefits of getting quality rest. The colors in the ads are a little bland but the comedy is superb.

The various ads could have used other subtle changes to make this campaign completely rock. As you can see, the backgrounds and colors remain very consistent while only the people and facial expressions change from one ad to the next.

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Online car guide website, CarGuide.com.au has launched their ‘Choice is Everything’ advertising campaign which features a spectacular series of visuals and clever imagery. The ad aims at depicting that users of the website are on the cutting edge of technology and attitude while providing cars to people of every taste.

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Orlando will be tripling its’ tourism advertising budget for 2007 to lure families from other hot-spot destinations. The campaign will cost the city $68 million over the next two years and be funded by a higher hotel tax in Florida’s capital city. The campaign will consist of print and television adverts with the slogan “Built for families. Made for memories.” The campaign hopes to target women in an effort to bring more families. Television commercials will air during prime time shows such as ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Dancing with the Stars’.