Pepsi New Strategy

A £700 million revamp of the Pepsi brand has begun. The first phase involves relaunching the UK website with the new logo being used for the first time. The second phase involves a social media campaign in which they want people to show their wild sides. This is based on the popular series of advertisements they ran recently. Also, Pepsi wants people to tell them how they should spend £13 million on charitable causes. The third phase involves ambush marketing the FIFA World Cup (which is kindly sponsored by Coca-Cola) by launching viral and traditional media advertisements using the controversial Thierry Henry and other soccer stars. It will be interesting to see if a reference is made to the Irish qualifier game. So, it seems they have a comprehensive strategy there but it will be interesting to see if the investment level is warranted.

The MDP's Favourite AD

Ok guys,

Following on from progress this morning, I am starting a poll to find out what the MDP's favorite AD is? My favorite AD is the "Coco Madamosille" AD featuring Keira Knightly. I love this AD because it communicates the attributes of the product very well. All the elements of the AD (music, product placement ect.) combine together to create a very effective AD for Chanel.

Do you like this AD? Why? What is your favorite AD?

The Super Bowl is over for one more year......

The Super Bowl is over for another year and with it came another set of fantastic advertisements. These are usually the most talked about ads of the year and costing $2.4 to $3 million they would want to be. The ads have moved from being an interruption to being part of the main event. According to a survey undertaken by the US’s Retail Advertising and Marketing association 26.9% of people rated the Super Bowl ad’s as the most important part of the day.

That perhaps is some justification for the amount of money spent. Viewers’ sit down and wait to see your ads, the complete opposite of what is audiences are doing for other programs. The trend is that viewers are actively avoiding the ads by flicking channels, doing something else or fast forwarding through them with ad skipping technologies such as TiVo. Viewers’ critique them immediately afterwards, both with friends at Super Bowl parties and online. It is a process that separates the good from the bad, meaning they have to be the best. It is clear why air time costs so much, and why many big brands invest heavily in them. This year saw ads from Dr. Pepper and this year’s top rated ad from snickers (See Below) amongst others.

However in what might seem like a strange move Pepsi have decided not to run a Super Bowl ad for the first time in 23 years, instead they have decided to focus their attention on Facebook and an online strategy. This is a brave move by Pepsi who have historically invested heavily in celebrity endorsement (Britney Spears and David Beckham, to name just two) and less than average in online marketing. They cited getting close to the customer as a main reason for this decision. Ralph Santana, vice-president of marketing for PepsiCo North America said customers:

"...are looking for more of a two-way dialogue, story-telling and word of mouth. Mediums like the digital space are much more conducive towards that."

So is this the beginning of the end for traditional advertising, if big brands are moving away from it? Doritos (the only PepsiCo owned brand advertising at this year’s Super Bowl) provide a good example of what I believe we will see more of in the future. They have merged both traditional and online campaigns, one form supports the other and Doritos reap the benefits of both. Doritos launched a competition to for their customers to design their ad for the Super Bowl, entries are loaded onto the website and the winner is eventually voted for online (available at http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/winners ). By doing this Doritos manage to hack into the creativity of their customers and discover how they really feel about the brand. The winning ad is then broadcast during the Super Bowl, reaching a wide audience eager to see it. I think this is quite a clever approach to take and that we will be seeing more and more brands adopting this tactic in the future.

DR. Pepper and Kiss



Snickers, 2010 best ranked ad


1 of Doritos 5 finalists

The Superbowl is coming up...

ETrade is a financial corporation based in the US and is divided into trading & investing, retirement & planning and banking & credit cards. As the name ETrade implies they concentrate on online services, e.g. buying stock online. Last week we discussed the use of humour in ads for “serious” products such as financial services.

ETrade paid $ 3 million to place their snarky baby ad during last year’s Superbowl. Although most of us did not really like this ad, it was a huge success because after the broadcast 19 million people surged on the website.

Barclaycard's Rollercoaster

Barclaycard’s Rollercoaster, launched Sunday 24 January 2010, is the follow up to its popular Waterslide advert released 2 years previous. The campaign, which was created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty uses the same CGI special effects technology employed in the Spider Man blockbusters. Paul Troy, head of advertising and content at Barclaycard says that the ad is the most technically advanced the card company has ever produced, saying, ‘I think it was quite brave when the financial meltdown happened to keep with the style of creative we have...It feels anti-recessionary even if it wasn’t designed to be’. As budgets for advertising and marketing are often cut during recession, the more savvy companies use it as an opportunity to gain market share. Barclaycard has opted to advertise for maximum memorability, thereby getting more bang for their buck. Rollercoaster also taps into the escapist fantasy genre that becomes so popular during recessionary times. The film, romance and sci-fi literature, and gaming industries have seen their profits rise over the past two years. In line with this, Barclaycard will be launching a ‘Rollercoaster’ iPhone app this coming May as a sequel to its popular ‘Waterslide’ app which has been downloaded 8.5m times to date.

Agency: DDB Stockholm

Client: Volkswagen

DDBH Stockholm have come up with an innovative viral campaign for Volkswagen to coincide with the promotion of their "BlueMotion Technologies" range of eco friendly cars. Based on the concept that “Fun is the best way to change peoples behaviour for the better”, the aim of the “Fun Theory” campaign is to convince people that doing the right thing for the environment can also be enjoyable.

Launched at the end of September, the first fun theory project involved turning the stairway of a Stockholm metro rail station into a giant piano keyboard. As a result, 66% more people chose to take the healthier option of the stairs rather than the escalator situated alongside. In the two weeks since the corresponding clip was launched on youtube, it has received over been over 1 million hits.

Two follow up projects have also been launched. The “World’s Deepest Bin” encouraged people to dump their rubbish in the bin by placing a sensor in a bin which plays a comical sound when someone places an item into it. The most recent project is the “Bottle Bank Arcade” which involved a regular bottle bank being transformed into a game by which customers competed to achieve a high score by recycling their bottles.

The clips all contain a call to action in the form of a link to the fun theory website where the public are encouraged to generate and film their own fun theory projects with the person who puts forward the best idea winning over €2500. DDB Stockholm’s Deputy Manager, Lars Axelsson, has said “By making driving and the world more fun, we turn the VW brand into a hero...Our experiments and our Fun Theory films make the world a better and more fun place to live.”

The inherent eco message in the campaign seems to hint at a shift by Volkswagen to promote itself as a “brand with a conscience”. Following in the footsteps of mega brands such as Dove and Toyota, Volkswagen appear to be positioning themselves as a brand that cares about bigger global issues such as the threat to the environment. The fact that such a strategy comes at a time when the company are seeking to infiltrate the increasingly competitive eco friendly car market is certainly no coincidence however.

Regardless of Volkswagens intentions, the novel innovative concept and the subtle inclusion of the logo at the end of the clips of seems to guarantee the fun theory’s success as a viral campaign over the next few months .

Johnnie Walker "The Man that Walked Around the World"

Agency: BBH London

Client: Johnnie Walker

Bag pipes, misty Scottish hills, Robert Carlyle and a 5 minute narration of the history of Johnnie Walker...in an age where 140 characters constitutes ‘engagement’ keeping the viewer listening intently for 5 minutes is surely an achievement worth recognizing!

In this beautifully shot new advertising campaign for Johnnie Walker, Robert Carlyle strolls through the Scottish highlands near Perthshire detailing the story of the iconic brand whilst interacting with a number of props relevant to the whiskey’s 190 year history. The story of the brand is both compelling and gripping but it is Carlyle, who achieved fame in “Trainspotting” and “The Full Monty” that really brings the copy to life.

The director James Rafn was also clearly impressed with his efforts and describes his experience of working with him on www.shots.net as follows:

“As soon as we started rehearsing however I quickly realized that Robert is an utter genius. Not only was he (as you'd expect) absolutely professional and determined to get it just right, but he also had this abundant natural charisma. He just filled the screen and possessed it. Robert is a natural story teller, and between takes had me utterly rapt with tales from his extraordinary career. I knew as soon as we started shooting, that we were in very safe hands.”

Perhaps even more intriguing than the story of brand’s birth growth and development is the fact that all five minutes and twenty two seconds of Carlyle’s narrative were captured in one shot. The ad that was finally released was the 40th (and last!) effort shot at 8pm on the last day of filming and goes down in history as one of the longest continuous takes. Mick Mahoney, BBH London Creative Director of the project had this to say on the challenges that this campaign presented:

"Every director we spoke to told us that it wasn’t possible to do what we wanted. That we would need concealed cuts and so on. Which would still have made a good film, but it’s the undertaking, the commitment,of doing it all in one take that makes it. Jamie Rafn was the only director who felt the same. Getting Robert Carlyle to do it then just took it up a gear. He has exactly the screen persona that we wanted. Tough, uncompromising, enigmatic.”

The concept of the mini movie also fits seamlessly into Johnnie Walker’s brand campaign of “Keep Walking”. From the basis of the story which is interlinked with the Johnnie Walker concept of “Inspiring Personal Progress”, to the reference to the “Keep Walking” slogan and even the mental image of Carlyle walking relentlessly towards the camera, the brand message is maintained throughout in a subtle and nuanced manner.

This campaign is a prime example of the fact that a good well told story still has the potential to capture the imagination of the media savvy audiences of today. The simplicity of the use of the props, an atmospheric soundtrack and the endearing bag piper abuse in the first minute of the clip means that the story is intriguing and the audience’s attention is maintained throughout. The brand’s unique and organic history is enough to capture and engage audiences without the need for dramatic special effects and complicated brand messages.

http://www.johnniewalker.com/