In celebration of Earth Day today, we thought you’d enjoy this video by the Blue Man Group, an avant garde performance organization founded in 1987 by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton in New York. We liked it for its originality, but there’s a message there too.
Few things say that you spend most of your time driving kids to soccer games and making cupcakes for bake sales than being seen behind the wheel of a minivan. It fairly shouts that you have a house in the suburbs with a square patch of lawn in front and a kid’s swing set in the backyard, and are more likely to spend weekends at a petting zoo than at a trendy art opening. Parenting is cool, but it isn’t COOL like Kanye West, hip-hop, rapper cool, if you know what I mean. This funny video ad tackles this stigma head-on by having a middle-class, middle-aged couple rap proudly about making jell-o molds, changing diapers and owning a Toyota Sienna Minivan, which they refer to as their “Swagger Wagon.” Created by Saatchi & Saatchi, the video has gone viral and spawned a whole series of new Swagger Wagon commercials.
When L.A. artist Jon Jackson got a job offer in New York, he jumped at the chance to move to the Big Apple. He didn’t just pack up and leave town quietly. In true L.A. style, Jackson announced that he was ending his affair with L.A. by advertising the news on 10×23 foot billboards that stood next to carwashes, palm trees, parking lots, and outdoor cafés where thousands of total strangers driving down the freeway could learn that he was so done with the City of Angels.
According to industry forecasters, online video ad spend is expected to top $1 billion in 2011 and keep on soaring upwards. Even in the depths of the recession in 2009 when overall online advertising fell, online video spend grew by 41%. For good reason. Some of the most creative and memorable ads today are video ads found on YouTube and Vimeo that get tweeted and fanned virally. They run the gamut from the infomercial-like Blendtec video with the company’s CEO Tom Dickson liquefying an iPhone to JC Penney’s hilarious classic “Beware of the Doghouse,” which won the 2009 World Retail Award for Best Digital Retail Advertising Campaign. With the ads typically running more than a minute to nearly five, there is time to create an engaging storyline and no fear of being forgotten when the real TV program returns. Consumers click on it by choice and stay because it holds their attention. They recall the brand, the message and they like it.
Quietroom, a London-based firm that works with clients to “develop a brand language that connects with their customers,” felt that jolly old guy up North was too busy wrapping presents for good boys and girls to focus on the effectiveness of his brand, so Quietroom did it for him…pro bono. Here’s the brand guideline they came up – hope Santa appreciates their generous effort.
