Category: Humor

Viral Marketing

Post – Christmas Guerrilla Ad Campaign

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Passersby in Amsterdam did a double-take as they walked by post-holiday curbside trash heaped high with the usual plastic garbage bags, assorted discards and… a Mini Cooper cardboard packing box with a red ribbon still dangling off the side. The brainchild of Ubachswisbrun/JWT agency, the Mini Cooper guerrilla “advertisements” were strategically placed throughout the city. It left people to wonder if the popular tiny hatchback was really small enough to be shipped in a box and possibly even fit under a Christmas tree. The white stick-on label on the side of the box provided the sales message – a 99 euro a month finance deal. Except for the black outline drawing of the Mini on all sides of the box, the actual product was nowhere to be seen.

Mini
Mini

Humor

Student Assignment Celebrates the Ordinary

By Delphine Hirasuna |

We love student assignments because the parameters are loose enough to let the imagination run free – no client demanding that the piece “work harder” at branding or asking to see the metrics to prove that the design solution had the desired effect on the target audience. They are unbridled creativity, pushing the limits of personal talent and skill. So, when we ran across some animations done by 20-year-old Matthew Young, a graphic and communication design student at the University of Leeds in the UK, we were charmed by his innocent storytelling. “Colin the Umbrella,” completed in a week, fulfills a creative brief to celebrate the ordinary by making it seem extraordinary. Young’s story line has the undercurrent of the soul-searching angst of a young person searching for a meaningful purpose in life — and a sad ending.

Humor

Doublespeak

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Euphemisms – substituting a positive description for a negative one – have been a device used by marketing and advertising writers forever. For example, apartment ads that can only promise that it is “clean and sunny” are a sure sign that the place is cramped and drafty with a fresh coat of paint. If it says “in an up-and-coming neighborhood,” you know it’s a dump in a dumpy area.

Corporate writers will try to soften the blow for shareholders by talking about a “challenging” year, when “disastrous” might be a more apt description. Marketing writers will look for ways to turn a perceived negative into a positive. Some politicians and scam artist will say anything short of an out-and-out lie.

Lately doublespeak has become a universal language, so we thought we’d provide a brief glossary of what the terms really mean.

In Other Words

Humor

Do You Tweet After Sex?

By Delphine Hirasuna |

iPhone in Bed

Lately it seems that every webinar, workshop, conference and business publication includes advice on optimizing social media marketing, which is why we thought this study on Twitter and Facebook use would be of interest to our readers. Part of the Gadgetology Report produced by Retrevo, a consumer electronics shopping site, the online independent survey sampled 771 respondents from across the United States (so we can’t tell you how the answers compare with people in other countries.) The Retrevo survey also reveals that men are more than twice as likely to use Facebook or Twitter after sex than women, and iPhone users are three times more likely than Blackberry owners (no surprise there). We don’t have any suggestions on how to calculate this into your social media marketing strategy, but some savvy marketers will understand the ramifications.

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