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Humor

Abused to Make a Point

By Delphine Hirasuna |

For home remodelers weighing whether real hardwood or Pergo XP laminate will wear better on the floor, check out this marketing video, produced by Atlanta-based ad agency, Fitzgerald+CO. Pergo XP foregoes the standard product performance demonstration and shows a cast of odd characters performing unspeakable acts on the flooring. Fitzgerald+CO wisely chose to film the ad in Venice Beach, California, where even bikini-clad roller skaters and Mr. Universe muscle men don’t cause a stir — just another day at the beach.

Announcements

Happy New Year!!

By Delphine Hirasuna |

We don’t know how to wish you a happy new year in multiple languages, but we found several cats that do. From the team at @Issue, we wish you all the best in 2012 — peace, friendship, health, great collaborative clients, a free flow of creative inspiration, and many many moments of joy and laughter. Thank you for following @Issue throughout the year.

Humor

Royal Navy’s Christmas Wish

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The crew of the Royal Navy’s HMS Ocean came up with a creative way to announce their Christmas homecoming after seven long months at sea. In a series of giddy antics, they lipsynced their way through Mariah Carey’s rendition of “All I Want for Christmas.”

Last April the HMS Ocean was sent out for what was supposed to be a seven-week training exercise, but suddenly got diverted to Libya instead to support the UN air mission during the uprising against Moammar Gaddafi. When the crew finally got word that they’d be back in their home port of Plymouth for Christmas, they celebrated by making their own video during an unusually quiet two-day period. A morale booster for the crew, the video is silly, funny and a “feel-good” way to usher in the holidays. Welcome home.

Public Service Campaign

Greenpeace Turns Chopsticks into Trees

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Consider this: Consumers in China went through 57 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks in 2009 alone, which equates to more than 3.8 million trees. For a nation that ranks 139th worldwide in forest land per capita, that means that China’s forests may be wiped out in 20 years if consumption continues at that rate.

Last winter Greenpeace East Asia and Ogilvy Beijing teamed with artist Yinhai Xu and students from 20 Chinese universities to stage a public awareness campaign. Together, they gathered some 80,000 pairs of used chopsticks from Beijing restaurants to assemble a “Disposable Forest” in a popular Beijing shopping center. The display urged people to carry around their own pair of chopsticks when eating out and asked them to sign a pledge to stop using disposable chopsticks. The 80,000 pairs of chopsticks that were transformed into four full-sized trees are a mere sliver of how many disposable chopsticks are used worldwide. Even though wood is a renewable resource is it really worth it to cut down a tree to make an eating utensil that is used once and thrown away?

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Advertising

McDonald’s Beacon of French Fries

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Here’s a case of taking the same visual concept and using it to communicate two different marketing messages. This “night light” print ad, created by Cossette West in Canada, promotes the fact that McDonald’s is now open all night, 24/7.

It builds on a visual idea, conceived by Leo Burnett USA, for an outdoor marketing campaign touting McDonald’s as having the “Best Fries on the Planet.” Visible from three miles around, the billboard shot vertical beams of golden light up from a super-sized French-fry packet, illuminating the night skies of Chicago. Although this spectacular “tribute to fries” garnered lots of accolades for its ingenuity, the outdoor light show was also called insensitive for what some considered an uncanny resemblance to the Twin Tower “Tribute in Light” commemoration of the 9/11 tragedy. We don’t think so. For one thing, the billboard – which came down last week – was only shown in Chicago near the company’s headquarters. Also, the red box of fries is so iconic that viewers immediately associate it with the fast-food giant and chuckle. Don’t know whether this marketing concept will be extended beyond print ads and billboards, but maybe it should be turned into a promotional giveaway of a real “french fry” night light.

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