Author: jakehaws

This recent hidden camera stunt promotes the new remake of “Carrie” by using the same telekinetic/anger themes from the movie. The reaction on the people being pranked is great! With 33 million views so far, I would say this viral clip has been a success.

This is a great non-traditional installation campaign that advertising agency M&C saatchi milano did for insurance company, europ assistance IT. They built the top of a submarine to make it look like it had just bursted through the streets of milan and wrecked someone’s car. They even had live actors portraying sailors, scuba divers, and emergency crew. The overarching idea is that you never know when an unforeseen event will happen and take you by surprise.

Head on over to Designboom to see the more pictures and footage of the campaign.

1. Look for the up sale – The obvious up sale on the consumer side is concessions. We started with bottle/canned soda, chips and candy. Eventually, we upgraded to more of a cafe that served sandwiches, fountain sodas, Italian Sodas, and Hot Chocolate. There were some remodel costs involved but we were able to do it fairly economically.

Another up sale opportunity is the bands/artists that play at the venue. The nice thing is that with any service, you can apply what you would paid them toward the service, so the money doesn’t have to come out of their pocket. Think about what kind of additional services you can provide. One of those is providing a live recording of the show. At the very least, If you want to keep it simple, you can throw up a pair of condenser mics and record to a laptop. Another up sale ideas to bands is custom one inch buttons. You can buy a button machine and die cutter for around $200. The materials for buttons cost about 5 cents a piece. I would typically sell 100 buttons to bands for $35, leaving $30 for about an hour of work. Not bad.

There are plenty of other side businesses you could pursue to leverage your network of bands and the potential to keep more of a cut from the door: merchandise such as t-shirts, selling local CDs on consignment, etc.

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I came across this article in Ad Week today. Burger King is pretending to change it’s name to Fries King…. and people are actually believing it for some reason.

The funny thing is that it’s been done before. I can remember back to one of my advertising classes around 2007 where we debated for about 10 minutes whether Pizza Hut’s claim to change their name to “Pasta Hut” was real or not. Of course, the fact that it was April 1st should have given us a clue! But the parallel thinking here seems to be that in order to introduce or place emphasis on a new product, it’s not enough anymore to say, “In addition to what we normally serve, we now serve X.” You have to do something a little more shocking to get people’s attention.

It’s kind of a strange promotion gimmick but hey, if it gets people talking, it’s working right?

Here is a TV spot Pizza/Pasta Hut put together back in the day to really drive the point home.

Chipotle’s new ad has been getting a lot of buzz lately. It’s a great campaign that manages to feel more like a short film than a TV spot. First of all, it’s very artistically done. The imagery is incredible, the story is compelling, and the music features a haunting version of “Pure Imagination” (from the Willy Wonka soundtrack) performed by Fiona Apple. Secondly, it caters to the socially conscious era we live in. It makes the case the food industry is in trouble and not producing food with as fresh and healthy ingredients as it could and should (with some exaggeration to get their point across). The story ends by introducing Chipotle as a glimmer of hope and an example for the way food should be sustainably produced. Lastly, in conjunction with the spot, they have created a free iPhone game, which extends the message into a whole new (and potentially time consuming) channel. It’s a well done game that’s fun to play and keeps with the story.

Kudos for Chipotle’s Marketing team for creating a marketing campaign which is both subtle and powerful.

I came across this article in Ad Week today. Burger King is pretending to change it’s name to Fries King. It’s kind of a strange promotion gimmick but hey, if it gets people talking, it’s working right?

The funny thing is it’s been done before. I can remember back to one of my advertising classes in college where we debated whether Pizza Hut’s claim to change there name to “Pasta Hut” was real or not. Of course, the fact that it was April 1st should have given us a clue!

When you think of beer ads, what traditionally comes to mind are images of parties, women or something really off the wall and wacky. This new ad by Guinness goes a completely different direction and actually makes a beer ad that is inspiration. I’m not a beer drinker but I commend Guinness and their ad agency, BBDO, for creating an ad with substance instead of yielding to lowest common denominator.

Another great book by the marketing guru himself, Seth Godin. I’m a recent convert to Godin, after being introduced to his work by a co-worker of mine. Earlier this year, I read Tribes, listened to audiobooks of Purple Cow and Permission Marketing, have watched all of his TED Talks, and have listened to his Startup School Podcast (so far my favorite). I’m soaking it all in and loving it. In Poke the Box, Seth talks about how so often, we let fear and risk get in the way of starting something remarkable. The irony, Seth points out, is that it’s more risky to do nothing and continue with the status quo than to innovate and explore new ideas. Ultimately, the businesses that are afraid to innovate and try new ideas are the ones that can’t keep up and collapse.

“All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works. The box might be a computer or it might be a market or it might be a customer or it might be your boss. It’s a puzzle, one that can be solved in only one way – by poking.”

At only 83 pages, it’s a short read. Seth has organized the book into short, 1-2 page chapters. His writing style with this book is a little bit scattered and non-linear, like a compilation of blog posts. Never-the-less it’s an entertaining, insightful and motivational read.