Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘advertising’

Freakin’ brilliant ad campaign by a Tel Aviv ad agency for Berlitz, using a play on words on the Obama campaign slogan:

Sometimes, the greatest ideas are the most obvious. (Hat tip: Matt).

Royal Caribbean has been advertising a lot lately, and every time I see one of their cruise ship ads, I remember that the campaign once won an “award” for worst use of music:

The big winner, submitted by dozens and dozens of you, is Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, which used Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” in a series of spots. As my reader Andrei put it, “Nothing says maritime comfort like a song about shooting up junk.”

This poll is a couple of years old, but most of these ad campaigns are still running, leading me to believe that either the ad execs involved didn’t know or didn’t care.

Last night’s “top story” on the news was all about how the campaign has taken a “negative turn” with the new Liberal attack ads on the Tories.

Now, there’s very little dispute that the Liberal campaign has been terribly run. These ads are a bit of a running joke, especially to those of us in the business. And they’re fun to parody and are probably hurting the Liberals more than helping them.

But since when is the negative tone of this campaign “news”? The Tory ads have all attacked the Liberals from day one. They were better ads, granted, but they still spoke exclusively of how bad the Liberals were and had nothing to say about the Tories or their platforms. This has been an attack campaign since the beginning; the only difference is that now the Liberals have climbed into the ring. And if these are their “knockout punches”, Paul Martin’s team is in big trouble.

In the meantime, the Tories have their own troubles, with the news that one of their candidates has been charged with smuggling. The Tories claim they didn’t know, which is probably true. But if they’re going to run a campaign attacking Paul Martin’s claim that he didn’t know about the sponsorship money, at the very least they ought to react to this with more than a “it’s not our fault, we didn’t know”.

And as the two parties throw mud at one another, here in Quebec, Gilles Duceppe is using the opportunity to build support for sovereignty. Regardless of the result of the federal election, the news for Quebec looks bleak.

The new British Airways campaign contains some words I already know and even a few that I use, some words that I didn’t know but that explain a lot, and some words that I strongly suspect might be several decades out of date. Fairly amusing, at any rate.

(Via Imshin).

Allison links to this great Israeli McDonald’s commercial that spoofs Pulp Fiction. View it and laugh.

Went to see the screening of the 2003 Cannes Lions Festival tonight. And while there were some mediocre ads in the mix, there were also moments of sheer brilliance. Like the McDonald’s “transparent” campaign. Or the condom ad with the kid throwing a temper tantrum in the grocery aisle. Or the Honda ad with the domino-like assembly of car parts that was actually filmed in two long takes.

All in all, more laughs than the average comedy feature film. (I wish I could link to them, but the once-wonderful Adcritic.com has become a subscriber-only service. For those of us advertising buffs, that was a real loss.)

All in all, the festival makes you realize that (a) soccer is really really really important in the rest of the world, especially Great Britain, (b) European ads are so much better than ours and (c) advertising can be fun.

But paying? To see ads?

To people who consider advertising an intrusive or even corrupting influence on our lives, they would probably be aghast at the notion.

But advertising is more than just sales. It’s a real art form. And while creative alone won’t always sell the product, at least seeing ads like these inspires those of us in the business to work harder to create something truly great.

Okay, all of you who think advertising is evil can throw rotten fruit at me now…

Is it just me, or are people in my field taking a bit of a beating in the press lately:

Hey, I’d still rather be in advertising than a lawyer joke.

The Canadian Grand Prix will be coming to Montreal after all… after Labatt Breweries made a sponsorship deal to fill the financial void left by the ban on tobacco advertising:

The deal announced on Tuesday by race promoter Normand Legault will see 29 million Canadian dollars (22 million US) paid to Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone in compensation for the lost cigarette sponsorship.

The contribution from Legault himself, the Labatt brewer and other sponsors will raise 17 million Canadian dollars with the Canadian and Quebec governments each chipping in six million Canadian dollars.

“We still have work to do but this support gives us a lot of encouragement. We’re confident we’ll be able to raise that money,” said Legault.

“We are happy to have reached such a conclusion when, in August, we estimated our chances to have Formula One with us again to be rather slim.” Legault said that the payment of 17 million Canadian dollars assured the future of the race for at least the next three years and he predicted the Grand Prix would be on the Formula One calendar “for years to come”.

This is good news for race fans, people in the tourist industries, and fans of cool cars and celebrity-sightings. But I can’t help but wonder at the double-standard.

Don’t get me wrong – I love beer ads. And I don’t think that tobacco should be allowed to advertise. But it does make me question myself on that one. I mean, both are bad for you, both are legal, and one can advertise but the other can’t. Of course, beer isn’t as harmful as tobacco in moderation… but doesn’t it seem a little strange?

Check out the great new Honda Accord commercial (via Damian). Pure genius! And it was all real.

In advertising classes, profs would love to go on at length about the most famous ad blunders in history. The Chevy Nova story has reached urban-legend proportions, for example.

Well, this one has gotta be added to that list. I’d hate to be the account exec responsible for this fiasco of an ad for the Hong Kong tourism industry:

(Via Elana).