Of course, being one of the crazy ones (iPhone owner), I clicked in. The article featured an Apple ad which I assumed was new. As a matter of fact, I think that both of the other bloggers pegged the ad as being a new one to promote the iPhone. Nope. The color logo at the end is a dead giveaway. This ad was produced by Apple in the late 90s.
Just goes to show that with YouTube and the like, good advertising can carry your message much past its run on network television. Fortunately, Apple has done a good job of keeping its brand message consistent even while changing campaigns.
Seth Stevenson at Slate gives us the 12 television advertising types as created by Donald Gunn in 1978 for Leo Burnett. It’s a very interesting list. If you want to know more, watch the video.
The demo
The problem
Symbolize the problem
Symbolize the benefit
Comparison
Exemplary story
Benefit causes story
Testimonial
Ongoing character or celebrity
Associated user imagery
Unique personality property
Parody or borrowed format
What’s cool about the list is that not only was it created nearly 30 years ago, but it also still holds true today. The aforementioned video proves that with some really fun examples. If you want to just watch the ads without the commentary, check out the slideshow.
Think Flickr meets Twitter. It’s the site that asks “What are you doing … with that picture you just took on your iPhone.” It’s like a visual “diary” from iPhoners around the world. It’s iPhone Shots.
I guess that’s the joy of big buzz: No matter the media outlet, if the buzz is big enough, they will cover it. Our latest podcast covered iPhones too, but from the perspective of advertising and PR. I wish that the ‘Dog would have shared how this affects us. Perhaps they are setting us up for a story tomorrow about how Apple is handling the deluge of stories like this.
With all the hype around the iPhone, I figured that the Harry Potter buzz might run a close second. Wrong! I found a great post on ConsumerGeneratedMedia.com. Seems that Harry totally whipped the iPhone relative to blog buzz.
For me, however, the cool part of the story was the discovery that I made when I went to investigate the graph on the CGM blog. I had never been to BlogPulse before, and with a few short clicks, you can compare buzz on any topics. I addition to the Harry Potter / iPhone graph, I thought it would be fun to see if any political candidate was doing as well buzz-wise as Harry Potter or the iPhone. Nope.
Leo Burnett had a great idea: Let’s turn 7-Eleven stores into Springfield Kwik-E-Marts to promote the Simpsons Movie. They presented the idea to Fox during some pitch meetings, and so it was done. Problem is, Leo Burnett didn’t win the account. According to NPR, they are mightily ticked off that they didn’t get any recognition, and more importantly, they didn’t get paid.
So, who owns the ideas? NPR points to a precedent created by the agency that came up with the Taco Bell Chihuahua. The court awarded that agency money for the idea because there was an implied contract during the pitch.
As agencies, what are well selling to our clients? Design? No, designers are a dime-a-dozen, and anyone can layout a pretty picture. Press releases? Nope. Again, anyone with a college degree can bang out a few paragraphs. Our product is ideas. That’s what we are selling. If our ideas suck, our agency fails. Brilliant ideas breed bigger clients.
So, if we are going to sell ideas, we have to prove to prospective clients that we can generate great ideas for them. In a pitch meeting, we present ideas. If they steal them, they are stealing our product. They are stealing the essence of what makes our agency different from the one down the street.
Sue them, Leo Burnett. Protect our ideas. And when you do, be sure to play their anti-piracy ad for the jury.
I’m a habitual early adopter. I had a CD player when you could only find about a dozen different CDs in a record store (remember those?). I had a DVR before the general public in my area could get them because I knew someone at the cable company. I was in Second Life before there were 250,000 people there. I got my iPhone on iDay (it rocks!).
But I’m way behind on this Twitter thing. The idea of microblogging sounds cool, I just haven’t jumped in.
I’m going to rectify that. I ran across B.L. Ochman’s blog, and she was talking about how much fun it is. She convinced me it was time.
Well as quickly as companies wanted into Second Life, it appears the mass exodus has begun. Ad Age had an article a few days ago, Time listed SL as one of its top five worst web sites, American Apparel has closed its virtual doors and bloggers have begun tolling the bell for the end of a short era.
But yesterday, as if in anticipation for this blog post, Neville Hobson alerts us to the fact that Dell has moved in to Second Life - not with an island (which they may alreay have) but rather by offering in-world Dell support. Neville learned about the in-world tech support through a Dell group that he joined.
Although companies are having a problem making a visable return on their invesment, it’s hard to ignore a community - virtual or otherwise - that has more than 8 million residents. Enter the public relations pros.
Although Second Life is turning out to be a place where companies are having a difficult time impacting their bottom line, it is still a great place to reach to reach a vast, affluent audience. As a social community with millions of people, there are still ways to communicate in a positive way with your audiences (Think “Fall of Advertising, Rise of PR“).
A great example can be found with one of my real world clients: the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The Society does not have a build in SL, but there is an active MS group. Although the group was not started by the Society, it is a place for the Society to work with their audience. A similar grassroots effort greatly benefitted the American Cancer Society with the virtual Relay for Life. Second Life is still a great place for virtual meeting, collaboration, sharing of ideas and all of those thing integrate with PR activities.
Frankly, companies moving out of Second Life is probably a good thing for the community. Too much commercialization would hamper the growth of SL. Think about MySpace. The commercialism there has greatly slowed its growth and popularity. As public relations pros, we should look for ways to add meaningful dialog to the social community without intruding. In other words, we should do in Second Life what we are already doing in First Life.
Once I got mightily upset when a billboard company stuck one of my client’s billboards on the side of an adult bookstore. What’s worse, the headline on the billboard was something like “better movie experience.” Taken to the extreme dirty mind, the billboard and it’s placement was… unfortunate.
I got a good laugh from this Web site that shows some unfortunate placements. Some might be photoshopped, but it’s fun to believe that they are real.
