Best Ideas In The World

Learning to Love Mashing

Recent intel from both Asia and Australia indicates the use of ‘Mashing’ technology, which allows customers to create and upload their own ‘ads’, is ever-increasing. Some consider this technique risky, however the interaction with audiences is huge, and the viewership of these mashed ads runs into the 100s of thousands via website views and also iTunes downloads.

Advertising has never been afraid of parodying itself, but how many agencies (and brands) are confident enough to allow ‘their public’ to express their true thoughts and feelings?

A TV show in Australia, hosted by advertising professionals, called The Gruen Transfer recently inspired the uploading of more than 6000 ’spoof’ ads created by their viewers.

The ‘ads’ were made for a range of fictional products - from a beer, to an anti-ageing cream and a bank - and the number of times they were watched in just the first few days was well over a quarter of a million.

You might say that’s fine for a TV show, and fictional products, but what about the real world?
That’s where mashing comes in. Brave clients seeking genuine interaction - warts and all - can provide customers with Mashing tools - content, backgrounds, music, visuals, and product shots. Customers can then ‘Mash’ together, edit and launch ads of their own about those products.

Across Asia and the Pacific, advertisers have dabbled with the concept of consumers making ads, most notably Virgin Mobile, and a bank - NAB.

During the 2006 Football World Cup, NAB asked people to use a gallery of footage to create ads supporting the Australian Soccer team. In an eight-week period, more than 8,000 amateur, heart-felt, genuine ‘ads’ had been mashed - and were then viewed almost a million times.

A famous example here in the States was a certain SUV manufacturer who allowed the public to Mash.
Alongside aspiring owners and Ridley Scott’s, anti-SUVers also mashed away. True, the company may have preferred their products only be shown in the best light, however, the incident gave them an opportunity to promote the advantage they actually had over many other SUVs in terms of fuel efficiency. The fast that the brand was seen as willing to allow voices to be heard from all sides could also be viewed as positive. A lot of PR was generated. A LOT. And the site that showed the ads was visited many hundreds of thousands of times. Lessons to be learned, certainly, but that’s always the way when you’re pioneering new ideas.

More of the Best Ideas in the World as intelligence comes in. Be clear with your message; be vigilant with your brand.
David

Ghost of a Russian Past

An idea has surfaced courtesy of our Russian connections.
It seems the use of a venerable elder statesman as a spokesperson is being considered. Nothing especially remarkable about that, and campaigns have been successful in the past utilizing this tactic, so of course consideration should be given where this idea may be applicable and appropriate.

The less than conventional element in this case, though, is that the ‘statesman’ in question is none other than Josef Stalin!

It should be noted that evidence overwhelmingly points to decades of brutal dictatorship in the USSR under Stalin, and the death of millions.

Things are never as they seem, it would seem, and Russia Today, the international broadcaster based in Moscow would like to promote itself by telling the world about a whole side of Stalin that many people never knew. Did we realize he wrote romantic poetry, for example (placed next to an image of him holding a quill).

Russia Today has a signal which can be received in more than 100 countries. It broadcasts in English and Arabic. Its intention is to establish itself as a news channel on a par with CNN and BBC – yet obviously with it’s own Moscow-centric perspectives.

Full page ads have been placed in English Language publications. The slogan for this campaign is apparently ‘proud to be different’. And there can be little doubt that the executions that have been shared with us (if you’ll pardon the expression) are certainly that. Under the auspices of ‘any publicity is good publicity’ results have already shown a 100% increase in visits to their website. We will continue to track and share results as they become available. We can’t help but feel however that this idea should never have seen the light of day and the positioning damage it imposes may take a long time to counteract.

Be clear with your message; be vigilant with your brand.
David

The Latest from our British Connections

Some recent intel on an effective direct marketing perspective came in from our connections in the UK. While they are as bombarded as we are by myriad direct response pitches, one particular approach was seeming to have cut through. It is not entirely unique, there’s’ not all that much new under the sun, but it is a nice new twist, and it does lend itself well to this particular brand and this particular audience.

Please remember that it was Napoleon that first referred to the British as a ‘Nation of Shop Keepers’, so you would have thought that they’d be used to this whole ’selling’ thing by now, but the truth is that they really rarely appreciate an overt pitch, and so creative ways around this aversion constantly need to be sought.

J.P. Boden & Co. Limited, a clothing catalogue company and their founder Johnnie Boden have had immense success with marketing that features extremely targeted, very personal, yet light and funny prose.

One of our British connections talked about how, as a stay-at-home Mum, she felt removed from a lot of messages, and rarely related to any that did get through to her. However, she really liked how Johnnie talked to her directly in a conversational way and signs off each direct mail piece to her personally (or so it seems), as well as each section of the website that talks directly to the customer. He is casual in his tone, and ’says’ things in the direct mail items like “…I hope I haven’t upset you, but I haven’t heard from you in a while…”

She reports that because his personality comes through so well, and because it is now so established, that he can ‘get away’ with being so personal, she responds to his advances much more often than she would otherwise.

It all comes down to carefully crafting the wording (while making it seem not crafted at all) and being consistent. But there could, of course, be learning here for clients everywhere.

Johnnie takes it further, and while virtually all of his business is online, he also has an outlet store, and on the walls of that store ‘he’ has framed and posted complaint letters from customers. While this may seem crazy at first, there is also a certain confidence to this approach, and it definitely furthers his brand. Many of the complaints area actually unreasonable, many are funny, but he goes ahead and posts them, and that says a lot about him and his positioning. There is some double-bluff irony to this particular tactic, and it may work better in some markets than others, but it extends his brand, so that should be noted.

More of the Best Ideas in the World from the UK market, and indeed this particular category, in future postings. Be clear with your message; be vigilant with your brand.
David