Interesting to see yesterday the THQ Humble Bundle using a bit of behavioural thinking as part of it's charity offer.
Go onto the website and you can get a selection of well known and pretty decent THQ games for whatever price you choose over $1. Given that most of these games are £10-20 each on Steam right now, that's a bargain.
The smart thing, is that the best game is only unlocked if you donate above the average donation figure. Subtly dragging the average price up, and ensuring that people are likely to pay at least a few dollars for it. (Average was $5.70 at time of writing)
The second smart thing is that when you choose your payment amount, you can choose how the payment is split between the games publisher, the charity and the company paying for the hosting. This makes it unlikely that anyone would choose for the publisher to get none of the cash.
Thirdly. Pirate games on the PC are a huge huge problem. One publisher believed over 95% of the copies of one of it's games were pirated downloads. So offering a cheap and legitimate way for people who might otherwise pirate to get hold of these games is a sensible idea. After all, if they get £1 each from people that would otherwise have got it for nothing, that's a useful extra income.
It makes a huge change for a publisher to actually think smartly about things, rather than the usual shouting and ranting about piracy, which they usually solve by adding security that only damages real buyers.
If you haven't bought the humble bundle yet, it's a great package, at a bargain price. Nice to reward some good thinking too.
You wouldn't think that Christmas ads would be ones to make me pleased about the return of creativity and connection, but compared to previous years we have a surprising range of ads based around one theme.
Well actually, it isn't really that surprising. Following the public and ad-land wide acclaim (for the most part) for the John Lewis campaign, we appear to have a whole chunk of the retail sector who have been strongly influenced by it.
Which leads us to a weird situation, where we have four major retail chains all going with ads that aim to appeal to us with more emotion. A weirder situation where Christmas ads are largely good. Plus an even weirder one where I have something not entirely positive to say about a W+K ad. God help us there's even a not entirely anger inducing ad from Go Compare, though that's not for this post.
So where to start?
Tesco
Edit: Happily having seen the other ads in the campaign, it's just this one execution where the offer doesn't quite tie. The rest work wonderfully, and the playfulness with the logo adds a friendly touch to Tesco that is has been needing for a while as the supermarket behemoth of note.
Let's start by saying this is definitely a marked improvement on what Tesco have done recently. A million million miles better than the Spice Girls debacle of yore.
The key idea is really nice, the connection of the right present with a good Christmas, the joy of finding the gift your kids are asking for with the minimum of hassle. Who could dislike a Furby singing a Lionel Richie track?
The issue for me is the way the ad jumps too much, I don't like the way it cuts from the lovely key idea, to a promotional message that doesn't feel connected to the main idea, back to the idea, then to an end frame with their usual strapline. It takes an ad that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy and blunts it.
A lovely strategic idea that maybe would have worked better in a longer format, or perhaps by splitting the promotional message into a different execution.
Asda
After what feels like years of out and out price messaging we suddenly get something really nice from Asda. Making no bones about the effort and the hassle of Christmas, but with two reassuring messages that it is worth it, and Adsa is there to help make it less hassle than it would otherwise be. Lots of typical Christmassy problems, but an end result that makes you smile.
Morrisons
What's surprising about this is just how similar this ad is to Asda. They feel like they could have been made with the same brief. Whilst the Morrisons ad is less overtly about the supporting of mums, it focuses more on the trials and tribulations of getting everything ready for that special end result. The wonderfully absurd execution takes the same old Christmas problems and shows them in a way that creates a genuine warm humour. The bit with the Russian Doll cupboard is absolutely spot on.
I think this is my favourite of the three. Although as a friend of mine pointed out, the music ends on a dominant chord, which gives it a really unnerving awkwardness on what should be a happy moment. I am surprised no one spotted that.
Boots
"Here come the g..." Oh.
This is a bit closer to the typical Christmas ad, but the little vignettes are sweet, and feel far closer to reality than the slightly irritating cliche'd 'girls' ever did. It's also a nice strategic way to get around the perception (from how I saw it) that Boots gifts are mainly for women, and are small token gifts rather than significant gestures.
Warm, sweet and funny, great work. The little girl talking to the dog is just adorable.
The Supermarkets all focus on mum, as you might expect, while Boots have gone the other way and opened up more to men. I do wonder whether guys feel left out of Christmas, always in the way or bit part players, whereas I imagine (from my experiences at least) that these days there is a bit more of a team effort. The Asda ad is definitely weaker for this.
As always, knowing how people will react to them is hard to guess. There are a mix of positive and negatives scores to each video on You Tube already. I hope that, given the usual minefield of generic Christmas ads, these will have a positive impact overall.
It's lovely to see so many Christmas ads that make you feel something, and show the season with a sense of honesty, rather than the stereotypical cheesy images we usually get rammed down our throats.
In fact, if there is one problem, it's that by all improving at the same time, it's harder for these brands to stand out than if only one of them had improved. That though, is a great present to us from the retail sector and their agencies.
An interesting twitter debate kicked off earlier today over the merits of a John Steele quote as tweeted by Dave Trott.
"It's not a planner's job to have ideas, rather to create an environment where others can have them." - John Steele
Followed by Mark Hancock (Holycow) responding to say he agreed that planners need to foster an environment, but that the stimulus planners give to creatives usually comes as an idea. W+K's official account also tweeted that they'd rather have people who create ideas across the board, from planning to HR. I've yet to see any response from Dave Trott, but I think it will be worth reading if he does.
I find this a fascinating topic, because while in many respects it feels like a case of semantics, it comes down to one key point for me:
If a brief is devoid of ideas, how is is likely to inspire creatives?
We can't exactly claim that strategy isn't full of ideas. If a strategy has no ideas, we'll just end up with boring cliche'd briefs that will nudge the creatives towards limited ideas.
If people across the agency are creating ideas, it helps to foster people working together better. Not only that if creatives see that the people around them have the capability to generate ideas then it must give them more confidence that the briefs and development around them are well thought out, and appreciate how they are going to produce ideas.
Personally I have to agree with the tweet from W+K. If you run a creative business, everything that you produce is based upon ideas. Strategic ideas to develop great briefs and real useful insights, creative ideas to bring the strategy to life, account handling ideas to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently. Why on earth would you not want anyone in that team to have ideas, to share them and create a culture that works together to create a whole that is massively beyond the sum of the parts. In fact if you look at the difference between the best and the worst creative organisations, I bet one of the key differences you will see is their openness to ideas and the culture of collective creativity that it can help to foster.
Of course John isn't bad mouthing ideas, and I doubt he means planners shouldn't have ideas, just that this shouldn't be the key thing we do. However I think ideas are such an intrinsic part of what we do, that we cannot possibly be great planners without generating ideas.
As I've said before, I am a firm believer that creativity comes from anywhere, and that while we are separated as planner, creatives and account handlers for a reason, that doesn't mean that we are incapable of ideas or feedback on those other areas. We inherently have to understand each others' positions to produce the best work. A planner should accept that a creative might have a great strategic idea, just as a planner might have a great creative idea. In a football team no one says to a defender "You should not score goals", you make sure they do their job of defending, but if they turn up and score, you applaud them for their cross team effort, just as you would a striker who makes a key tackle in the penalty area. (Sorry for the football metaphor, it seemed apt.)
I think perhaps the two things are very closely linked. Fostering an environment that encourages ideas is partly done by having ideas yourself. To cut off yourself from having ideas is to stifle any atmosphere of sharing and generation that you try to create. If you want to foster a relaxed culture, you shouldn't turn up in suit and tie every day, you have to live the culture you are trying to create.
I've seen John Steele present his core thoughts at work, and he is a compelling speaker. I don't want this to come across as a criticism of his work, because as we know, context is everything, and this is a quote out of context and without substantiation. I do think it's an interesting topic to debate further though.
Yes that's right, it's now late October, which means all of you should have seen at least 3 Christmas ads by now!
Every single year we get brands talking about Christmas before we even get to Halloween. It's bloody annoying, but does it actually work?
Have you ever met anyone who saw a Christmas ad in October and went "Oh my god, I totally forgot Christmas is coming up, I better go buy all my stuff now!", I sure as hell haven't. Even for people who get their shopping done early, mid October is stretching it just a bit.
By coming out so early with these ads, surely brands are creating negative reactions that actually count against them? Are they damaging rather than inspiring? Almost everyone I know reacts with a depressed sigh of inevitability when the first ad comes on, even mocking the brands that do it. Given many people are completely fatigued with all things Christmassy before it ever gets to December, are you not just placing the brand name in a category marked 'Christmas hassle'.
In fact the massive queues, rushed service and lack of stock that you expect at Christmas are incredibly annoying; and to me using massively Christmas advertising early risks placing a store into the category marked 'This will be packed full of Christmas shoppers, I won't go there.' I wonder if there is room for an approach that deliberately goes against the Christmas flow, not anti-Christmas, but marks a store out as maintaining a pleasant and comfortable experience while everywhere else is going completely over the top with shoving red things in front of your eyes everywhere you look. 'We love Christmas as much as the next person, but we aren't going to go overboard.'
I think a lot of stores fear being seen as 'Bah Humbug!' if they don't engage with the redredder reddest traditions, but actually I think stores drive the perception more than people actually want it. I know a lot of people who would be far more likely to shop somewhere that built up to Christmas in a subtle way.
So is the point to simply associate the name of the store with Christmas, which in a crowded market would make sense; but would that actually work any better by starting weeks before most people actually do any shopping? Sure you want to combat people going online and buying, but what percentage of people actually buy NOW? Not many I'm sure, and the ones who do probably already know exactly what they are buying and where from. Those who are undecided will probably wait til much nearer the time to choose where to go, and with so many stores advertising the odds are they won't be basing their decisions on an ad from 5 weeks earlier.
At least if you are going to talk about Christmas this sodding early, talk about 'getting in early to beat the crowds', 'we'll help you get it out of the way' or 'low stock expected so why not buy now', give the brand a genuine reason to talk to people in October, not just jumping into the race to get a piece of tinsel on screen as early as possible.
In addition: When Christmas shopping this year, please spare a thought for the poor store staff who have to listen to the same 15 Christmas songs on in-store radio, on loop, every single day for two months... I will say though, as an ex store employee, the very worst day to work is Boxing Day. You get hundreds of people piling in with their unwanted gifts and exchanges, all while being swamped by sale hunters. When I did it I was in the middle of serving a customer when someone literally tried to manually pull me around to get me to speak to them. Not fun.
Very much liking this ad from BNZ (Bank of New Zealand), which looks at both the good and bad side of what money can do to us.
It's a different tone what I usually see from banks, with the nice thought provoking message that money itself isn't good or bad, it's what you as a person or people do with it. It inspires you to think (if only for a few seconds) about what you might do for or with money.
Executionally the 90second version below (which combines the good and bad versions) may be a little long, but I think it's a really interesting campaign.
I was thinking the other day about online review systems, how unreliable and flawed they can be, and how they could be improved. In many ways we have to look at them with the same critical eyes as research, understanding how the methodology affects the result we are given, and being careful to make the right judgement.
Except most people don't have time (or often the inclination) to read 100 reviews to gauge the reliability of a product's reviews, so they short cut by using the average, or by reading a select sample and making a judgement call as to their accuracy.
One magazine that discussed the flaws with reviews brilliantly was EDGE (quality gaming magazine in the UK), they usually score games out of ten, but for one issue they left scores out of the reviews entirely, looking to their audience to work out for themselves based on the text rather than the score. The reactions varied wildly from "This is brilliant, we are intelligent" to "Where the bloody hell did my scores go??", as expected, perhaps they should have scored their score system...
So what about using a system like the Net Promoter Score as the basis for scores? A simple number that shows likelihood to recommend rather than a subjective measure of the films quality, which will vary slightly for every reviewer.
I.e.: Taking those who love a film, and subtracting the number who are likely to say it's not very good to give a 'promoter' score. Usually based upon a score out of ten as to whether you would recommend a film: 10/9 = Recommend, 8/7 = Not too Bothered, 6-0 = Would not recommend.
So (if 100 people scored) a film everybody loves would get 100, a film everybody hates would get -100. No real change at the extremes of course.
Let's take a film where half the people love it and half hate it. If 50% score it 10 out of 10, but 50% score it 0 out of 10, it will have an average score of 5, which would lead people to believe it's rubbish, unless they went in and read the scores in more detail.
That same film with an NPS system would score 0. Meaning people are equally likely to recommend it as dismiss it. A subtle but meaningful difference over a review score that says 'this is average'.
Although perhaps it's too subtle. Thinking about it some more made me think about You Tube, and Rotten Tomato's system of a simple good/bad score, which creates a similar recommendation score, which in most cases is more reliable an indicator of quality than averaged review scores.
Maybe splitting the output into 'Recommend' and 'Dislike' percentages would make more sense. A film with mixed scores is divisive, while a film which is average has low scores for both, suggesting it doesn't create a strong response.
By focusing on likelihood to recommend rather than a 'review' score which may be quite arbitrary, we might end up with a more reliable figure to make a snap judgement on. Of course this is just a quick exploration of the idea, but I thought it was an interesting way of looking at it. What do you think?
It's so nice to see your colleagues producing work you really like. Following on from the excellent campaign in which they introduced a world first can tracker, the latest online work for John West keeps the idea going in a funny and appealing way
The campaign last year sold the trace-ability credentials of John West really well, and this latest content is a great follow up.
My favourite strapline at the moment comes from an unlikely source, a cosmetics brand, namely No.7 (owned by Boots). They've made a line that is simple and brilliant. Frankly (given it's been around for a year or so) I am surprised I haven't seen it before.
Ta Dah!
That's just wonderful.
A two word summary of everything the product is and does, in a phrase that has positivity without being cliched or patronising. It says everything that "Maybe she's born with it" or "Because you're worth it" does, but in fewer words. Even the voiceover says it with such enthusiasm and a tone that feels warm and contagious.
This is one of those lines that needs some good media behind it, because it's so clear and so simple that I can see people taking to it and turning it into a shared bit of culture around make up and cosmetics. Woman walks into the room with her friends and they all go "Ta Dah!".
Great work. The only drawback with a line that great is that it deserves magnificent creative ideas to show it off, I hope they can live up to it.
It's not often that an ad makes a fundamental change to our society or impacts in any meaningful way on the way we live our lives.
Having seen the lasting excitement around the Paralympics at London 2012, I am starting to wonder if we can put Channel 4's incredible Superhumans ad into that category.
Apparently the ad has already been rated by Trevor Beattie as already being the ad of the year.With good reason too. It is a triumphant example of what happens when great planning works together with great creative. A brilliant idea and execution that pushes a wonderful bit of thinking, reframing the Paralympics from the not quite as good follow up, to the celebration of human willpower, determination and battling adversity.
But more importantly, it looks like it has had a huge impact on public perception and interest in the games.
Looking at the time that has gone by, I honestly believe that without that piece of communication building the excitement and anticipation of the games, significantly more people would have forgotten and lost interest in them by time the post Olympic gap had finished.
Given that the public is embracing these Paralympic games like never before, this means the ad is partly responsible for the brilliant things that are taking place:
Millions are watching paralympic sport for the first time
Public interest is driving media interest in the Paralympics and athletes - which in turn is driving public interest
We are seeing Paralympians not as disabled athletes, but as athletes - cheering for them and wanting them to win whilst barely registering that they have a disability.
People are starting to understand better what you can and cannot do/say around people with disabilities, reducing the stigma and nervousness some people have
People are increasingly respecting paralympians for their effort, drive and achievement - turning what used to be sympathy (and maybe being a little patronising) into real empathy and respect.
The support toward paralympians is driving conversation and debate around the general treatment of those with disabilities by people and the government - hopefully being the start of long term changes to destroy disability discrimination once and for all
Britain is leading the way for supporting disabled athletes, and other countries are noticing
So I think we can argue, Superhumans is not just a great bit of creative work with great thinking, it has been effective too, perhaps (in a way) helping to fundamentally change the treatment of those with disabilities in the UK, and influencing those abroad to do the same.
Is it irony that offices of the same agency made this ad too?
I don't like to criticise ads in an unconstructive way, because I know how hard it is to create good campaigns, and to get those good campaigns through the client.
But sometimes you see an ad that just has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and there is little you can do but wonder how in the name of all things creative that monstrosity ever got to air.
May I introduce you to the Colgate Pro Gum Health ad. 30 seconds that single-handedly takes advertising back 30 years. Their recent ads have all been poor, but at least they were just simple, style free ads that showed you some product and information while interacting with what seemed like normal people.
This ad though, commits some unforgivable cardinal sins of advertising.
Let's start with the 'real' people who couldn't look more like actors if they had their equity cards held up in front of their face.
Dialogue that tries to sound natural but feels stiled, fake and irritating, while acted in a way that feels so incredibly posed that it makes you want to laugh.
There's the 'focus group leader' who looks like he has been recruited based on his looks alone.
Oh and not forgetting the absurdly comic 'ask your dentist' ending with mind-bogglingly silly photo. (I actually did burst out laughing the first time I saw it).
Additionally, as mentioned by @AJ_ay_it the stylistic approach to branding of plastering everything in the logo COLGATE COLGATE COLGAAAAATTTTEEEE! , and that this researcher should be reported to the MRS for his selling..!
What decade are we living in?
This ad couldn't feel more dated if it was shot in black and white and fronted by someone who is dead. It talks to people in a way that seems to presume they have all the intelligence of a intellectually challenged loaf of bread. If you want people to understand the facts then just tell them in a compelling way, don't break out sales tactics that would be laughed at even by Alan Sugar.
I find it hard to believe that a creative agency could produce this, an ad completely devoid of any charm or creativity whatsoever. I don't know whether this is the fault of the agency or the client, but this kind of advertising will not engage or inspire anyone. Telling the facts can be a good strategy, but not like this. I spoke to someone at another agency who said it felt so negative that he was actually thinking about giving up using Colgate. I say this as someone who has been a loyal Colgate user for over a decade, their products are good, but talking about them in this way is just horrific.
