Oh Oh Oh by The Golf Boys – Farmers Insurance go viral

As far as sponsorship goes, Golf is a pretty cluttered marketplace and one dominated by Financial Services brands and sports apparel. It is rare to see a fairly straight, corporate brand letting go a little bit and doing something fun.

So hats (or visors) off to Farmers Insurance, sponsors of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in California, who have done something a little different and all in the name of charidee.

PGA Tour players Ben Crane, Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, and Hunter Mahan, with just a little help from musician Con Bro Chilli, have created a music video. Yes, a music video. With a real track. On iTunes and everything.

Posted just at the start of this week, at the time of writing Oh Oh Oh by The Golf Boys had already garnered over a million views.

As Brand Channel reported earlier this week, the video is rapidly going viral, with a feature on PGATOUR.COM as well as its Facebook and Twitter pages. The video can also be seen on Ben Crane’s YouTube channel, and website.

The Sponsorship Story (via BrandChannel): “The fact that State Farm is sponsoring Ben Crane’s group and video shows the expanding relationship between the two. That relationship dates back to Crane’ victory at last year’s Farmers Insurance Open. Since then, Crane has partnered with Farmers and Farmers’ parent company, Zurich Financial Services, and he also sports the Zurich or Farmers logo on his golf cap, depending on the tournament.”

But for me, what takes this from being a ‘plum stoopid’ stunt (in the words of @One_Off_Olly) to a cute piece of marketing is the charity/viral element. The video is positioned as ‘presented by’ Farmers Insurance but what I love is that for every 100,000 views Farmers will donate $1,000 to charitable proceeds that will support both Farmers and Ben Crane charitable initiatives.

Why is this so neat? The charity element, built on the basis of viral value (each view on YouTube equates to 1c from Famers to charity) gives users a tangible role in helping the cause. And even better, its not from their own pocket, but from the ‘big bad’ corporate entity. Some will be inclined to re-watch numerous times just to stick one up at the Man – and it’s win win for Farmers because the more people that view and click, the more promotion they get as a genuine supporting partner. But most will be watching for pure comedy value because, frankly, it’s hilarious.

Enjoy.

98 year-old woman shows Bank the true value of customer service

I’ve only just come across this letter, but apparently it was first published in the New York Times about three years ago. Not quite sure why it is undergoing a social media resurgence, but such is the way of the viral.

No one seems to know which Bank was the target, nor if it really was a 98 year old woman who wrote it – but as urban myths go, it’s pretty entertaining. And we’ve all been stuck on the end of endless button-pushing automated telephone services – so it’s not hard to imagine.

Enjoy…

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement, which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, but when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.
2. To query a missing payment.
3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7. To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required.
A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.)
8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through to 8.
9. To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

Wall Street 2: Product Placement Never Sleeps

I went along to a preview of the Wall Street sequel last night. Enjoyable, certainly, but as ever (brand geek that I am) I was on the look out for product placement and my word was there a lot to choose from.

While Brand Cameo provides a very nice summary of all the brands who got screen time, I thought it would be more interesting to visually display which ones had the biggest impact on me. So I created a Wordle to represent them:

Now I’m not saying this is based on the average consumer, because I am a brand-obsessed marketer who was actively looking out for them. But I’ve created this based on the impact each brand left me with.

Of the 33 brands present on the screen, I managed unprompted recall of 7 – Bulgari, Heineken, Johnnie Walker (Blue), Lay’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Toyota and Ducati. Another two that, on being prompted, I felt also had a prominent role were Border’s and Cracker Jack (the latter of which got a verbal reference, a minor plot-line and on-screen package presence).

In terms of credibility? The Heineken reference was absurd: in a restaurant setting, Gekko (Michael Douglas) offers Jake (Shia LeBeouf) a drink and instead of the more natural ‘Can I get you a beer?’, he offers the specific branded lager (which LeBeouf accepts), showing an unusual prior knowledge of drinks taste for an exchange between relative strangers.

(c) Twentieth Century Fox

Bulgari has a natural narrative placement in one storyline, but there is an additional black tie fundraiser scene where half the screen time is taken up with scene-setting shots focused tightly on the bejewelled ears and necks of all the female guests – no doubt who were all dressed by the luxury jeweller. Slightly gratuitous.

Ducati absolutely has a natural fit in one section of the movie, and the branding doesn’t feel overdone. Toyota more or less serves a purpose, but had no specific plotline supporting its involvement (unlike Ducati) – appearance-wise it looks like an odd choice of model for the protagonists (not the best-looking car), but on further probing I gather it is a Toyota Prius. It is the ‘lefty’[sic] Winnie (Carey Mulligan) who we see driving it (implication being it is hers rather than Jake’s) so I guess, given the Prius’s über-green credentials, it actually seems a pretty good character fit.

Other brands appear just for screen time: Dunkin’ Donuts and Lay’s being two. The offer of a Johnnie Walker Blue from Jake to his Japanese clients as a gift is a bit over-sold but more or less believable (though I remain unconvinced you would refer to the brand by name on presentation of the bottle).

The nicest brand reference is probably Cracker Jack (another Frito Lay brand) – I won’t expand too much for fear of plot-spoilers ahead of release – but their presence in the movie is believable, fits with the narrative and isn’t over-sold.

What really interests me is how much the average movie-goer would have picked up from all of these. If there’s anyone reading this who doesn’t lamely watch movies for the brand mentions, please do leave your comments below.

Hiscox insurance calls a spade a spade

Snapshot while waiting for a train this morning – a strong outdoor ad from a potentially dull brand.

CBS Outdoor Advertising did something equally striking when catching the eye of bored tube commuters at Hammersmith station a few months back.

This time, insurance company Hiscox are out to prove that they speak plainly to their customer base, cutting through all the usual jargon spouted by a lot of their financial and insurance competitiors. In this case, literally calling a spade a spade.

If my Blackberry photo resolution isn’t quite up to scratch, the copy reads:

It’s a Spade. Not an earth relocating implement.

At Hiscox, we keep our policies jargon free. After all, what’s wrong with plain English?

In a world where your water-cooler arrives via local ’water-dispensing solution delivery operatives’ and your household trash is collected by ‘refuse waste removal management systems’, it was quite refreshing to see a spade called, well, a spade.

Lions rugby ads – the good, the bad and the worst

As we’ve recently been on the topic of brands capitalising on big sporting headlines, I thought it apt to take a look at two Lions rugby-themed ads which caught my eye this week. And for rather different reasons.

HSBC, main sponsor of the British & Irish Lions team have thrown a shed-load of their marketing budget at above the line activation of the sponsorship this summer – and rightly so as their main sporting sponsorship property deserves. Amongst a huge range of creatives, sits the ad below, which I just love. It’s simple, brand-warming and conveys their grassroots-rugby-support message brilliantly:

(Although I should say at this juncture that I am definitely less of a fan of their Sky Sports indents that wrap all the Lions coverage – though opinion seems widely divided on this one).

Of course, as with all major sporting properties, illegitimate brands will always try to hi-jack the topical news agenda with strategic placement of their own ads at key moments. Cue male hair-dye company Just For Men jumping on the back of the Lions’ campaign with the below. Total comedy.

…and the Telegraph agrees with me

Just couldn’t resist adding to the Stanford story when I saw this morning’s Telegraph feature on the breaking news of yesterday. For those readers of my humble musings who also have access to my Facebook status updates, you might have noticed my prediction that the famed ‘money shot’ (below) was guaranteed back page fodder for the press today…

© The Telegraph Media Group

And lo and behold, the Telegraph laid their story out with images almost matching mine (granted, a predictable selection, but still). Geek moment, but am rather proud we’re on the same wave-length…

Stanford’s billion dollar fraud puts ECB in hot water

Karma? What goes around comes around? Perhaps that’s a little harsh, but for me to post two cricket stories in one day, it has to be something fairly major.

Million dollar man Stanford, who flew in with his helicopter and his trunk of cash, like a cricket fairy godmother waving 20 million dollar bills, sweeping the ECB, the top dollar players and their CWAGs completely off their feet (the later, in case you don’t remember, quite literally).

Allen Stanford entertains the England players' wives and girlfriends during play

So what could possibly bring this cricket revolutionary back down to earth with a bump? Well the US Securities and Exchange Commission for one, who have today announced charges of fraud against Stanford Financial, causing the ECB and WICB to drop him like a hot coal.

Even faster than they signed the contract in the first place, which is saying something.

But the question is, didn’t everyone suspect that there was always the chance Stanford’s billion dollar fortune wasn’t built entirely on solid ground? In which case, when the dust settles, the ECB’s reputation is likely to suffer far more than our friendly Texan billionaire.

Looks like the West Indian cricket grounds aren’t the only part of the cricket world built on sand right now. Question is, can the ECB hold steady and ride the storm?