Catvertising: why more ad agencies need to learn to laugh at themselves

Catvertising is the latest YouTube sensation to ‘go viral’, with creators, Canadian advertising agency John St., undoubtedly now reaping the rewards of global awareness.

How did this little 150 second clip gain nearly 1 million views? And what other agency can claim that from what is essentially a promotional video?

Quite simply because there is something for everyone: People love the cats, brand-side marketers enjoy the mockery of typical agency showreel videos and every other marketing consultancy around the world is wishing they thought of the idea themselves.

In terms of a strategy for new business, this ticks every box:

1. At the centre of their pipeline ‘bulls eye’ will be the brands – potential clients – to whom they need to prove their creativity and ability to deliver against a brief.
2. In order to attract the best people to work in their team, they need to make sure everyone in the industry knows who they are so that if you don’t currently work there you kind of wish you did – or at least that your team was more like them.
3. And finally non-industry folk - who, directly, are of little benefit to John St. in terms of revenue, but they will be the ones their clients look to reach, so proving they can market themselves to this audience is a pretty convincing way to show they can market their clients with the same creative success. Not everyone will get the knowing references to AdLand’s bullsh*t bingo, but that doesn’t matter, because what everyone does know is that cat videos rock.

Having worked in a marketing consultancy for five years (and loved it), creative and innovative though it was, the trappings of the agency showreel are fairly universal. Catvertising is full of these and I love John St. for being so openly willing to poke fun, laughing at themselves and their industry nuances in the process.  As cutting-edge as they may be, too many agencies can take themselves so seriously, that by blinding prospective clients with zingy quotes, mind-boggling stats and mind map flowcharts, they alienate more than they do attract.

What John St. seem to be saying is ‘we know our stuff, but we’re not afraid to have fun. We don’t need whizz-bang strategy documents, Venn diagrams uncovering the ‘sweet spot’ or graphical displays of consumer behaviour to get our message across. We create content that sticks, and by doing so attract the very audience we set out to reach. We entertain, and we deliver. And we love cats.’

Who wouldn’t hire them?

The M&S Tortoise

Being the brand geek that I am, this blog is no stranger to featuring my favourite print ads (and I’ve recently started a TV ad playlist on my YouTube channel to capture my broadcast favourites too).

So here’s a little charmer from this morning’s press (this particular execution sat in the Daily Express).

He’s cute. It’s a tortoise. In a woolly bobble hat. Heating his home. What’s not to love?

But largely, it is all about timing. And that is the beauty of tactical advertising. Over the last 10 days, London has become considerably colder, with those annual domestic arguments over when to turn on the heating beginning in earnest. Why the arguments? Because energy isn’t cheap – but wouldn’t it be great if you could heat your home, knowing you were saving money too…? Enter the M&S Tortoise.

 

Mercedes-Benz on the runway

Thoughts welcome on the LFW advertising offering from Mercedes-Benz:

I’ve been meaning to post this ad for a while but, if I’m honest I haven’t quite figured out if I think it is freshingly and strikingly simple, or just plain dull.

On first sight, it struck me as a very straightforward concept, that perfectly conveyed the brand partnership between the luxury car dealer and Fashion Week. The runway as a road, M-B as the only vehicle suitable to transport you down it – or, as a metaphor for life’s runway. Thus the glamorous audience feasting on the fashions falling off the runways of London Fashion Week are perfectly poised to see M-B as the only car to be seen dead in this season (or, hopefully a little longer, considering the investment).

I tore it from Stylist and it has sat on my desk ever since. And during that time, I’ve actually grown to be disappointed with it. The simplicity that had first so impressed me – the thought of how easy it would have been to construct and shoot – suddenly struck me as lacking the luxe I expect from an M-B ad. The lighting was so garish, the chairs so basic, the whole set so uninspired.

That infamous YSL quote of fashion fading and style remaining eternal is an interesting one to ponder in this creative context. I would punt that M-B would far rather associate themselves with style than fashion, but ordinarily their sponsorship of Fashion Weeks around the world does this well. But the ad creative above positions the Fashion Week runway at its most stark, most functional and lacking the lustre and style that we so hope to see from the M-B brand.

That said, maybe I’m reading far too much into it. Ads weren’t designed to be analysed, they were designed for instant impact; to convey a message in the time it takes for the eye to process a concept to the brain, and the brain to draw upon all its reserves of previous experience to interpret a message. My instinct liked it, my inner-annalyst did not.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Shall we take a taxi darling? No, I think I’d rather drive…

In Rob Walker‘s must-read brand/consumer relationship book Buying In, he states:

“Wherever a new kind of audience or public forms, a new ad venue is created.”

This is hard to deny, which is why we see advertising space on every possible communication platform – from bus stops to the adhesive back of car park tickets.

Cab receipts are no exception and I’m always interested to see what brands feel they can derive revenue from using this space. Well, from a recent cab ride in London town I can conclude that dating sites fall into this category. What prompted me to post this particular piece on the blog was the nature of the message used to capture their target audience:

Not satisfied with targeting the single cab customer, MetroEncounters.com is specifically targeting those already engaged in relationships. For any doubters out there, the reverse side expanded on its message:

The final line pretty much states this is not merely a dating site, but one exclusively for those persuing extra-marrital relations. Erm, novel. And, if MetroEncounter’s targeted advertising is anything to go by, it would seem that (at least they believe) those of us who take cabs are more likely than average to have an affair. I think I’d rather walk.

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.

When headphones became jewellery

I’ve been loving the flurry of luxury brand advertising dominating the glossy pages of all national newspaper supplements from last weekend onwards, marking the onset of London Fashion Week – or #LFW as Twitter users have re-named it in a hashtag frenzy of fashionista gossip.

No doubt a few more highlights might make the pages of this blog before the week is out, but one particular Links of London ad caught my eye in the Sunday Telegraph’s brilliant ST Fashion. As preposterously be-jewelled neckpieces provided ostentatious frosting to the sharp tailored lines of the suited collections strutting down the runway, Links seemed to be offering something a little different.

So ubiquitous have the dangling ear pieces of ipod headphones become – on school kids and cityworkers alike – that Links has decided to cast them in silver and hang them from a pretty chain. Thus creating a funky of-the-moment statement piece that fuses modern pop culture lifestyle with the striking bold style that we have come to expect from Links’ unique design.

© Links of London/Telegraph Media Group

It took a second look, but in the end it charmed me.

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.

Wimbledon brands serve up ace advertising campaigns

Loving the start of Wimbledon this week, as ever, and as players descend on SW19, all sorts of fun advertising begins to emerge. Already, on day 1 of the Tournament, three different Wimbledon-associated companies have made their mark.

A big favourite of mine from last year was the Evian outdoor campaign (sorry folks, couldn’t find an image online anywhere annoyingly…) that turned their well-known mountain logo into upside-down strawberries drizzled with cream. Simple but oh-so effective. This year, parent company Danone have apparently gone all out in an effort to make Evian synonymous with British tennis, spending no less than £3m on marketing activity throughout the two-week tournament.

This year, their activity includes strong national print and outdoor billboard ads bringing to life their ‘Live Young’ strap-line (above), cute on-pack visuals featuring pink Evian-branded tennis balls, and a huge digital CBS outdoor campaign. Selected outdoor sites will showcase photographs from the day’s action at Wimbledon every evening of the tennis tournament. Over the next two weeks, the Evian activity planned by MEC and bought by Kinetic, will also include ads on the London Underground digital escalator panels (DEPs), when the temperature reaches 25 degrees.

Day-part campaigns on cross-track projectors (XTP) will target morning and evening commuters in the West End. In the morning, XTP screens will show images from Wimbledon, provided by Getty Images, but in the evenings the screens will show “Today at Wimbledon…” with display highlights from that day’s play. Very cool.

As ever, tennis fashion hits the headlines with the inevitable kit unveils from the leading names (Murray’s Fred Perry and Federer’s Nike to name a couple). And having already shared the love for Ralph Lauren’s marriage with tennis this season, I have to include their print campaign here too:

One word: classic. And doesn’t it make you want to summer in the Hamptons?

Finally, one more print campaign that caught my eye today amongst the pages and pages of Wimbledon supplements is from a brand, about whose marketing activities I may have been somewhat scathing in the past. That is Highland Spring, sponsor of Andy Murrayand obviously rival brand to tournament sponsor, Evian. Highland Spring’s clean, fresh, simplistic approach focusing on the British No.1 is arresting in its clarity – not a bad effect for a water brand to have.

While the war for the trophy is fought on court, may the battle of the brands commence.

Keira causes a stir for domestic violence charity

Since The Duchness, Ms. Knightley seems to have been fairly distant from our screens. But rest assured, soon we will be seeing a lote more of her – even in the breaks.

Her latest commercial, a far cry from the sultry glamour of her Chanel shoot, is for the charity Women’s Aid, helping sufferers of domestic violence overcome their victimisation in the home. Naturally, as with the Think! road safety campaigns, the subject matter is fairly graphic, so the subsequent controversy is inevitable, but the result is a powerful message that, along with an A-list celebrity attachment, should rouse considerable press for what is surely a thoroughly worthwhile campaign.

Click here or on the screenshot below to view the ad in full.

You can be certain you’ve worked in an office too long when…

I did tweet this earlier on Twitpic, but it provided so much amusement to my housemate and me yesterday when we were waiting at Hammersmith tube station, that I decided to post it up here too for all and sundry to appreciate.

I hope you can make out all the text (click here for the full image), as it’s really hilarious. And, hands down, the longest time I’ve ever spent staring at a tube poster. The perfect illustration of how powerful outdoor advertising can be when it’s done right, and the simpler the better.

And who was the source? CBS outdoor advertising. What a perfect fit of brand and brand message. Job done.