Posts Tagged ‘TV’

The Gadget Show – Promo Challenge

09.08.2010 – Stephen Holmes

Love watching The Gadget Show (Channel 5) but usually only get the time to see it repeated on a Saturday morning with a nice black coffee – bliss. A nice way to keep up to date with consumer tech.

This week’s was even better as it had a challenge relating to advertising, and Jason and Suzy have to promote the show using different methods. Suzy goes with a digital twist on traditional methods (eg: posters with interactivity, augmented reality adverts, etc…) whilst predictably Jason goes the techy nerdy route (that’s why we love him) by creating a viral. The challenge focuses on them creating then releasing their campaigns and then one is chosen as the winner.

What I’d really have loved to see is how they actually compared against each other in terms of; cost, measureable impact in viewers / actions, longevity, etc… as it wasn’t really clear how the lovely lady from Ogilvy came to the conclusion as to which was better. I suspect (although I have absolutely no proof) that Jason’s would have been the most successful (bearing in mind the target audience) in terms of cost, relevance and as an idea with legs (eg: viral itself, ‘making of’ video, PR) – so well done Jason, even though you lost (yeah, I know I just spoilt it for you but it’s not about who wins it’s the participation, blah blah…).

Here’s Jason’s rather nice GadgetVader viral (as shot by a member of the crowd):

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Confused.com – I certainly am

02.03.2010 – Stephen Holmes

Recently, Confused.com changed the agencies that they use for both their media buying & planning and their creative (disclosure: one of our clients – MNC – used to be their media agency).

The creative and strategy recently seems to have changed too, nothing too unusual about that, to be expected really.

But, I’ve just seen one of their new TV commercials (“Jeans” – below) and I just don’t get it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the concept I do get – use Confused.com and save a load of money.

It’s the item and the person that seem a little bit confused. If it’s the man wishfully looking at the thing he could have bought with the money saved, it should be something for himself, or if it’s for the ‘better-half’ surely it should be something that he would have an interest in her wearing, say… lingerie, or a lovely dress. Jeans however just seems a bit mundane.

I don’t know any bloke that’s thought, “I bet she’ll look great in a pair of jeans”.

A gorgeous dress, yes.

A pair of jeans, no.

She might like a pair of jeans, but she’s not the one being kept awake at night wishing she’d used Confused.com to save the money to buy them. And as they’re trying to say that everyone will (could) save (over) £150, they’re a very expensive pair of jeans. A few shopping bags might have been better, as if she’d been on a shopping spree with the money she’d saved – that would be if she was the one lying in bed awake at night thinking about the money she could have saved if only she’d been smart enough to use the site.

But she’s not.

It’s her fella thinking of jeans she might like.

The advert is then backed up by print (nothing wrong with that) but sadly the billboards are, errr, what shall we say, “somewhat less than exciting?”

As you can see, it doesn’t exactly get the pulse racing does it?

Will it work? I suspect not particularly.

Creatively, are they lagging behind the pack? Yep.

They are confused and I certainly am.


// Image: photo of the Confused.com print advert lovingly ‘nicked’ from Mike Cheshire’s blog, I am Mix

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Confused? Don’t be, it’s seemples.

07.01.2010 – Stephen Holmes

Mmm… price aggregator sites (you know the ones I mean, where you can ‘compare the prices of every single car insurance vendor on the planet’ or similar) – don’t you just love them. For each sector, they all have the same companies / brands that they list, with practically no strategy for differentiation from their competitors (their sites also tend to look interchangeable apart from a logo). Love? Brand loyalty? Engagement? You must be joking, they’re a necessary evil.

That was until the ‘Meerkat’ strategy for ‘Compare the Market’, when all of a sudden someone (hats off to them) decided that they were fed-up of crap adverts for their industry (and brand) and created (along with their ad agency, VCCP I believe) something rather nice – and low, Aleksandr was born. Bye bye rubbish, super-cheap, nasty, boring adverts. Hello charming, funny and very very catchy ads that roll-out in to a campaign with real legs. Completely redefined the market’s advertising and branding (and I hope and suspect is very profitable for ‘Compare the Market’ too).

Now, everyone is trying to  do something that might actually interst TV viewers (although ‘Meerkat’ works incredibly well across a whole range of media, especially engagement via digital – eg: Twitter, Facebook). All of which means I’m currenty seeing the new advert for ‘Go Compare’ in every single ad break on every channel I seem to be tuned in to. Sad to say, it’s not great (in fact it’s rubbish and very annoying to be precise, especially the ‘Tenor’ joke – groan), and the brief to the ad agency was clearly we want a ‘Meerkat’ – I feel for them I really do. I suspect my eyeballs will be fouled by more of these ‘Meerkat’ wannabes in the coming weeks / months, I only hope they’re better than this…

Claire Beale’s take on this over in the Media section of the Independent.

And follow the funny little critter himself on Twitter: @Aleksandr_Orlov

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