No telling if Toyota owners will make it through the Mayan apocalypse in 2012, but I'll plan to be driving mine on December 21st just in case. This clever Super Bowl ad for Chevy shows a preview of the fallout and what will remain. Where are the cockroaches, I wonder?
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| Nissan Leaf |
Getting out and away is essential human behavior. I know it every time I'm there and yet my day-timer says I could take it or leave it. What interests me about the following Land Rover ads is that I feel the need to get away from the full life they depict even though I've chosen to have the full life they depict.
That's the kicker. I like my life and nearly everything in it. So what causes me to fantasize about being in that vehicle on the other side of the planet?
Hyundai's approach has that Public Service Announcement feel and (though it could be the guy's voice) it strikes me as honorable.
"...because the economy hasn't really turned around for any of us, until it turns around for all of us."
This line does make me Think About It - not as a car purchaser at this time, but as a neighbor to Hyundai. I asked Greg Stielstra about the fine line between serving and being served. He wrote Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140 Million Christian Customers after marketing Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life to international fame. The interview gets a little spicy in part 2, but I appreciated his insight which you can read here.
I wrote the following post a year ago and for some reason never published it. I still like it for the ad and what it implies. I thought you might, too.
Good news plays a role in this Volkswagen commercial. Here, an urban, sign-carrying doomsdayer finds a reason to shift his religious gears.
Questions to ponder:
1. What do you think about VW's use of this character?
2. The reason for tossing his sign may seem illogical, but have tiny, illogical things every shifted your gears toward hope?
As Mardi Gras is to Lent, my football watching is to the end of the season. I've consumed football during the past few weeks like it's never coming back. Late nights, poor posture for hours on end, emotional highs and lows...these are the consequences to my over-consumption and lack of discipline. They're also the good price I've paid for New Breed material.
GMC Terrain
When you sit glued to the tube, you discover a great deal of content. Like this new GMC commercial that I watched half a dozen times before suddenly appreciating it. It's only 15 seconds long, but in the midst of so many competition-based ads (Mac vs. PC, Howie Long vs. Honda), I find it refreshing. Even neighborly.
Bullying is so 7th grade
"The same impressive highway fuel economy you get in a Mini...." That's what I love about this ad: It makes the GMC Terrain look better by complimenting another automobile. In other words, this same GM brand that employs Howie to drag Honda through the mud doesn't drag Mini through the mud. It respects it. Of course, GMC and Mini aren't right and left shoes, so the closing line about winning seems somewhat irrelevant, but perhaps this commercial offers an example that Howie and Mac and Wendy and shameless others could follow.
It's a high road. It's also a challenging road, requiring brands to know the value they bring to the marketplace, to find security in that knowledge, and to risk (gasp!) making others look good along the way. Football teams do it all the time. They study and plan in order to win, sure, but you'll never hear mature players and coaches trash opponents. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The question is, Would it work? Is a high road possible given current marketing norms? Is it economically feasible? I don't know, but I'd like to see more of this practice in the marketing field.
Julie and I first heard Martha's Trouble at a Barnes & Noble in Erie, Pennsylvania. Their music complimented our cups of cinnamon plum tea and relaxed conversation, and we wondered how they would do for a college crowd. That question got answered over the next four or five years as Rob and Jen returned many times to visit and entertain us on campus.
Besides the good music, we always marveled at their tales of crossing the U.S./Canadian border, something that too often involved emptying and re-stuffing their equipment into a small trunk in front of time-insensitive border guards. Then they'd show up in PA and we'd empty their car for the show only to re-stuff it afterward so they could move along to the next show.
Instruments
That was years ago and they're still at it. I haven't seen them in quite a while but I've been thinking about them and their trunk space lately, thanks to a clever little commercial called "Instruments" by Elastic. The first half of this TV spot for Honda's new Accord Crosstour is so visually enjoyable that I almost always forget what's being advertised in the second half. That's typically a bad thing, but I like the ad enough to pay attention. Eventually it will stick.
Would the Crosstour ease Rob and Jen's travels? Maybe not, but "Instruments" promises to make it cool trying.
I work alone, so guess who covers the phoning, filing, folding and food-getting? All me.
Normally I don't mind, but this guy made me wonder how much I could get done with four hands instead of two. Then my wondering turned to jealousy as I remembered that I lack the mental capacity to work so fast.
And then I remembered that two-handed people made this brilliant commercial. So in the spirit of gratitude for what I've got, and creativity that inspires average guys like me to keep at it, Happy Thanksgiving!
It's ironic how leery we are of marketers. We question their motives and accuse them of pushing agendas upon us, yet our own behavior imitates theirs every day.
Everyone stands for something, believes in something, supports something, and we frequently do whatever it takes to sell that something. Just consider the best foot a young man puts forward in trying to woo a pretty girl. It's not really him he's promoting - only the best of him that he wants her to see. Conference presenters, pastors, car salesmen, Mary Kay associates and Thai food fans do the same thing.
Of course, some of us may use more (or less) truth than others, but our intent is the same: to sell. Mouth closed or open, we tell others what we like and dislike, support and oppose, and in that telling we act very much like marketers.
I came across these two attention-grabbing political cartoons recently. They both sell ideas and also raise questions in me.
1. Do the cartoons tell the whole story about either the auto industry or Bush's presidency? If not, is there anything wrong with telling partial stories?
2. Do you tell whole stories or partial stories when you sell something?
3. What stands out to you visually and/or narratively that makes these cartoons compelling?
4. What compelling techniques have you used to convince someone?
Cartoons by David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star and Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune.
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