Cool Marketing Thoughts

Ok, I didn’t want to write about it but since I get the link thrown to my head via IM and email, I’ll do a short write-up about an average campaign for Opel’s convertible. Here’s how it works. You can go to the website ‘prepareyourhair.be‘, where you’ll be asked for a name and phone number. The site then proceeds with a clip of a women who’s standing at the exit of a jet engine. When the engines start the women is blown away. She’s thrown onto a billboard and shortly after that another person lands there as well. You’ll then see a ‘professor’ who crosses your name on a chart and picks up the telephone. Then you’ll get a call (you left your phone number, remember?) from a nutty voice that promotes the campaign. (phonecalls are in French & Dutch only, presumably only valid for this country)

Why is this campaign so average? Because it’s been done before and this is a lame attempt to do ‘the same thing’. A little while ago, there was an extraordinary campaign for the Mini, called ‘béguinage’, I blogged it in November last year, because it was nominated for the Viral EurobestLive Awards. I think Opel’s take on the matter (by the agency that produced it) is a bit ridiculous because the only thing they did was buy the technology for the phonecalls from Markee.be. They (Opel) are also in the automotive sector, so there’s a high degree of ‘me-too’ that kind of surrounds the campaign. Opel offers one month of TwinTop pleasure, whereas Mini Cooper offered two months.

By comparison, I don’t like this campaign. It’s viral, but it’s too hyped and there’s too much buzz about it for what it’s really worth. The model that’s been blown away by the jet also reminds me of a viral video that went around last year where they did a testcase with a car that was blown away by the force of the jet-engines. So if you’d analyse this idea, it’s like a cut’n paste of existing ideas, which on itself isn’t bad. But if you start doing this, I expect it to be better than the originals, which is not the case.