Cool Marketing Thoughts

‘Le Steve’ from ‘Le Adrants’ posted about an email he got from the Lynx marketing department. That’s not big news but the coolness factor is in the message (and for some in the cute picture that came with that message). The subject line reads: “100% off women’s clothing.” With the January sales coming up in Belgium, and all women nationwide readying theirselves for this annual stampede, this message is quite welcome for all the men to soften the pain of waiting at the fitting cubicles and answering trick questions like ‘does my bum look big in this?’ or ‘what are you looking at?’ – Better not wear the Lynx deo when you’re out there in the crowd, things might get nasty. :)

Although I’m not really convinced about the tagline, I do like the images from this campaign. ‘After’ is an alcoholic drink that sort of reminds me of Baileys. The copy in these ads (bottom right) says: “Darkness incites the senses. After totally delights them. Enjoy the subtle alcoholic mix of 100% natural extracts of coffee, caramel and vanilla. After lets itself being served cold with ice cubes and hot with a cloud of whipped cream.” That sounds like a really good thing. I’m not really into this kind of drinks, but I can imagine some people are. I don’t really think it’s meant to please men as a target audience, and then I wonder why they’ve chosen this hot lady as a visual. Studies have proven that sex only sells whatever the product is, as long as it targets men. Women on the other hand are far less attracted to this type of communication. But hey, I might be wrong. It’s an appealing image, and it did get my attention. Question is if that really is enough. The first image is quite funny. I like the idea, but I’m missing something. I can’t say what it is, it just doesn’t have ‘it’. If I would be flicking through a magazine, this wouldn’t stand out to me, and it doesn’t really gets the message across either. What do you think?

Copy: “Everything’s allowed in the dark. After.”

Client: After
Contacts: Cédric Dumont, Denis de Groote
Agency: McCann-Erickson, Belgium
Account Team: Sophie Novali, Robert Bockowski, Nathalie Marchand
Creative Director: Jean-Luc Walraff
Copy: Aurore Samain, Grégory Defay
Art Directors: Damien Walkiers, Laurie Lacourt, Jacques Champagne
Photographer: Bernard Bertrand
Media: Magazines, Internet, e-mailing

Here’s another nice campaign from Belgium. I like the visuals they’ve chosen to match with the names of the music artists, especially the one with the guy who’s filling all the little ducks with air. It’s a nice way to think of the concept, although it makes me wonder what the ‘reverse’ side would be. If good music makes good people, then bad music makes bad people. So all of you who listen to Cradle Of Filth, Paradise Lost, Marilyn Manson or Deicide: your mom was right! The music is causing you all to be bad! :) But seriously, it’s a funny campaign.

Clip: Hunter

Client: Pure FM
Agency: Duval Guillaume Brussels
Account Team: Olivier Henet, Denis Henet, Isabel Peeters
Creative Directors: Katrien Bottez, Peter Ampe
Copy: Virginie Lepère, Benoît Menetret
Art Directors: Fred Van Hoof, Jean-Marc Wachsmann
TV Producer: Dieter Lebbe
Graphic Designer: Cécile Van Caillie
Typography: Cécile Van Caillie
Production Company: Czar
Director: Brecht Vanhoenacker
Producer: Eva Van Riet
Music: Soldout, Yves Brunson (arrangements)
Photographer: Gregor Colienne
Retouching: Fred Dupont
Media: Magazines, posters, TV, cinéma

… and I want to paint it black. That must’ve been the general idea behind this campaign. This is an interesting take on the idea to advertize for permanent markers. Instead of trying to highlight the features of the markers and centering the campaign around the visuals of the markers, you could also try to focus on the quality (and quantity) of the ink. So, you rent three billboards next to each other, have them almost entirely printed in black and leave like 2% of the total space available for product display. The message you transmit it is ultra strong: the marker does exactly what it’s supposed to do. And it lasts a really really long time.

Agency: Scholz & Friends, Berlin
Via AdArena | A/D Goodness

I sent around these ads at i-merge, the agency I used to work for, because at that time they really added to the creativity issue we were dealing with. We’ve used the concept in a different context (I blogged about it here) and I really wanted these for keepers. Back then I didn’t have the credits, but luckily they were added to AdsOfTheWorld with the right attributions, so, here we are. I really like this concept because it illustrates the accessibility issue we have with the internet every once in a while. When there’s no connection, we all feel left in the dark and unable to access the information that’s ‘out there’. Sometimes that is really frustrating. It’s a big pro for books. They’re always there, information is always within reach. It’s just harder to search through it, but the creatives who came up with this found a really interesting angle of approach and I like that.

Agency: Team/Y&R Dubai
Art Director: Rupert Allcocok
Copywriter: James Wareham
Photographer: Adam Browning-Hill