Cool Marketing Thoughts

Secretary’s Day is approaching! Belgian electricity operator Electrabel has launched a website that lets bosses produce a mini-opera for their secretaries. A florist sings a personalized song with the name of the secretary in it. Available in Dutch and French.

By the way, did you know that Secretary’s Day was created by a marketeer? Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam launched the idea in 1952. In the US the concept is now known as “Administrative Professionals’ Day“. This year it falls on 23 April. In Europa it’s still called “Secretary’s Day” and it’s celebrated on 17 April.

Campaign website: http://www.debestemanagementassistent.be
Agency: Proximity BBDO Belgium.

What makes this billboard at Leipziger Platz in Berlin so special is not so much its panoramic format nor the 50 kilowatts of lighting. No, it’s the giant size, 5,000 square meters, and what you see behind the poster. The building-under-construction supporting the billboard was covered with lots of synthetic turf.

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This Mexican ad by Swedish wodka maker Absolut caused angry reactions in the United States.

The ad shows a map of North America as it was in 1830, when the Southwestern United States was still part of Mexico. The ad was created by a Mexican subsidiary of TBWA. When news of the campaign reached the US, reactions varied from “they shot themselves in the foot” to “an ethnic supremacy/nation-erasing campaign“. This poll from the Los Angeles Times which drew more than 50,000 responses, shows how the isssue has stirred emotions:

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A great idea from Adhese’s blog ad network Enchanté and Caroline from Rolling Talks: send blogger Ine on a skiing vacation to Club Med in Chamonix, and while she liveblogs using Twitter and Flickr, show her tweets and flicks live in ads for Club Med.

The ads are displayed this week on blogs like BVLG, Bnox, Past is Prologue and others. You can read more about this campaign on the Adhese blog.

I came across a very cool trailer for FIFA3, which then lead me to a superb website that allows you to see and learn all the cool moves from the clip. I’m totally stunned. This really is amazing and the promo site must have cost a truckload of money because it looks very slick! Check this out:

Video: FIFA3 Street

Click the image to go to the site:

It must be the child within me that admires these supernatural skills and probably the long forgotten dream to run around with 21 other morons on a football field, chasing a round leather rabbit, but somewhere… I’ve always wanted to be a super pro footballer. Just like almost every sane man, I think. The thing is, I dug up my soccer ball again and actually started to try out the moves to make me feel better. And it helps.

To send New Year greetings for 2008, the communications team at the dinosaur museum in Brussels sent colleagues and main sponsors a highly original package. Inside was a block of plaster and a hammer & chisel with an invitation to amateur paleontologists to dig, not for the bones of a mighty T-Rex, but to find the museum’s greeting card.

Agency: McCann Erickson Belgium
Account Director: Talia Hendlisz
Creatives: Gregory Defay, Quentin Gascard
Thanks for the pointer, Tanguy

Time for environmental action! The “Coalition for a Cyanide Free Romania” is a civil society initiative that was formed to support a legislative proposal to ban cyanide in mining in Romania. Its concerns are based on social, economic and environmental grounds. Obviously that is a cause worth mentioning, and I’ve been asked to contribute to the general buzz, which of course I will. The campaign kicked off with a few x-mas cards that have been sent around, and it was also supported by spreading the stickers below.

Agency: Next, Romania
Campaign website
Hugs for Andrei Chirica, PR coordinator

Christmas cards are added after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I saw this clip I thought it was a real video, like the one I’ve seen earlier of a holiday resort that had a beach right before the start of the runway of the airport. Then when I saw the plane turn I began to suspect something fishy, but I never really expected the clip to turn out the way it did!

Video: Have A Nice Trip

This is in fact a commercial for X-Travel, a Dutch site aimed for teens and youngster who are looking to plan a vacation. It’s a clip that promoted a campaign where teens could ’start their own airline company’ meaning that if they would check in 6 friends, they could win a free vacation for all. Tempting idea, and an appealing video for that specific target audience.