In the world of supermarket advertising retail is king. Supermarket ads tend to show shiny, happy shoppers and fresh food and glistening aisles and a price… and little else. So the more surprising when an ad like this gets made. New Zealand agency ColensoBBDO shows the myriad of days, fates and stories that touch the supermarket ‘New World’ at some point. Granted, it is a lot easier to weave the chain’s name into an exciting campaign name than ‘Aldi’ or ‘Woolworth’.
This particular one, called ‘Next Day’ is probably the first ever supermarket ad that gave me goosebumps. Not least because of the excellent music choice (Silversun Pickups) which is in heavy rotation on my Spotify account.
OK, that’s a big statement. But have a look at the well-produced case study of Nazi-SciFi-spoof ‘Iron Sky’ that is hitting cinemas worldwide at the moment.
The German-Finnish-Australian co-production had about 75% traditional funding and manged to rake in the rest via crowd-sourcing and crowd-investing. More interesting from a creative stand point is how listening to the audience and working with the supporters led to a a quicker, yet visually high-quality production that was going to please the followers. At the same time it minimised the need for traditional film marketing. Now I am already liking the film for actor Udo Kier’s character name: Wolfgang Kortzfleisch. Probably the worst name in the history of film making. Check out one of the teasers below:
I first posted this on our Publicis Digital blog. It was a follow up to a joint Mojo & Zenith Optimedia session on ‘Understanding gamers and great games’ and is a pretty well-curated group of game trailers, courtesy of my colleague Nat Jones. A collection of videos that have in the past and recently stirred gamers’ hearts and minds.
First up, the big one, the Mac Daddy of ego-shooter games, ‘Call of Duty’ in its new iteration Black Ops 2 has aficionados fumbling for their wallets.
Limbo is one of the most atmospheric, monochromatic and unusual jump and run adventures of recent times.
Even more challenging in terms of navigation is ‘The Unfinished Swan’ in which paint splatters that you need to throw in front of you, lead the way.
Journey lets users start a mission to reach a mountain top with the help of co-players. The clou: all you can communicate with is a single sound. Morse code anyone?
Even if you don’t know who or what Rayman is, the Origins edition makes for entertaining viewing.
In Gamers’ talk ‘Fez’ is a ‘platformer’ in which you need to figure how to get across structures and buildings. The game is reminiscent of classic 8-Bit arcade games, albeit in a warped version.
OK, as a last treat, this is a big step into fantasy game nerds’ territory. But if you have ever heard of the 1980′s craze ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ you will appreciate the jokes, played out by characters from the ‘Summoner’ game.
This is not a political attack ad but it very well could be. Australian Hugh Atkin, creator of the famous “Barrack-Roll” is at it again and launches “Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up” featuring Barrack Obama as Eminem. Great political rap in the age of the mashup.
Hugh seems to have increased his prowess of pasting those snippets together. Here is the Barrack Roll again.
and with McCain caught in front of it
and if you care for the grand dads of that video genre
I just watched this video below (don’t ask why) and something hit me about the structure of both music and video. They both go full throttle, travelling hell for leather. In the very first scene, a jet fighter takes off. We know this will be full on airforce porn. Secondly, Kenny Loggins’ song is breaking every speed limit to get to its chorus (0:29), which is pretty catchy and very repetitive.
Now here is my point: most YouTube pre-roll ads are unaltered television edits, and do the opposite. They build up slowly, and reveal the product after 0:05 – 0:10 at the earliest. The problem in this environment is, every user can skip an ad after 0:05.
Lesson for videos on online pre-roll? Better come out all guns blazing, like Maverick and Iceman. Edit the story so that the first scene gives viewers a jolt, by being funny, emotional, mysterious, suspenseful or shocking. And in under 5 seconds, make clear what this is all about. Or you risk that the whole ad gets fatally ejected like Goose.
