I’ve written about road safety campaigns before when the Gruen Transfer took to the Australian road safety ads. Developing a road safety campaign would be diabolical. In 50-75 years of road safety ads I would be pretty sure EVERY idea has been tried 9 or 10 times. Pretty sure that a splatter ad would work, but then there would be diminishing returns on gore if they were run year after year, so you need to try something else.

Drive Social is pleasantly different. It tries to evoke an emotional kinship for fellow car-driving commuters. Before I saw the fine TV ads, I thought drive social was a match-making car-pooling site, now that is an idea whose time has come!

I like the TV ads and unlike the site.

I’m not sure that that is a really a problem though. The site matches you with other commuters on your route or at least matches their Facebook profile pics with yours. Facebook profile pics aren’t people. They never were. For years many people have lived and hidden behind avatars. Of the nine people that shared my 4 km commute (I was embarrassed when I found that it was only 4lm – but that route did not including dropping kids at school on the way etc..), two had a comic avatar and others included designs and pictures of their kids. Mine is of a duck (an endangered duck).

I learnt about their music preferences and others things that they might do while commuting. Please don’t get distracted. That was OK, but hardly enough for me to connect with these people. I don’t and will never know their names, their humor, their ludicrous anxieties, their favourite movie, diet, sports team or the last cafe that really served a nice coffee.

It is a smart site www.drivesocial.co.nz. But on my laptop using my home wireless it was slow. I haven’t been on a slow site for years.

Love the campaign, but disappointed with the site. I look forward to the blood and splatter campaign next year.

Phil Bilbrough (@philbilbrough) is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

Their bubble dictated that they would market to their own kind. Their bubble went with them on their life’s journey and at the moment of their job interview that same bubble gave them confidence to present themselves well, and because their bubble has influenced all their decisions thus far, its part of their demeanour, their bubble gave their potential employers confidence to hire them.

I use the word “bubble” to describe the influence that your friends, family, upbringing and work colleagues had and have on your preferences, prejudices and perceptions of the world over the years. I prefer bubble as a metaphor over “circle of influence”  or your “class” or “socio-economic group.”  I like the way that bubbles stretch, give, travel, bounce and can envelope other bubbles, yet still remain intact. Sometimes you can even slowly pierce a bubble without it bursting. Cool.

I know a lot about bubbles. I know because I have felt a number of movements in my own bubble.

Marketers need to know their bubble. I’ll say write that again. Marketers need to know their bubble. They need to know what influences their preferences for any ad campaign. Ignore it completely if you are selling to your “kind” or people in your bubble, but be very aware of it if you are selling to a completely different group. Your marketing instinct may not work if you are trying to reach a different bubble.

I have a lot of respect for the creators and clients of some of the campaigns aimed a “youff.” Campaigns so meaningless (and sometimes puerile)  to me yet work for youff.  My opinion and those of my bubble are irrelevant – I’m not the target audience. The “V” ads from 2 years ago mean nothing to me – but I have a lot of respect for this marketing team (a friend of mine is lead in this).

A marketer’s gut feel or instinct could really put them wrong if they aren’t aware of their bubble. It can influence their feel for their marketing strategy and creative more than they will think it does. I think that many marketers market to their bubble (or kids of their bubble). Good marketers would stick with the old research, strategy development, creative development and concept testing approach. This way will not always crack that special campaign, but it might and its an approach I trust.

So my bubble has been stretched, moved and moved again. The first move was that I found myself completely over consumerism and surprisingly I found people that had also moved on from buying bullshit. A silent subversiveness of the worst kind for all $2 stores, department stores and the surprisingly large number of interior décor shops. My bubble isn’t moving back there quickly.

It moved again – faster this time- and because I was bored. Bubbles move on a feeling. My daughter took to triathlons and after standing around in glorious weather watching her come into transition and then 40 seconds later would disappear around a corner on her bike, I had to give it a go. I was bored into doing a triathlon.

For me it was a  new sport and a lifestyle overhaul. Better food, less beer, lots more exercise, and most importantly more endurance.

Bubble moving is good, but being aware of it is more important. For a marketer I have to know what influences my thoughts. My instinct is not that of a 16 year old boy living the freedom of his first car.

Phil Bilbrough (@philbilbrough) is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

I always retreat to the safety of the web. It’s my comfort place. A started looking for car reviews for reason and relief. What I found was more shit than I could ever believe.

Years ago when words “user generated content” echoed around the advertising halls – reviews, reviewers and ratings were all the rage. Dinning reviews, book reviews, reviews of reviews etc… Look no further than Google and find a review of whatever product service, tradesman, teacher, surgical practice, or dentist that you are maybe considering. I just wanted a review of a couple of cars, and that was enough to do my head in, but as a brand person – I gained a smidgen of smug satisfaction.

The car owners and public reviewers of Peugeot weren’t letting reliability get in the way of their glowing accounts. Those reviewers talked up the feel and the love of their small Peugeots. They related their love of the pep, the handling, its nippiness. Screens and screens of these reviews. On occasion snippets of problems slipped in, but these people were evangelists. Regularly I checked the web site just to reassure myself that it was actually independent.

These are and aren’t reviews. These were pieces written by disciples. Truly I wondered if Peugeot people were directly involved, but if not – Peugeot must be thrilled! Their brand messages are being relayed and amp’d up for free by thousands. Just what marketers aim for. Pump out those messages and wait for you brand pals to start posting them.

All I wanted to know how reliable a particular Peugeot model is.  But it was difficult to find a review (easy to find reliability stats) that actually seemed objective and well, worthwhile. A good review is fine, 50 good and almost identical reviews is too much. I felt like a lecturer marking essays. It was all too much. I stopped looking and reading.

And bought a Peugeot.

I was first met Amanda (I like to think that we are on first name terms) when her band Dresden Dolls (Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione) featured on Later with Jools Holland and I have since kept an eye out for this Brecht punk band, and was thrilled when they turned up in Wellington. Her music is off the main road, its cerebal and challenging. Simon Sweetman of the Dom Post didn’t get into their Wellington concert at all and as the new way of the world is, Simon publishes his stuffand Amanda and her fans publish their reply-stuff.

Dresden Dolls in Wellington

Some of her music works for me some not so, but I love her and I loved the Dresden Dolls Wellington concert.

She is an artist (part improv part recording) in dialogue with her audience on stage and online. I’m sure she isn’t the first artist to do so, I just can’t think of any others who have. I’m thinking Andy Warhol or perhaps Earnest Hemingway sitting outside a Pamplona (Spain) hotel drinking with whoever rocked up.

Her understanding of social media, online and her audience(s) is remarkable. Her days as a street performer may have been a great foundation. She promotes, she connects and she gives it a lot of time and she is an innovator. She raised $1 million+  for the development and tour of her new album and new band through Kickstarter. I am not hugely familiar with kickstarter or crowd funding history but to quote another blog,  this was only the seventh project to break the million-dollar mark in the Kickstarter’s history. It is also the highest funded Kickstarter music project ever. To give you some perspective, the second-highest-funded music project reached a little more than $200,000.

She reached her goal of $100,000 within a day. Pledges started at $1, which for that you got to download of their album with some exclusive content. Over 24,000 people backed the project. Two signed up for a $10,000 pledge, and for that they got Amanda in their home for dinner and she will also paint them a portrait of them. She has been pretty frank about the kickstarter money.

At the Wellington concert Amanda spoke about the music business and how music’s business model was failing artists. I don’t think that she was referring to the top 5% or less of top recording artists that seem to hoover money in from all quarters (if somewhat down on their earnings prior to digital sharing).

I don’t know much about the music business and this post is not about it, this is about a musician going directly to her audience, connecting with them with great material (her work and her posts), keeping in regular contact over a number of social sites and being authentic in every way. And how lame she makes other social media gurus.

In her social media journey, my 100% confident guess, is that she has had to deal with trolls, and other hideous personal knockers (as long as people can post anonymously they will always be there) and she appears to cope with it and stay her course.

Amanda Fucking Palmer is a brave great person. She must be one of the bravest people in entertainment. And one of the most interesting.

Postscript: The New York Times thinks similarly to me.

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Phil Bilbrough (@philbilbrough) is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

So lets dial it back to before the world was changed. Americans Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole were in Africa planning to make a film about another anonymous African war when they got sidetrack by a couple of stray bullets (as you would) possibly fired by the Lord’s Resistance Army. So they re-focused on the LRA and its leader Joseph Kony. Invisible Children formed (2004) to bring LRA  and Kony to the attention of people outside Africa. Kony is or had been land and child grabbing in Central Africa for some time. Earlier this year Invisible Children produced a number of videos, got some celebrity endorsement and stepped-up their social media presence with a campaign called Kony 2012. The aim was to indict Kony as a war criminal and have him arrested.

The director, Russell, of the Kony 2012 video compares the life of his child with the lives stolen from the Ugandan children by Kony and its compelling.

I was invited to a Kony Facebook event a few weeks ago, when the word “kony” didn’t spark any recognition at all – in fact I thought it was a bar opening. I mean I was being invited to Hamilton.

Kony2012 and Invisible Children is not without significant criticism and this one and here as well. They have raised a lot of money, and they use Kony imagery on t-shirts and bracelets which has upset Kony’s victims.  Yet Invisible Children publish all their financial information, and obviously, Jason Russell is wound pretty tight if this Stuff story is exaggerated.

This campaign might need some scrutiny, possibly Kony may have some defence – maybe he was provoked or felt intimidated. I would like to think that I can change the world. I would like to encourage my kids to think the same (imagine if I taught them the opposite).

This campaign was obviously not an overnight sensation or a fluke. Invisible Children have grafted for eight years to get to this point. Many super successful online campaigns look easy and they are kind of seductive because they do. I know that they aren’t.  The eight years the Invisible Children put into their campaign surely ground a sharper promotional blade.

This campaign is great. I think that it gets scoffed because its gone “viral.” Invisible Children targeted Twitter celebs like Ryan Seacrest (and I think Oprah). Once on-board Seacrest went out to his twitter follows – only 6,266,327 of them. Great strategy. And it  WORKED!!!!!!!

African despots are a dime a dozen and this fact is taken for granted in the west. It appears that it takes millions of Africans to be murdered in Africa before the western nations raise an eyebrow. Kony2012 has made me look and many others look, and it might change the world.

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Phil Bilbrough (@philbilbrough) is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

by
Phil Bilbrough

Weetbix is the best brand in New Zealand. Trusted healthy and for a breakfast cereal… very active.  And I can’t think of a better sponsored event than the Weetbix Tryathlon.

My oldest, 9 years, trained diligently for this triathlon, and just that got me over the line to thinking that this was a great thing. I didn’t make the event, my partner did and she was well prepared from watching Weetbix Triathlon  “All you need to know” instructional videos. The pack arrived, there was a bit of waiting for the race, then all on and recorded on video and professional photographed.

The triathlon was a nice mix of competitiveness and participation. I was afraid that my daughter might burn off  her training partner, and she did (because she is my child and therefore doesn’t value friendship), but no worries, her partner just biked one less lap, caught up and everyone was cool.

I have worked on sponsored events before and none came fractionally close to the success of this. Years ago I thought that “Skellerup Young Farmers” was a great fit (and it probably was) and the Milo kids cricket sponsorship also looks very good. Yet I can’t think of many other sponsored events with the emotion, excitement and longevity of the “Weetbix” (this being the only word to describe it that my daughter would allow).

We all know that sponsorship can build brand awareness. I played for Wellington United Football Club and in the 70s they were sponsored by Diamond pasta and we were still known as the Diamonds (not that anyone I played against knew why or bought any more pasta). Yet I don’t know of any sponsored event that builds the kind of emotion and energy in parents that the Weetbix does – its quite extraordinary.

For twenty years Weetbix has been behind this trythlon and that’s the key. There are great ideas, great concepts but a company has to stick with them to realize their value and Sanitarium has. Probably not without some discussion each year, but they have stuck with it and realized more value from an oldie but a goodie brand.

The current Weetbix box features photos of a young and fractionally older triathlete Aaron Barclay. First competing in the Weetbix tryathlon in 2002 and then another photo 8 years later at the 2010 Junior Olympic Games. OMG – that’s as inspirational as you could wish for.

My daughter swam, biked and ran and was professionally photograph most of her way and a professional video cameraman captured her finishing. All online a couple of days later and for a fee they were ours. The good feeling before during and after in our house was tangible. My partner and I beamed at the photos and videos being pitched to us and we were ringing people, posting photos, sending up smoke signals, buying space on the sides of space rockets…we were all super chuffed with Weetbix, except my daughter. She had moved on.  She’s training for the Contact 1:21 triathlon now.

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Phil Bilbrough (@philbilbrough) is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

By Phil Bilbrough

The easiest was my first. The hardest I’ve yet to do. I’m not talking about taking grief and a “hard” time getting the campaign out the door. All campaigns that I have development had wobbles, difficult clients, and dickhead creatives. I’m talking about being asked to tackle a problem through advertising that is tackled each year by many agencies in many countries for many years. That’s hard.

But the first the easiest. Early in my career I was a marketing co-ordinator for a Christchurch electronics firm. One day they decided to run an international advertising campaign – their first ever – and they told me to do it by the means of dropping a bunch of telecommunications engineering (telephony) magazines on my desk. They didn’t use words back then.

I went to work and came up a with a concept using ocean going racing sailing yachts to illustrate the “must-not-fail” and performance benefits of our industrial telecommunications products. My bosses said nothing about my concept, but queried the costs. As the ads rolled out, and media invoices rolled in and the exchange rate dived the bosses queried the costs with intent… until the first inquiry came in.

A telecom from a large persian country called. The earnest silence of the company quietened further, a few people went pale, and then the scurrying began and didn’t stop. Million dollar orders weren’t uncommon, tens of millions happened twice a year – this order promised another zero. This came from their first ad in the first publication of their first campaign. Nobody showed any interest in the campaign or me after that… I should put this success down to my genius, but I haven’t. The lesson here is that if a company has never advertised then the first time that they do, with a decent budget, it will be a success.

The hardest campaign is when you are the latest in a long line of campaigns about the same thing. Most ad agencies have done an anti-drink or anti-drink driving campaign. The measures of success could include less fatalities on the highways, less late night fires in the kitchens, less domestic violence, less fights, less vandalism, less vomit on streets, less all blacks in the news….If I were asked to come up with the lasted campaign after 40 years of ad agencies trying, I would feel some trepidation.

The Gruen Transfer discussed Australian and English ads in this drunken sector. It was a pity that they didn’t have a look at us, because, as I’ve said before in this blog that I think NZ agencies develop great campaigns for the Government, and to prove me right there is the “Ghost Chips” ad.

The Gruen panel were generally pretty hard on the Australian (and British) alcohol abuse ads. The exception was an ad made by the Australian alcohol industry and that irony wasn’t lost on anyone. My feeling was that the panel were too tough. I thought that they were all pretty good. (I’m embarrassed that this Gruen episode is not yet online.)

I think that ad agencies and whoever briefs them do OK, because its an impossible task.  Ad campaigns can only do so much to limit drug abuse. Alcohol, a socially acceptable drug, temporary releases people from their mundane lives and clumsy banter and nervousness and that is more than enough to give it god like status.

The examples showed on Gruen Transfer offered different strategies. And each strategy seemed (to me without having read the research) valid. So where would I go if I got briefed to do a stop drinking or start drinking responsibly campaign? I don’t know. Perhaps try not to feel weighed down by the great work that has gone before… so I would probably re-watch Gruen and try and get them to make me feel more superior to everything that has gone before.

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Phil Bilbrough is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

Rexona’s ad is not about rituals its about bodies. Do women buy men deodorant? From this ad I suspect so. I can’t connect slo mo pre game really deep  rituals with applying deodorant – it rolls it on too thick for me. I hope the All Blacks’ pregame regime is less about smell and more about tactics, and game plans.

The Heineken ads annoy me because they have been annoying me ever since they dropped the ad where the war photographer didn’t use a telephoto lens – he just got closer. Now the ads take the piss out of the game and blokes that watch it, which is OK but they”re not funny and I don’t want to be like those guys.

The worst ads are the Bunnings’ ads (can’t find them on Youtube except for these guys). Are they about rugby of the RWC? No. On straight after the haka, Bunnings should have done better – though until on two separate occasions in two different pubs, when two different punters vocalized their hate for these ads – I had thought it might have been a good strategy – but hate is a strong thing to overcome.

Maori TV do a good promo and I think the best commentary and they remind us of who I’m talking about.

As much as I like the TAB’s ads, short funny very kiwi very memorable – I think that Sky’s “Match fit” series takes the RWC advertising prize – possibly one of the best campaigns ever seen in NZ – actually it doesn’t – this ad is the single best one of RWC 2011.

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Phil Bilbrough is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

by  Phil Bilbrough

The UNITEC stories mostly work for me. The trainee photographer, the nurse and the architect all beginning their careers at UNITEC and (at least I believe) to go on.  I don’t know how successful these ads are, but for me they mostly resonate. They are stories of hope, determination and persistence.  Yet it isn’t those attributes that resonate with me, its the people and their teachers. Their situations feel real, their challenges likely, and their goals genuine – and there it is. Its a lovely truth.

I’m very conscious of context. There is no truth without context, someone far smarter than I said. And I said as well. So what else is going on in my world which makes these ads spin for me.  The London riots? Arab revolutions? The RWC hype? Massive Government ball-out of finance companies? Yes its all these things. I’ve just stopped believing. I have trust issues with the world, and my guess is that many NZer’s do.

The UNITEC ads might be completely made-up they maybe all actors but they feel complex, textured, challenging and real. There is something protestant about these ads. Hard work is good for your soul (said a protestant priest sometime in history)and telling it like it is almost mostly as sweet.

I want these people to succeed. From my complete world of disbelief I have been brought around to believe and hope. I’m sure this campaign will be successful.

The TVCs are great the UNITEC website is cool and the Facebook page. Good job. I mean the education market is pretty competitive, so this makes the get real tell it like it is UNITEC campaign feels quite brave. They could have landed us with a usual suspects of successful people who have come from UNITEC or flash some $$ in a young person’s eyes and bribe them to UNITEC.

I think disillusionment with the world is a cyclic – except for me that is, I’m permanently disillusioned. Yet in the 70s Coke met the needs of the very angry Vietnam / Korean War / Cold War generation with their “Its the Real Thing” campaign. The 80s over the top bullshit era followed by a more considered 90s and then consumer driven optimism rebuilt the bullshit hill in the first decade of the new millennium.

But now its different. Why is a decade seemingly always the defining period of time? The wars, credit crunches, the bullshit finance deals (even salt-of-the-earth men losing billions), corporate bailouts, and then nature throws a serious tantrum. Who can we turn to? Who can we trust? Nobody. We can only trust ourselves. Its back to basics and hard work and the best we can wish for are mentors who do no more than guide us in the right direction.

OMG don’t I sound protestant?

Its just that these UNITEC ads don’t sparkle – enough. They are a lovely truth, but they need more and more might come. These ads are about enabling change. There is a lot of drama in these ads. Just some sparkle in them might make them easier to write about. To inject some energy into the viewer. I hope its coming.

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Phil Bilbrough is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.

by Phil Bilbrough

It IS fantastic. Its a campaign that just keeps on giving – how fantastic is that? A campaign that will be remembered for all time.

I’ve written this blog 3 or 4 times over. Each time I complete it a new thing comes up. And did we ever see the whole campaign? Are we going to hear the whole story? Telecom claims that this campaign was leaked. That’s extra cool. Much cooler than Telecom will ever be.  A leak that adds spice to a spicy ad.

I was one of the few that thought that the Fitzy and the abstain campaign was great. Fitzy in the twilight zone. The pen-ultimate sacrifice is asked for. Black rubber rings are xtra weird, and I didn’t initially recognise the pink fist, but once I did the weirdness scale went through the roof.

How successful would this campaign have been? What more could a marketer wish for before his/her campaign actually goes live? All over the TV “news” programmes and sites, its just that these guys weren’t into it. TV3′s @JohnCampbell wasn’t into it.  Twitter people #abstainforthegame were unconvinced and outraged, yet there were a few…

“@MrMikeMcRoberts: So no sex during the rugby world cup Fitzy? and this from our country’s best known hooker #abstainforthegame”

..who made a joke about it. And that for me is what the campaign is about. Lighten the leaden air. Relax. You are all uptight. New Zealander’s are tight ass. Being uptight (or being relaxed) isn’t going to win us a world cup. There’s the irony of it.

I was surprised that Telecom ditched it – until I heard that it was leak – or was it? Maybe if we saw the whole thing, if there was more, more time to let people to run it around their brains for a while, a bit longer it might have come good.

This campaign had a nuance, an irony that appealed to me. Humorous yet still recognising that fans want to do everything that they can to help our All Blacks win the world cup. I think Fitzy got the joke. Uptight NZers could use a bit of humor in this nervous house pacing holding pattern pre-world cup kick-off time. But I don’t think that they think so.

Telecom has never really got going with the NZ public. I remember when they came into existence and immediately changed the colour of the phone booths from red to blue.  New Zealander’s liked the ads with cute animals and great cover music – but there hasn’t been much about Telecom that NZers has loved.

A TVC with an executive tele-conferencing from a beach house (which felt like an ad that  Teresa Gatting would have made) was bourgeoisie, and then a high profile Richard Hammond campaign didn’t make XT work any better.  When Vodafone turned up it really felt that we were being saved from a bullying insecure big brother, but then Vodafone went the Telecom way, nevermind.

This year’s World Cup has already had a few bad omens. An earthquake (no Lancaster Park), Adidas have turned into a multinational nasty which they always were but we previously didn’t care. Anyway this isn’t the time to make jokes – Rugby is serious shit.

So the lessens from this campaign: 1. Telecom probably shouldn’t make jokes close to the Rugby World Cup, in fact nobody should. 2. NZers don’t want to breath badly in case in case it affects the All Blacks chances. 3. “PR disaster” is on the lips of everyone…. we aren’t predisposed to look kindly at anything (until we win the cup).

My colleagues got the joke but didn’t think it funny. NZers take sex seriously. When did we become so staunch and uptight?  Probably around the time the French last knocked the All Blacks out of the cup.

Still like this campaign. Suppose I’ll just have to go back to bonking.

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Phil Bilbrough is a freelance online advertising specialist who is blogging on the subject for Scoop at Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at phil@bilbrough.com.