If you haven't heard of Porter Robinson, that's probably a good thing. I'll tell you why: the reality is Porter Robinson has been a big-name electronic music producer and DJ for several years (see "Language" and "Unison"). He's performed at big festivals and mega clubs and hangs in the circles of now popular artists Zedd and Skrillex.
So, how is Porter Robinson supposed to launch his newest album Worlds without being sucked into the polarizing EDM bubble criticized for commercializing the scene and diluting the music? He creates his own world. And, his world has brilliant marketers.
To avoid being associated with the garbage in mainstream EDM, you basically have to avoid it all. Robinson skipped this summer's festival season and is, instead, headlining his own North America tour. Rather than having Billboard or Dancing Astronaut leak his album, he had a 'First Listen' on NPR music. And of all places to attract a new niche audience, he had an interview with vogue.com. It's not to say his team isn't doing any mass marketing, such as Youtube pre-roll ads and companion banners, they've just chosen to be strategic with its targeting.
Of everything I've seen for the promotion of Worlds, I was most impressed by Robinson's choice to livestream his entire album and himself answering fans questions on Twitch.tv, a platform typically used by videogamers. Robinson sources video games as a big inspiration for his album: "For the Twitch stream, I'm going to wander around a few of my favorite virtual environments while streaming the record. I'm hoping it'll give people a sense of what inspired the album."
Additionally, his own site porterrobinson.com is smartly designed to keep users engaged with large video player and running playlist of music videos and his social streams.
While Robinson tells Vogue that his "new music isn’t a reaction or an intentional subversion of EDM,” you can't deny that he's paving his own path away from the bubble. At 22 years-old, Robinson's approach to his album, attention to the details and restraint in selling out sets him apart as an artist. Especially when many artists today choose antics and gimmicks for stardom (Miley Cyrus?). I admire his hard work and hopefully can experience how Worlds comes to life on his tour.
I was conflicted in last week's episode of GIRLS. Not about Marnie and Ray's hookup fest but about Hannah Horvath's disdain for advertorials. I mean are advertorials that bad? I guess I don't even notice them when I read print magazines, so I can't fairly judge their journalistic quality (they're usually lists with tiny photos or a collage of products right?), but when it comes to digital brand content, the line between editorial and advertising blur much much more.
Credit: HBO/Craig Blankenhorn
In the last two years, there has been an exodus of Fashion Magazine Editors migrating to retailers like J.Crew, Artizia and Kate Spade to develop their brand content offering, which typically includes a blog or digital magazine and an active social media presence. I recently downloaded ASOS's Fashion Up app, which is a monthly interactive magazine filled with fashion editorial spreads, trend spotting, interviews and how-to tutorials.
If ASOS's Fashion Up app is the direction brand content is heading, then Hannah shouldn't be so down on herself for writing on behalf of brands. I mean her "stories" could fit so well for the handful of hipster brands targeting the Brooklyn-dwelling 20-something year old. I'm hoping in tonight's episode, Hannah gets herself together.
Remember eight months ago when MySpace relaunched with a brand new look, user experience and TV campaign? The commercial featured a hipster party that included Erin Wasson, Pharrell, Mac Miller, Ciara and other "it" celebrities trapped in what looks like an American Apparel explosion. A spray painted "Welcome to the neighborhood" tagline ends the TV spot, but how many people actually joined? Is the neighborhood barren or hopping like a Saturday night in Williamsburg?
To be honest, I'm not sure. I have not seen one headline in the last eight months about MySpace or the usage of the new MySpace. What happened? To answer this question fairly, I'm tasking myself to use the platform for the next week. Will keep you posted...
American Eagle's new Aerie REAL campaign for its womens underwear line has made headlines for featuring un-retouched models (SHOCKER, Dove did this back in 2008). On my office block, where American Eagle's Soho store is located are city-block length billboards featuring teenage-looking girls in neon cotton undies with the headline "THE GIRL IN THIS PHOTO HAS NOT BEEN RETOUCHED." SHE'S JUST PERFECT RIGHT? I applaud American Eagle for not masking the true beauty of these models and showing them as they would look in real life, but are models real? Not "retouching" makes a great PR story but the actual credit should go to choosing an ethnically diverse set of no-name models.
LET'S BE REAL, CAUCASIAN IS NOT THE STATUS QUO
Many mass brands talk about the importance of reaching the growing population of multicultural youth--African American, Hispanic and Asian consumers make up 40% of Millennials--and are gradually diversifying the models they use in their ads; however, often this diversity effort is short-lived and only seen in campaigns but not throughout the brand experiences such as the website.
The Aerie website shopping experience features the same multicultural models such as Amber and Hana modeling all the products. Additionally the "Bra Guide" shows you what the bra would look like on a model with the same cup size. Accurately, a 32B gave me the Asian-mixed model Hana who, of the models, is someone I relate to best.
While I truly believe beauty has no ethnic boundaries, Hana who is probably hapa (half white, half asian) is a familiar body type and face of many girls I grew up with in Hawaii and seeing her model the clothes strangely does make the shopping experience more personal.
With its REAL campaign, Aerie has established a brand distinction from its competitor Victoria's Secret PINK, as the underwear brand for the American girl next door(whether she be Caucasian, Hispanic, African American, Asian or Mixed), while PINK lives in its parent's model identity of being aspirational (see beautiful PINK models below).
CAN REAL SELL BRAS?
Yes, American Eagle's efforts to create a bra shopping experience for young women that is more accurate to what it would look like to try on the bra in the store will help more consumers shop online. But "aspiration" can still be very appealing and may be more desirable than plain utility. Only time will tell.
As for America's obsession with retouching (the recent fuss over Lena Dunham's VOGUE cover), I think people need to remind themselves that models make up 2% of the population and celebrities are paid to look good. When women like Lena Dunham and Kate Upton make the cover--and perhaps an Asian American soon--we should celebrate their fresh perspective and personalities, which is more important than a few strokes in photoshop.
Volvo created one of my favorite video campaigns this year, which was Leave the World Behind featuring the DJ trio Swedish House Mafia. Timed perfectly to launch after their final world tour and the official split of the group, Leave the World Behind was a poignant and melodramatic portrayal of the life changes for these superstar DJs. Filmed in Scandinavia, there could be no better setting to contrast their previous life in the spotlight.
What I loved most about this campaign was the subtle and almost absent branding of Volvo. Besides the inclusion of the Volvo SUVs, there were no logos or lockups to disrupt the pristine quality of the piece.
Volvo's Leave the World Behind campaign was created by Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors who recently has done it again with another entertaining and powerful video--Jean Claude Van Damme's Epic Split:
There's a human quality to Forsman & Bodenfors approach to brand entertainment. These videos don't scream look at our celebrity spokesperson! or Hey, look at our product!, instead Leave the World Behind and JCVD's Epic Split is a celebration of the human spirit and achievement of greatness. Volvo's video collaborations scream one thing--we're a clever car company with bad ass ideas.
During the World Series, Budweiser dominated the commercial airwaves with its catchy Miike Snow ball park spot and its new initiative "Track Your Bud". At TrackyourBud.com, Bud drinkers can find out where and when their Budweiser or Bud Light was brewed by simply punching in the code from their can or bottle. The site serves as a digital brewery tour, first introducing you to the Brewmaster by full name (!!!) and then taking you through the steps of brewing your precious beer from milling to bottling. Each step has facts and a video, mimicking what a real brewery tour would be like.
So, why is this important?!
Yesterday, I watched the documentary The Naked Brand: The Future of Marketing, which features Alex Bogusky and various brands such as Patagonia, Under Armour, Unilever and Pepsi and talks about the need for brands to become more transparent about their products and business practices because the consumer feedback loop is instant. The quality of your product and story behind your brand is now KING when it comes to how consumers make decisions.
As for "the King" of beers, Budweiser's Track Your Bud campaign is an effort to highlight the quality and consistency of the All-American brew. The patriotic bottle is a reminder that Budweiser is America's beer, and now when you take a sip of Bud, you'll also associate it to a brewery within the states not so far away.
I've always been a fan of Bud heavy, and I actually appreciate this campaign because it recognizes Budweiser for what it is--a good 'ole American lager.
Goldfrapp? That's so 2006. I love Goldfrapp's "Ooh La La" track and it still feels hip and relevant, but I expect more from you Apple. By this, I mean I expect Apple to surprise and delight me with a song I haven't heard of (remember that Feist nano spot?) or a classic that brings back pleasant feelings. Apple's latest spot for the 5s took the former route of using a classic, Goldfrapp's "Ooh La La" and the only feeling I had was disappointment. Watching the first few seconds of the 5s spot, I distinctly recalled hearing the same song for a Motorola Chocolate or RAZR phone ad--those ads had such high frequency that I remembered the brand--and so the 5s commercial just felt underwhelmingly familiar.
Check out these Motorola ads back from 2006 that defined the Goldfrapp track + cellphone model:
Seven years later, Apple releases this to introduce their 5s:
A "good campaign idea" in digital can be super subjective, and rightfully so, since there are so many variables for creatives and strategists to think about, such as who are we speaking to, where does it live, what's the user engagement, what's the key message we want users to takeaway, so on and so on. While concepting campaign ideas can be a complicated process, a "good campaign idea" shouldn't be. I continue to defend that the best campaign ideas are often the most straightforward, for example:
These digital ideas are old, meaning six months to over three years ago, but to this day, I bet you and I can agree these ideas are "good". However, to be clear, "good" is not equivalent to "successful" as success relies heavily on the activation of the campaign across all media channels. I'm not going to get into campaign activation or how the best ideas are tied to consumer insights--although this is very important--instead I have created a simple formula above for creating good digital ideas that people want to engage with and (that all-mighty buzzword we all love) "share".
My chicken-scratch above is nothing groundbreaking but often times as creative strategists we need to ask ourselves these simple questions like "why should consumers spend time with this experience?" or "what makes this idea different from everything else?". And if you have a strong answer, then great! Novel interaction refers to new technology or new uses of old tech/interaction, interesting content refers to images, video, copy and whether it resonates with the audience and compelling incentive mainly refers to prizes and promotions because some brands need to beef this piece if their product is not that compelling.
Disagree with the criteria of a good digital idea above? I'd love to hear your thoughts, as my goal at the end of the day is for advertisers and agencies to stop creating shitty (excuse my language) digital campaigns.
This post is the inauguration of my blog's return (hooray!) and as the first post of 2013, I feel that it is incredibly fitting to talk about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In. Sandberg's memoir-slash-life advice book is about fostering environments for female leaders and driving all women to achieve their dreams. Sounds soft, fluffy and a drag doesn't it? I literally finished the book in one reading (avoiding meals), which is hugely momentous because I can't remember the last book I read to the end.
Every word of Lean In is relevant to my life (okay maybe not the pregnancy parts but it will be someday). I felt like a 20-something year old Sheryl Sandberg and what she writes is what I feel and what she says is what I need to hear. It's hard for me to explain the urgency of reading Sandberg's book without sounding like a bandwagon feminist but I'm being honest when I say this is probably the most important book I'll read of my career.
My life both professionally and personally has propelled forward in the last 6 months, requiring me to make a mass of decisions--what I recently realized is called growing up--and a big part of growing up means realizing your dreams, especially the dream to lead. Ten years ago, my dream was to create kick ass advertising campaigns that ended up in advertising annuals and won awards. And I'm here, doing that (the awards part is coming). The question is what's next? What's next for me is to do what so many clients, VPs, Directors and Strategists have done for me which is guide, teach and inspire girls and boys like me to push the boundaries of the industry.
The most memorable quote for me in the book actually didn't come from Sheryl but came from a reference to Harvard Business School's definition of leadership: "Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." This has been an unspoken mantra of mine and I find it most fulfilling to lead in this way.
I applaud Sheryl for attacking the topic of female leadership face on with a book referencing her own experiences, thought provoking research and an actionable plan. As a 20-something year old you often want to idolize your peers and amplify the voices of your generation, but after today, I feel Sheryl Sandberg's message is really important and this post is my way of getting it heard.
Perhaps Louis Vuitton and Burberry hired Cartier's Creative Director, and that Creative Director had some spare time to work on a Martini & Rossi commercial as well (watch the last video in the post). Is the luxury and cheap champagne industry quickly losing its creative edge and identity by jumping on the latest and greatest shiny object of Golden Compass-like fantasy storytelling--a blend of old world with new attitude and lots of floating/levitation? I'll give Cartier credit for shattering the expectations of Luxury advertising and for throwing a ton of money against a very ambitious idea of creating a compelling mini-film commercial that's exciting and highlights the brand beautifully. Did Louis Vuitton achieved this with L'Invitation Au Voyage, I would say far from it. Did Martini & Rossi's golden balloons give me the sense of grandeur that Cartier's giant gold LOVE bracelets rolling in snow did? Not really. Did both of these commercials remind me of how mediocre they are compared to Cartier's epic journey through time and space, fantasy and reality? Yes. Moral of the story is 'go big or go home' and if you're going to copy a commercial make sure to include the panther.
Something has been bothering me all day. The constant Facebook posts and tweets in my news feeds from brands and media outlets unrelated to Hurricane Sandy just doesn't sit right with me. Yes, I know there's a world outside of New York and the east coast area and life goes on, but selling me coffee or telling me how to use a shampoo in 3 different ways just doesn't feel right.
We live in a hyper-connected world, so brands need to be extra sensitive to what's going on in the world and how it affects their audience. This is what geo-targeting capabilities in Facebook are for, so brands can segment their messaging and post only what's most relevant to their audiences.
Don't ask your audience who might have lost their home what they are doing for Halloween. Don't tell your audience that just stayed up all night without power or water that they should be partying it up with your brand of beer. It's a fast way to lose brand credibility. Brands should think about whether what they are posting makes sense to someone like me who is living in a bizarre bubble of constant tragic news and unusual circumstances. If what they are saying doesn't make sense, then don't tweet it. Your business won't suffer from one less tweet, but you could lose a handful a followers with tweets like the above from @adage. Gap and American Apparel are guilty of the same.
I am not just talking about social sensitivity during natural disasters but also shootings, riots and large-scale accidents. Social media can be a very powerful tool to connect with your audience but it can also hurt your brand and business tremendously if you don't use common sense. Rule of thumb: if a friend dear to you would punch you in the face about what you are going to post, then don't post it.
By placing a "Pin it" button in their banner ad featured on the NY Mag homepage, Gucci made a statement to other high-end luxury brands that maybe social media is really important after-all and running only passive advertising isn't going to sell expensive handbags.
This is the first time I've seen a standard banner with a "Pin it" call-to-action, so I clicked on the button to see what would happen. A pop-up opened up with three items for me to pin--all of which the model is wearing in the banner. I find it so interesting that additional imagery was hidden behind this banner, when there was no mention of it through copy in the banner.
While I think the "Pin it" button does cheapen the aesthetics of the banner, it does what it needs to do--get people's attention. I don't think this was the best use of the new "Pin it" ad format, but I'll be interested to see how other brands use it and whether people are willing to pin from banners.
In the last few years, the animated image format GIF (Graphics Interchange Formatin nerd terms) has found its way into mainstream publications like Buzzfeed, The Atlantic and V Magazine and more recently in launch campaigns for MTV Mobile and Nina Ricci's "La Rue" bag. These GIF campaigns raise the artistic potential of the basic animated image with more stylized photography and interactivity. There's no sign of the GIF trend slowing down, especially with mobile apps like Cinemagram--the instagram for GIFs--that makes it easy for anyone to snap a photo and turn it into a GIF to share on their social networks.
MTV Mobile's "Gif Me More Party" Interactive Music Video
To launch its mobile platform and app MTV Mobile, MTV created an interactive music video for Sacramento musical group Death Grip and their track "I've seen footage". Shot in the pixelated GIF style, the video has a choose-your-own-adventure aspect where you can relive an epic party through the perspective of each partygoer. The shaky video makes me a bit motion-sick, the navigation or switching of characters is a bit clunky and I'm not sure the GIF-theme is strong enough to warrant the name 'Gif Me More Party'; however, it's apparent the Paris creative agency Buzzman, which created the campaign, understood who their target audience was as the experience is fun, fresh and very "MTV". Experience the party here.
Nina Ricci "La Rue" handbag launch with GIF Art Campaign by Jo Ratcliffe
My favorite campaigns are often the most simple, and designer Nina Ricci's GIF Art Campaign for her new handbag "La Rue" falls into this simply brilliant category. English artist Jo Ratcliffe created a set of animated GIFs showing off the chic "La Rue" purse in vibrant, whimsical GIFs that pumps youth into the Parisan brand but maintains high-fashion sophistication through styling. The best part about the website is you can retrieve the code to embed the GIFs or instantly share them on to your social networks. See all the GIFs here.
An unfortunate thing happened today, Kia Motors managed to ruin a once favorite song of mine "In My Mind" by Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl featuring Georgi Kay and mixed by Swedish House Mafia member Axwell. I watched in pain as a Marie Antoinette look-a-like slaughtered the song, only to allow urban-dressed hamsters to breakdance through the carnage. Alright fine, the dancing hamsters worked for LMFAO's "Party Rock", but I'm sorry Kia, this loose interpretation of electronic dance culture in an 18th century opera house makes no sense to me and I find the hamsters fashion choices offensive.
Not to mention, did the ad agency just use this Cosmic Opera teaser as their creative brief? Seriously, the song "In My Mind" was used to promote Axwell as the headliner of the theatrical EDM show at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. I took photos from the event here.
I don't think the general public agrees with my sentiment about the commercial, as the spot received 9x more likes than dislikes, but this doesn't change my deep disappointment. A mistake a lot of brands make is centering a campaign around a single song--often a song that has little relevance to the brand or product--and forcing it into every campaign execution. What happens is the campaign becomes less about the brand and product and relies heavily on the popularity of the track.
For example, this "In My Mind" user-generated music video contest doesn't make me think about the Kia car featured in the spot but instead wonder if Katy Perry was in charge of the design:
In my mind, maybe I'm just bitter that corporate brands are taking decent music tracks at will and plugging them into mindless, meaningless, terrible ads (I'm talking about you Buick!). However, Kia isn't the only brand to recently make a song the focal point of its commercial. I also can't stand those Internet Explorer commercials using Alex Clare's "Too Close" and Samsung Galaxy Note's "Moves Like Jagger" to emphasize that really important looking pie graph.
I'm not trying to blame Apple for this music trend, but I am going to. Apple was able to highlight product aesthetics and functionality with music in a way that complement both visual and sound where the music wasn't detracting from the product but helped to make the commercial memorable. Now somehow, brands have taken that to mean crowd surfing hamsters.
The King of Beers is just looking to protect its throne with none else than the King of Hip Hop himself Jay Z. Budweiser's Made In America Fest, promoted and headlined by Jay Z, has an impressive line-up of hip hop, rock and electronic dance artists--my personal favorites Miike Snow, Nicky Romero and Alesso will be there. It's clear Budweiser is making a push to stay relevant among the young multi-cultural artist-types (hipsters is what some call it) and succeeds mainly through its tasteful typography and subdued use of the patriotic red, white and blue. Again, sporting the American flag is very "in".
The "Makers of Tomorrow" television commercial which aired during the Olympics is very Levi's Go Forth, with Jay Z's personal touches like his voiceover about how music brings us together and his Brooklyn Nets baseball cap. If I wasn't already attending Electric Zoo Labor Day weekend, I would have definitely made a stop in Philly for this line-up.
I might be late to the game, but it didn't occur to me who Casey Niestat was and what a big deal he is until I connected the face in a video I saw yesterday about "$13,238.86 left in a taxi" from the New York Times to the same face in a video I watched a while back called "Make It Count" for Nike Fuelband.
I thought the same thing after watching both videos--this guy is a storytelling genius. Watching his videos, you feel a weird mix of jealousy and admiration, where you're jealous he gets to travel the world and film his experiences, but you credit him for being able to leave you feeling slightly enlightened after a few minutes. I'm getting the sense he does a lot of branded or endorsed work, but at the same time, he doesn't let it get in the way of his storytelling (watch the Nike video below).
I'll probably watch Casey and his brother's HBO show The Niestat Brothers sometime soon i.e. after the Olympics, to get a sense of his other work.
If you have a few minutes and want to see why "video storytelling" is the best thing, if not the next best thing, watch the videos below:
Building hype for a concert, museum exhibit or party is nothing new; however, nowadays, you can't expect to send a bunch of press releases and hope that it will sell tickets or get people talking. If you want people to talk about your event organically, and by "talk" I mean "social talk" through a facebook post or tweet, you need to get creative.
Today, I was sent a link september22nyc.com and when I got to the page, there wasn't much information beyond a hashtag, few instagram photos of recognizable NYC landmarks and additional clues to be revealed over the next couple of days.
When I'm confused, I like to search on Twitter or Google the information that I know, which in this case is the #September22NYC hashtag. It didn't take long (a few tweets to be exact) for me to figure out the date "September 22nd" will be for a Size Records music event with DJ Steve Angello and potentially Thomas Gold and Eric Prydz at Central Park or Governor's Island in NYC. Whether these assumptions are true, who knows? But the wisdom of the crowds has spoken and this is what I have gathered until the official announcement is made on August 1, 2012 at 1600 (EST I assume?).
This social-hype mystery reminds me of the recent Reddit subway $50 bill cryptic code stunt which had New Yorkers hungry for clues and running around the city to a mysterious location looking for a blue jay (I'm talking to you Karen & Jordan!).
Here are 3 things you need to pull off a social-hype stunt: 1) The Reach (of 1 person) Still Matters When Seeding - You might be wondering, how did people know the september22nyc.com existed? Popular DJ Steve Angello (one-third of Swedish House Mafia) tweeted the below to his 315K followers:
Likewise, the Reddit subway code probably wouldn't have been solved without the help of Reddit's million+ readers. Also, it's really important to keep the initial source of information as organic as possible so the information is not disregarded as another corporate stunt (even though it is).
2) Create Smart Clues, Your Fans Are Not Stupid - September22NYC did this by photoshopping the Size Records logo and strategic objects within NYC images. You don't necessarily need to draft a 500 character cryptic code, but you should create clues that your audience or fans would enjoy solving.
3) Set A Date, No More Than A Week Away - Give people something to anticipate by setting a date no more than a week out or people will lose interest and forget. Unless this is for Jay-Z tickets.
What I really like about the September22NYC idea is the tumblr-style website--simple and clean--and integration of popular social networks like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Even though I may not attend the event, I applaud Size Records for making things interesting.
When I'm traveling abroad, I like to take extra notice to the ads. I was recently in Hong Kong and noticed a lot of the ads had a unique Facebook call out. Unlike the US, where you often see a standalone Facebook logo in the corner or accompanied by a "Like us" on Facebook call-to-action, what makes the Hong Kong Facebook call out more effective is the visualization of the Facebook search bar. The search bar makes it intuitive to the viewer on how to find your brand on Facebook. I haven't seen this done in the states, and I don't see why every brand on facebook shouldn't do this!
