Not just for advertising

Ogilvy, world renowned advertising agency, cleverly told Hemingway’s stories in 15-second Instagram videos. Although the agency was working for the Hemingway Foundation at the time, they did an excellent job at showing how Instagram and ad agencies can use their talents and skills for something other than getting someone to buy a product or follow a brand. It can be used for storytelling.

Adweek covered the videos in a short article, including showing three of the short films. (If you can get past the typo in the first paragraph). Interestingly enough, if you follow the videos to the Earnest Hemingway Foundation in Oak Park (EHFOP for short), you’ll find that they’ve only got five posts total. Three of them are the short films for The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms.

Visual storytelling is a huge part of advertising and branding today. It’s safe to say that a plethora of brands have yet to unlock the power of visuals on social media, instead opting for overly promotional tweets or status updates. Instagram is typically used by people, brands, or thought leaders as a way to post photographs of their daily happenings, and brands like Walt Disney World have done an excellent job at blending right in with these activities. Although it’s clear that EHFOP is only getting started on Instagram, I think they’re headed in the right direction. Typically, if you were looking to make a series of short videos, you might head to Vine. However Vine limits videos to six seconds and it’s not easy to make a connection with a consumer over Vine. Instagram was the best route for them to take as it’s more diverse and they’ll be easy to follow along.

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Post by The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park.

When Two Become One

So, this week I’d like to tell you about the struggle I had deciding whether this topic fit in ‘branding’ or ‘media’. The subject of the post is Meghan Trainor’s new video/HP’s new commercial. The problem is, they are the same video. The article is titled ‘An Ad Agency Made Meghan Trainor’s New Video and it’s Great‘. (Which I think is totally objective). On the one hand, Meghan Trainor is building her brand with consistent delivery in her music videos. Her first video for ‘All About that Bass’ featured mostly the color pink and pastel accessories, it was very girly. This new video stays in line with pastel colors and girly-ness.

She was able to keep in line with this brand imaging by hiring an ad agency to do her video, rather than a music video producer. Meghan and her team understood that this video isn’t just for entertainment- it’s for building her brand as well. My conflict comes in now. The ad agency had taken on HP’s new Pavilion x360 tablet-laptop hybrid, and saw an opportunity to use a music video as a promotional tool. Meghan Trainor is an influencer that reaches the audience they aimed to reach.

All of the hiring for the video- from dancers to set designers- was done in collaboration with HP, since this video was for their product as well as Meghan. Behind the scenes videos feature the cast members using the x360 to interact with fans or create sketches for the music video. The x360 is featured throughout the video, but it’s very subtle.

“We knew the only way this would be successful is if it wasn’t an ad. It had to be a legit music video,” said Groves. “The couple of times you do see the computer, it’s being used in a natural way. Plus, so many young people can see through marketing BS in a video like that, and are happy to call it out…”

Well, when AdWeek writes a feature article about how your music video is also a sneaky advertisement, you don’t have to worry about young people seeing through your marketing BS. I guess here’s to hoping that your target audience doesn’t read this article and realize it’s quite an elaborate advertisement.

Unfriend your Facebook Ads

Everybody’s been in this situation. You scroll through your newsfeed and see your friend’s engagement rings, your cousin’s night out with their friends, endless pictures of babies, and then- BAM- ‘BUY THIS.’ ‘DOWNLOAD THIS.’ ‘PLAY NOW.’

No, I don’t want to play farmville or some salon game. I’m not downloading an app for a company I’ve literally never heard of. I don’t want to buy a NerdBox just because I liked the official page of every Marvel movie ever. Please go away.

It seems like Facebook finally listened to this request. In an article from The Guardian, Facebook is tweaking (what does it say about my generation that I typed twerking instead of tweaking? Hello, millennials.) its news feed algorithm to weed out the overly promotional posts. Posts that make you feel like you’re being yelled at by irrelevant advertisers are finally being taken out of the picture. Facebook finally said out loud what we were all thinking, that users would rather see content from their friends than from the pages they’ve liked. If I like a page on Facebook, it’s so I can stay updated on what’s going on with that page. Facebook is doing something about those pages excessively advertising to the people who’ve already liked them.

So, in short, you’ll still see ads off to the side of your page and ads that brands have paid for- but the content they put in your newsfeed will be actual content, rather than overly promotional advertisements. This is a breath of fresh air, since the only way brands can guarantee that same content is by paying for it, which they may be reluctant to do. This might change the view of Facebook as a ‘free’ social media platform if they now have to pay for the content they used to spew for free. A pretty big win for users, but a blow for brands.

#BreakTheInternet? Hardly.

As I’m sure you know, Kim Kardashian attempted to ‘break the internet’ this week by shooting full-frontal nudes with Paper magazine. Normally I’m not so frank about derriers, but it’s Kim Kardashian we’re talking about here. This should come as a surprise to no one.

I think there are several reasons why Kim Kardashian failed to ‘break the internet’ with her bare bum this week. The first one being, anyone who’s interested in seeing Kim’s bottom has had ample opportunity to do so already. Secondly, if you aim to break the internet, you may not want to ambitiously tell people about it beforehand.

Lastly- it’s the internet. It’s going to take a lot more than a revealing professional photoshoot of a celebrity who, quite simply, has faded out of the spotlight in recent weeks. The internet is not a medium that you can assume any control over. To command it to break does not equate to it actually breaking, or even coming close to it.

It wasn’t just the flawed idea that a picture can break the internet, though. The internet clearly had other things in mind that day. For the first time ever, humanity landed a spacecraft on a comet, and it was a pretty big deal. All day long, the Philae landing was a more popular Twitter trend than Kim K’s ‘break the internet’ fad. That article gave an excellent breakdown on different analytics regarding the comet landing and #BreaktheInternet, and it’s pretty clear which one garnered the most attention.

Just remember kids, you can’t actually #BreaktheInternet, and you will never be as cool as landing a spacecraft on a comet.

I’ll have what she’s having

#MissAdventure, better known as Anna Kendrick, is the face of Kate Spade’s new holiday campaign. The new video spot (sort of a commercial, but not exactly) is featured as AdWeek’s ad of the day today. The article calls Kate Spade’s collections ‘airless’ and relies on Anna Kendrick to help spice it up. Clearly they’ve never shopped the Saturday line, but that’s a different story.

While most videos made for advertising are usually commercials, this spot acts as a short film, 2:37 from beginning to the end of the credits. Instead of making a traditional commercial, Kate Spade decided to take Anna Kendrick’s bubbly personality and tell a story with their brand. I’d say it’s very successful. Before I knew Anna Kendrick was Kate Spade’s holiday feature, I saw her tweets about Kate Spade and thought ‘She’s exactly who I would picture wearing Kate Spade’.

The campaign doesn’t stop with the video, though, as there’s another one Kate Spade made called ’20 Questions for Anna Kendrick’ and also features a series of print ads. Anna Kendrick was the perfect choice for Kate Spade to tell their story, and it’s refreshing to see someone do a holiday spot so well in the United States (if you haven’t seen any UK-based holiday ads, you haven’t lived yet).

UK grocery stores and high street retailers usually do an incredible job with branding around the holidays. Their heart-felt, holiday-centered tv spots are heartwarming and refreshing among commercials filled with sales specials. I hope the story telling trend that Kate Spade is using catches on in the US a bit more- I’m much more interested in seeing a series of videos like this than a traditional tv spot.

#CosbyMeme

While my other post this week focused on branding backfiring, sometimes the media can backfire on you too. Bill Cosby is at the center of good intentions gone wrong this week when his social media manager posted a photo of him to Twitter, asking fans to ‘Meme Him’. Unfortunately, news broke earlier this year that Bill Cosby was accused of rape almost 20 years ago. The internet truly is an elephant- it never forgives, it never forgets. Needless to say, this Twitter campaign backfired immediately as ‘fans’ (I’m really not sure what else to call them- they certainly don’t appear to be fond of Cosby) started posting pictures of Cosby meme-style with rape accusations and other quips about his past crime.

The tweet was deleted almost immediately, but the frenzy is still going strong.  After a quick search, I couldn’t find a single image that was made the way his social media manager intended. Every single tweet was backfiring on him, and every tweet without a meme speculated about who would be fired over this decision. Clearly, when you give the consumer the power to talk about you, your brand, your product, etc. you open up the Pandora’s Box of criticism along with it. You can’t rely on the masses to always say something positive about you. It doesn’t look like there was a plan in place in case this idea didn’t work out- other than delete it and pretend it didn’t happen.

Naturally, there were some Bill Cosby supporters that tweeted at him and got a tweet back but they were drowned in the sea of backlash-ers. This doesn’t mean that social media is a bad way to generate publicity or talk to your audience. It just means that if you have a bad product, a bad brand, or a bad person, social media isn’t going to fix that for you. There really is no point in trying to hide or ignore anything if it’s on the internet as well, because your audience can and will find it. They obviously can and will use it against you. Social media and the internet makes brands even more transparent, even more accountable for their actions, and this is a very clear example of that.

When Branding Backfires

As much as we try to know our audience and work in our mutual best interests, sometimes our branding plans will backfire. That’s okay. If you’ve not experienced some level of failure, you’re probably doing something terribly wrong. However, if you’re making the same mistakes someone else has already made (and is receiving a mind-blowing amount of publicity for) some people are going to start questioning your methods and morals.
When the University of Texas recently merged two of their campuses, Brownsville and Pan-American, they were faced with coming up with a new mascot for the school. Apparently they’ve been living under a rock, because the new mascot was chosen as the Vaqueros, a Spanish term for cowboy. Students and lawmakers are questioning this decision because of it’s gender exclusivity and the potential for insensitive stereotyping of Latinos.
Sound familiar yet?
If you’ve been living under a rock as well, let me elaborate- the Washington Redskins have already given us reason enough to not name your school mascot after a potentially insensitive term for a different culture. It’s just not right. It’s generally a bad move to associate your team name or school name with a minority culture, or any culture at all, because it opens up the door for people to insult them when they insult your school. Better yet, this decision was made by the President and no one else- no input from students, no vote, no Board of Regents meeting to cover the topic.

Alumni and students are rallying for the name to be changed. Petitions are being signed, social media crusades are in effect, even Representative Terry Canales is urging the Board of Regents to reject the new mascot.

 

 

Traditional in the Non-Traditional Sense

Thinking of traditional media, newspapers, television, radio ads, or billboards might come to mind. Interactive media can sometimes take a backseat when we think of traditional advertising. Press conferences, however, are in a strange grey area of not-exactly-advertising-but-somewhat-public-relations. Some press conferences may be held as crisis response, but others pose as a way to generate media buzz. I believe Marvel has the latter down to a fine art.

(Oh, I forgot- Surprise! Marvel again. I’m on a roll. It’s almost comical.)

You can thank me later for that pun.

When Marvel announced they were holding a secret press conference in one day’s time, speculation across comic forums and social media began immediately. With the leaking of the Age of Ultron trailer, fans including myself wondered if it was time to announce the slate for Phase 3. The entire past two weeks has been a constant barrage of announcements- Benedict Cumberbatch for Doctor Strange, the very recent announcement of Loki and Heimdall returning for AoU (!!!!!!!), so on and so forth. Phase 3 was coming on hot and heavy.

Despite the fact that fans- or maybe just me- sort of figured it out, the announcement built enough hype to begin Twitter trends and stir up a few subreddits. A slate of 8 films through 2019 was released and the conference got LOADS of press coverage. Marvel also made a live stream available through their website so you could virtually attend. The live stream also included a chatroom set up for fans to simultaneously freak out or speculate beforehand.

They also, hilariously, teased that Captain America 3 would not be Civil War (I’ll forgive them for that eventually). That wonderful, wonderful news was confirmed in addition to an onslaught of sequels and three new character lines. Marvel yet again did an astounding job at generating media coverage at what I’m guessing was no cost whatsoever.

Unified by Diversity

Surprise! I’m writing about Marvel again. If you’ve been following the brand lately, or checking out Twitter trends, or generally not living under a rock, you might have noticed the onslaught of announcements about their upcoming film slate. Phase 3 is beginning in full force, and for once, not every superhero is a white male.

Anyone familiar with the comics knows that comic book characters aren’t always white males anyway- there are plenty of non-white characters, female superheroes, etc. Some just aren’t human at all. By finally introducing some of these characters (namely, Captain Marvel and the Black Panther), the Marvel Cinematic Universe can expand it’s reach to minorities and more women.

This will definitely affect the Marvel Cinematic Universe brand since their main characters are shifting to represent the average person rather than another buff white guy. More diverse representation in movies gives kids role models to look up to that actually look like them (try being a girl and dressing up for a superhero for Halloween- you’re either Black Widow or half-dressed Iron Man). Plus, Black Panther is going to be bad ass.

You could always argue that there are plenty of side kicks that you could identify with as a minority or a female, like Peggy Carter or Jane Foster, Falcon or War Machine, and Nick Fury is without a doubt one of the coolest characters there is- but it’s nice to see someone take center stage.

Here's AMAZING concept art for #BlackPanther! #MarvelEvent pic.twitter.com/xUC8hLmrSn

— Ryan Penagos (@AgentM) October 28, 2014

You could always argue that there are plenty of side kicks that you could identify with as a minority or a female, like Peggy Carter or Jane Foster, Falcon or War Machine, and Nick Fury is without a doubt one of the coolest characters there is- but it’s nice to see someone take center stage. So this is a very exciting development- a shift towards Marvel widening their audience and creating a more diverse/representative universe and brand.

Of course there will always be people that just don’t get it.

This message came to my tumblr over an hour after we announced @captainmarvel & @theblackpanther. pic.twitter.com/scWbgtUB8z

— Ryan Penagos (@AgentM) October 30, 2014

A Marvelous Response to Age of Ultron

So, I’m taking things in a new direction again this week. The advertising environment is constantly changing, so I figure my blog may as well keep in line with that philosophy. With that being said, I am somewhat of a comic book/ Marvel Cinematic Universe nerd and I have eagerly awaited any news on Phase 3 or Age of Ultron. Needless to say, when I heard that the first official trailer for Age of Ultron was premiering on Tuesday night after Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I was positively ecstatic.

Imagine, then, my surprise when Marvel posted the trailer online Wednesday night. It was literally as though Christmas had come early. There wasn’t more than a few milliseconds of thought before I hit the ‘play’ button, and only afterwards did I realize that Marvel only posted the trailer because it had been leaked.

Now, some people might assume that when something gets leaked (early, illegally, etc.), the owner of that content might try to protect the information, deny it, remove it from the internet (which is quite laughable, as any internet-savvy person will know). But not Marvel. Marvel knew that people were going to watch this trailer- the Avengers: Age of Ultron is arguably one of the most anticipated movies of 2015. So why not let them watch a high quality, official version of it on their own Youtube channel, where it will no doubt garner millions of views and tons of ad revenue?

Marvel posted the video for theirs and their consumers’ mutual benefit. It was a great move. My favorite part of their reaction, however, was their Twitter response.

Always in good humor. Kudos to Adri Cowan, Marvel’s social media manager and her digital media team. They couldn’t have possibly handled the situation better.

Update: As of now, the Age of Ultron trailer has 15k retweets and nearly 50 MILLION Youtube views. They also released an extended version on Tuesday night after Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was marvelous. You can watch it here if you’ve not seen it yet (how could you not have seen it yet?!).