MadMonk Interactive

For every kid who grew up looking for shapes in clouds and everything else, this American Express “Take Charge” commercial spot resonates well. Faces in particular have always had special recognition. This clever spot makes its point in feel good fashion.

Newport Beach, CA based Juxt Interactive site for BMW is a fun and memorable experience. The Relearn To Drive website brings back memories of parallel parking in vacant parking lots, pulling into and out of every convenience store within reason, over and over and over again.

The first-person camera angle reminds me of other memorable online experiences, a familiar one that comes to mind is Brawny’s Innocent Escape campaign from 2005 (“Your Hair, It’s Perfect” still rings in my ear occasionally) . In my pre-MadMonk days, we worked some online collaborative initiatives with Georgia Pacific while their ad agency (Fallon New York) created a series of memorable video shorts with a central character talking to the camera. Paper towels went online viral.

But back to BMW and its commercial, goal: To inspire us to “Undo the damage” by participating in a BMW Performance Driving School.

“There really are no accidents.”

So ends most of the messages from Canada’s Workplace Safety & Insurance Board’s latest campaign. To say they’re explicit is an understatement. The TV Spots called “Family Man” and “The Chef” cover ranges of genders, race, industries, and silent threats. Two not on their site but on YouTube was for a Retail Store incident and a Warehouse mishap. The print ads clearly catch one’s attention, dead people on a workfloor can do that. The attitude of the campaign is borderline sarcasm in tone but visually in-your-face in bold fashion. FWIW, it must get some people thinking and talking about it and therefore, more conscious about workplace safety.

It reminds me of the American Legacy Foundation’s various Truth campaigns, some over the top, recent Truth ads playing more with sarcasm and cynicism to prove their points about big tobacco’s past claims and marketing methods. Various articles have cited studies that found unlike numerous past anti-smoking campaigns, Truth actually had some positive results. Not easy for one ad to change someone’s risk behaviors, but it’s clear that marketers “…need to create messages that work for the target audiences, not for the practitioners…”

Just a spot that caught my eye and vibe. We at MadMonk Interactive have strong admiration for motion work that sets its customers apart. This ad by Leo Burnett Toronto just speaks creatively and emotionally. Another, fresher interpretation of “You Are What You Eat.” I may even give this cereal a look/taste next time down the aisle.

In episode 80 of The Sopranos (titled “Remember When”)…Tony gets more uncomfortable with Paulie’s loose lips when he mentions a kid at a party who “mysteriously drowned.” When the dinner party wonders what’s wrong he replies: ” ‘Remember When’ is the lowest form of conversation.”

Well, it’s obvious now that I’ve a soft spot for the ever-evolving “Got Milk” campaign championed by the California Milk Processor Board for nearly a decade and a half now. So thanks to the Art Directors Club 86th Annual Awards for awarding Goodby, Silverstein & Partners its Hybrid Gold for the agency’s work on the California Fluid Milk Processing “Milk Aliens” campaign, we can play a little more nostalgic “remember when”, reminding us how fun and creative our business can be.

Whether you missed it or would like to revisit it, in an attempt to be “fair and balanced” to the issue, GS&P showcased the view from both sides – ours who want to protect our cows from alien abduction, and from the opposing viewpoint of the citizens of Brittlelactica, the planet in need of calcium.

Among the memorable coverage over time, Elizabeth Anderson’s report on how the campaign was brought to life was a nice view as well.

Years ago, it was cynically voiced that it would be only a matter of time before we’d have the Coca Cola or McDonald’s logo on the space shuttle to generate revenue for a space program in need of funding. Well, in the competitive advertising struggle for attention, it should be as no surprise that advertising has been increasingly making it on school buses, private homes, and churches, just to name a few.

According to a Summer 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article: “Consider all the areas once considered sacrosanct. Schools? Cash-starved school districts have turned school buses into rolling advertisements. Home? An Atlanta house was painted bright pink and decorated with an E Channel and “The Simple Life” logos to promote the reality show. Church? Many church programs have included ads for years and new megachurches are often built with a Starbucks and McDonald’s. Funerals? The growing trend toward personalizing the rites of the dying has brought us Harley-Davidson-themed memorials and caskets designed in homage to favorite beers and sports teams.”

And by the looks of the Atlanta house painted and branded to promote “The Simple Life” television show (make sure to spot the meticulously manicured shrubs spelling out “Sunday”), this tactic will eventually make it to a neigborhood near all of us.

This Australian advertisement is engaging, simple, and quite frankly, hits a cord. In this digital age, I imagine there are plenty of folks (like me) who write significantly less hand-written letters than they used to. Launched by Australia Post, the ad reads, ‘if you really want to touch some one, send them a letter’ while showing a letter embracing a woman reminding us the importance in terms of expressing emotions in those letters written by hand. The ad was created by M&C Saatchi, Melbourne.

Some may say these are overdone…but I’d suspect that most of them are are folks like me how flip through design annuals from time to time. But I still think for the average urban citizen, ad placements on phone booths, street posts, and in these cases, trash bins, can make quite the impression when their messages are tied directly to their host. I like this tactic and find Portugal-based Vitae’s ad of a homeless man peering under the lid of a trash bin impactul, if not alarming to an occasional viewer. Vitae is the largest homeless shelter in the EU. The ad reads “Help. So that no one have to come here for food.”

It reminds me of this ad for this Atlanta campaign to help the homeless…drawing attention by its familiarity and starkness against the dark coloring and graffiti of most trash bins.

There is a lot good design can do. Yes I’m biased. But getting people’s attention is critical. Impactful creative doesn’t require high budgets and media costs…I’d argue that those who see these may carry them longer than they would a TV ad that’s sandwiched between three others touting products and movie releases.

I love ads from the past, regardless of era. But as a previous post with vintage prescription drug print ads showed, I’ve a special place for ads that championed products that were bad for us. Although we all know cigarettes hurt our health, I came across this “Before you scold me, Mom maybe you’d better light up” 1/2 page ad that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, 1951. So between my two posts, it’s implied that when Mom gets stressed, pop pills or light up. I’m sure years from now, our children (and grandchildren) will look back at some of our current campaigns and point out some absurdities as well.

Madrid based agency Dommo developed a campaign for Mini called “It Comes With Me” that suggests that Mini owners are so obsessed with their little car, they need to take it anywhere. So they shrink wrapped a car and applied a large scale baggage tag. Funky promotion, caught my eye and probably got many looks from folks as they waited for their bags in the claim area. From an execution standpoint, we’re talking plastic wrap and the large scale print of the tag art, + whatever they paid for the airport floor space. I bet a good investment, particularly in small-car friendly Europe.

Nasty, last minute political ads are expected, often times inaccurate defamation, and although insult most educated voters’ intelligence…they still seem to work enough! Living in North Carolina, I have no tie to Connecticut’s Senate race, but these Ned Lamont commercials will probably go down as growing a trend of political ads that depend on humor and actually wink at the old and tired political advertising dynamic.

In the “Horror” spot, the black & white crispness and 1950s mock-horror angles poke fun at the opponent(s) as well as the genre. In the “Messy Desk” spot, they once again work the black & white visuals, this time, mocking defamatory political ads by sarcastically picking on Lamont’s “flaws”. Such ads must give thanks to shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

There will always be political advertising, so personally, Democrat or Republican, hopefully we can see less slime and more creativity. Ideally, creative marketing of ideas instead of character defamation and manipulation of the electorate’s extreme emotions. One can hope.

As you can see through this video promotion, pedestrians get attention in a way that shocks the nerves. The reactions are fun to watch. I’ve not watched the show, but it seems from some light Googling that it developed a decent cult following. If you’re curious about the show, check out the Afterlife Web site.