An Oasis of Good Communication

Oasis releases a new album, and street musicians in New York are the first to perform the songs off of it. Trained by Liam and Noel Gallagher of course.







I love this campaign. The Sjönell brothers at BBH New York engineered this thing, and it's just solid proof of their understanding for what makes people talk. I'll toss a coin into that hat! Bravo!

Awesome Red Bull Idea, Lars Berghe, Murketing, And Alignvertising

Here's a not to shabby idea by Red Bull:

They sent out people all over the world to ask bartenders to "give me something you recommend". If the bartender gave them Vodka Redbull, the bartender recieved an extraordinary tip, namely an Apple Ipod.

Do you think that these incognito bartender charity workers got talked about? You betcha! The rumor spread like wildfire, and pretty soon Vodka Redbull's where handed out as the standard respons to the question in question.

Lars Berge writes about this and other Red Bull campaigns in his column in SvD, and makes a good analysis on the concept of branding as opposed to advertising. When someone says that youngsters are getting immune to advertising messages, Lars argues that we are instead more motivated than ever to involve ourselves with different brands, just not in the traditional forced way. He's backing up his argument by referring to Rob Walker's book "Buying In", where the phenomenon is called "murketing".

Personally I think that this is a very bad term. It's not about murketing or being sneaky, it's about getting people to identify. Let's call it something else. How about... alignvertising. In alignvertising we do cool/loveable/responsible/outrageous/funny stuff that people want to be a part of and have their personalities align with.

Still, this might be a book worth reading. I'll look into it and get back to you.

Might As Well Have The Best

Besides the fact that I absolutely adore the legendary (and expensive) bags from Filson, they also have less than humble tagline. "Might As Well Have The Best". I kind of like it actually.







But it's also one of those taglines that you HAVE to back up in your product. Unless you really ARE the best, having a tagline like that is just counter-productive. After having owned a 266 "Sportsman's Bag" for a while know, I can promise you that it does live up to it's tagline.

They also have an interesting piece of "proof" on their warranty slip.







Classic and interesting brand.

The Meaning Is The Message, Or Is It?

A few Swedish blogs (here they are 1, 2, 3) have spent some time discussing if advertising needs a message. I believe it was all sparked by this article by Paul Feldwick.

For those of you who can't read Swedish (don't worry, we're only 9 million people), I can just quickly recap the discussion: They are discussing whether advertising should have a message, must have a message (since message is equal to meaning), or shouldn't have a message but rather a topic to sparc discussion. (Sorry 1, 2, 3 for the simplification).

I'm not so sure about defining message as being the same thing as meaning. A message is the code being sent, while meaning is the interpretation of the code. And that interpretation is dependent on many factors. I do agree on, on the other hand, that there needs to be some sort of message from someone (not necessarily the advertiser) in order for someone on the recieving end to have something to interpret, and thus make meaning out of.

First of all I would like to say that meaning doesn't have to be rational. It never is entirely, and most of the time it's predominatly emotional. For the most part we interpret with our emotions and try to explain our interpretations rationally. And that I think is one of the main points of Mr Feldwick's. So messages are most of the time interpreted into meaning without us ever knowing.

So what about messages? That's a little more complicated. A message is carried from point A to point B (where B can be anything from one person to several million). But it can also be forwarded on to C, D, and onwards (C and D can also be huge numbers). The can be distorted along the way, and will almost certainly be interpreted differently. Rational messages will be easy to interpret rationally, but will a lot of times lead to less stimulating emotional responses. Emotional and irrational messages can, if they are good, create a much stronger emotional response, a much wider spread (B, C, D, and onwards), and be more effective in attaching emotional values to the brand. But they require more talent (or luck) to create and a lot of trust from the client (I can only imagine the initial client response to the Cadbury's gorilla).

So to answer the question if advertising needs a message, I would say yes. All communication does. But it doesn't have to be a rational message, and the sender may be aware that there are many possible interpretations. In that case it's similar to art or poetry really. And advertising agencies would never claim to be in the business of art or poetry (besides the thursday night art club). But "branded content" is the hottest thing there is right now. I see paradox here.

My conclusion then:
Don't assume that messages and meanings interpreted out of those messages have to be rational. Meanings never are anyway, and succesful messages rarely are. And that's why succesful advertising agencies need talent. Emotional and artistic talent.

It looks like a million bucks

At a deli in Sandhamn I stumbled upon this bottle of water. My initial impression was that this product must be expensive, but it turns out it isn't.

Emotionally, it feels wasteful to indulge in such expensive water, but rationally I know it isn't expensive at all. So what is going on here?

I think that this is a good example of pricing as part of the design. And it feels like there is confusion in the product strategy. I would love to get my hands on the strategy document for this product, and especially the positioning statement. What are they trying to be? If they want to be high end, the price should reflect that strategy, just as the design does. If they want to be mid price, the design should reflect that.

I still love the design though.

BK Crown Card

Burger King's lifetime crown card is one of those ideas that are just so simple, yet incredibly effective. They've understood that celebs (or anyone for that matter) are not impressed by burgers, but by status. Giving out a lifetime card for free burgers to these celebs is not done to feed them, but to make them uniquely spoiled. And are the rest of us interested in this super celeb perk on steroids? 50 000 Google hits this soon after launch says we are.

(For us regular folks, we can also buy regular prepaid crown cards, though not lifetime ones).

Again, read more on Ad Age.