Over the past year I’ve been attempting to capture one marketing message that impacted me each day. I’m pretty much on target. The week days I am bombarded, but I find when I am holiday I forget to notice advertising so marketing messages struggle to get through. The weekends are more difficult too, when it tends to be event related marketing which connects with me if any.
What is certain is that whilst we may see hundreds of ad messages every day, I would challenge that doesn’t guarantee they go in. It’s a bit like saying if you click ‘like’ on a brand’s facebook page the metric correlates to consideration. But when they do get through, they stick. And with me that’s forever because I publish them too!
From the selection in February I’ve highlighted three which stood out for me. The rest of the months, as well as May 11 – Feb 12 are available at my flicker page http://bit.ly/sRItyo should they be of interest.
Best media ad by a media owner – Monday 6th Feb – CBS Outdoor
This is an ad to advertise media ad space! But I have to say, it’s a good one. As are the 6 or 7 other variants I’ve seen. The shapes within the animals depict London landmarks. The colours are strong. The headlines suffer as they try and link to the images to justify the choice of animals. If that piece of the execution could have been stronger (and there’d about a dozen ways that could have been done) this would have been a great campaign from CBS. That said the imagery make this instantly recognisable on the tubes.
Best illustration – Tuesday 7th Feb – The Times/ Sunday Times
You don’t see too much fine art illustration in advertising these days. So when I do, I notice it. This campaign from The Times and The Sunday Times is a case in point. Maybe because I read these publications on occasion, but its subtle approach rather than the typical shouty-man approach adopted by others really connects with me. Which then allows me to stay engaged to get to the free delivery offer. If that had been shouty-man, I would have lost interest after the first second.
Best James Bond Wannabee type ad (and copywriting) – Tue 14th Feb – MI5
This is from my favourite campaign of 2012 so far. It’s for MI5 and the photograph and the copy in the press format are just exquisite. The psychology behind this is very interesting. And the choice of old school paper clips and long-copy in the printed version are more than coincidental. Exquisitely written and laced with hidden meaning. Seek the press ad out if you can – I’ll try and publish it on flickr too. Love it. Love it. Love it. I didn’t apply though. Find the ad and you’ll understand why I couldn’t apply now I’ve published this post.
So there we have it. A delightful gem in February, from an unexpected source. Special mentions to Prezzo (for targetting) and Virgin Media for art direction too. I hope you enjoy this series, and if you do please follow us for automatic updates of new posts.
Posted by Christopher Brooks
At Lexden, we are a marketing strategy agency which seeks to arrive at cut-through propositions and solutions for our clients.To do this we look beyond the familar towards the unordinary.
To find out more about what we do and if that might be of interest to you please visit our website lexdengroup.com
Alternatively, contact christopherbrooks@lexdengroup.com or ajairanawat@lexdengroup.com, or call us on T: +44 (0)20 7490 9123. And you can follow us on Twitter @consultingchris or @consultingajai.
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