2012 Chinese Year Of The Dragon

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:28:10 +0000

The beginnings of the Chinese calendar can be traced back to the 14^th century B.C.E. Legend has it that the Emperor Huangdi invented the calendar in 2673 B.C.E. The Chinese calendar is based on exact astronomical observations of the longitude of the sun and the phases of the moon. It is year 4710 in the Chinese calendar, and today marks the start of the lunar year of the dragon. The dragon in the Chinese zodiac is the highest regarded sign; it is the only mythical character, rather than an animal as in the eleven others of the dozen-year cycle. The dragon is said to represent wealth, wisdom, courage and power due to this many Chinese couples will be planning for a child this year, and we could see the start of a baby-boom in hospitals across Asia with large ethnic-Chinese populations and those in China especially. It is said that couples have until about May 2^nd to conceive to ensure their child is born before the year of the dragon draws to a close on February the 9^th 2013. In past dragon years 1988 and 2000 the numbers of babies born in the city-state spiked by around 10%, which is a stark contrast compared with the declining birth rate during the years between. The dragon is considered as a most sacred animal, and was used as the imperial emblem of Chinese emperors. The dragon is the first of the four divine creatures, the others being the unicorn, phoenix and the tortoise. As imagined by the Chinese the dragon has the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, fiery eyes, ears of a cow, paws like a tiger, with claws as sharp as an eagles, it’s neck is like that of a serpent, with the belly of a frog and scales of a carp all finished nicely with a long beard. Quite the being I’m sure you will agree. To all our Chinese following – Gung hay fat choy For our far more prominent English following this means ‘best wishes and congratulations. Have a prosperous and good year.’

Bah Humbugger Xmas Ads

admin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:11:10 +0000

All I want for Christmas, is some decent adverts!

It’s our BahHumbug time, and we have all we need to get grumpy about this season. Tis the season to get absolutely bloody furious at the TV due to the dire adverts, all trying to be jolly, but ending up plain irritating. There is no numerical order in the list, but feel free to put them from bad to ugly. Personally for me if something looks like crap and smells like crap, then it is crap there’s no scale, it just is. Toys’R'Us

Receiving a conservative 4.5 turds rating on Adturds it’s that advert that we all used to love and adore, the advert that signified the coming of Christmas, no it wasn’t perfect, yes it was slightly cheesy, but it was great, and we loved it. Now in its place is a bright and colourful… turd. Americanised to it’s veneered shiny white teeth it’s the new Toy’s R Us advert… when it’s on I close my eyes and sing “There’s a magical place; We’re on our way there; With toys in their millions’ All under one roof…” Well done Toys R Us, brand equity down the toilet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UkPxunlRBRI

M&S

Jumping on the XFactor bandwagon this year it’s M&S, they had a few teething errors to start with as one contestant was enjoying the wrong kind of ‘snow’ this Christmas. It’s just not got the M&S vibe, where’s the opulence, where’s the decadent shots of wonderfully srumptious food, get those irritating little gits off my telly!

Littlewoods

Bad move Littlewoods, you just killed Santa. The Grinch would be proud. However, your customers are distraught. Even the usual Grinch the ASA don’t like it, but it’s not really breaking any rules so they have to grin and bear it just like we have to. Thanks Littlewoods, have a nice Christmas with your creditcard. I’m still leaving a carrot out for Rudolf.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=INJ5Q16EntU

Argos

Words don’t come to mind for this advert, other than please turn off the TV. What Argos say on Youtube:

“our new Christmas advert… starring aliens! Having recently arrived from their far-off and Argos-less planet, they are quickly finding their feet and are most excited about all the cool stuff we have”

The ASA should ban this advert for being degrading to all the lovely E.T’s out there. And also painting them as slightly perverse the ‘mmm, Bieber’ comment from the lady alien sends a shiver up my spine every time. No it’s not funny, and yes it’s weird. I’m sure he may be of legal age, but surely only just. As Adturds puts it so profoundly “Just imagine the Dad [alien] lusting after Hermoine Granger and see how you feel about that.” Very true. However, Santa can put Granger in my stocking if he likes.

Here’s some stats:
699 likes / 152 dislikes – That’s 17% of people who have bothered to ‘not like / like’ not liking it! If this doesn’t increase to at least 50% sometime soon I’m going to lose all hope in humanity. One person said:

“The Argos “Alien” adverts are absolutely the worst ever! Why don’t Argos just concentrate on their offers instead. These adverts make me want to switch the TV [off]… which probably isn’t a bad thing!”

However, and I don’t know why some people find it hilarious…

“As a conundrum, it’s up there with Justin Bieber and eggnog.” I love this ad <3” “This is the funniest advert I have ever seen”

Perhaps I’m missing something…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2d9uuDSCEI

Halfords

This advert has a nice idea behind it, however the execution is unbearable. It gives you a headache from the get go and is sustained until the bloody thing finishes. That’s all I have to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gn1MyOzN6Jg

Boots

I wish the girls wouldn’t come, in fact I hope they never come again. The advert is playing on the same old theme, that has been executed nicely before. However, this time around it comes across just a touch too cheesy for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WL2gFLByMcE

Ok so my rant is over now, I hope you’ve enjoyed the post and please tweet us @brandthing if you’d like to add more to the list or just to wish us a Merry Christmas!

Mobile Christmas

admin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:05:44 +0000

So for this post we’ll look at some lovely Christmassy stats for 2011. It seems as though this Christmas may be a white Christmas, but it’s also a very mobile Christmas. Looking at stats from Christmas 2010 Adfonic measured real-time clicks over the Christmas period across its global mobile advertising marketplace. The click volumes last year reached an overall peak for the month on Boxing Day, which saw a further 26% increase on EBay’s dubbed ‘Mobile Sunday’. Adfonic saw mobile clicks for the first half of the month peak on the 12^th of December 2010 with a 400% increase compared to the begging of the month. Most likely due to consumers browsing for bargains whilst in-store. The IMRG predicted that some 20% of the 6.4billion expected to be spent online last year would be via our handsets, and with the UK leading the way on smartphone users at 11.1million. That’s a penetration of 22.6% of total UK mobile users. So we can assume this Christmas is set to if not repeat last year, then become an even more mobile for Christmas. A Tesco survey last year, conducted with 4,000 consumers found that half of mobile shoppers use their handsets whilst watching TV, one in six whilst sat on the bus, and a quarter during their daily commute. One in three respondents commented that shopping with their mobile helped take the stress away from the Christmas shop, allowing them to fit it into their busy schedule. Spending predictions for this Christmas: Over half of British consumers are not planning to cut back on spending on gifts this year, spending on average £560 per head. Equating to £378 on gifts for loved ones, and £183 on food, drink and entertainment. The biggest spenders are aged 35-44 and living in the North West. HSBC’s Christmas Spending Survey 2011 stated that 20% of people are expecting to spend more this Christmas compared to last. Online spend is predicted to be 16% higher than last year, partly due to more products being available online compared to last year. What it means for retailers: Get your web mobile One of the most obvious ways to appeal to the mobile shopper, is to have your site optimised for mobile browsing, be this your site or an app. Mobile comparison apps If you don’t have a mobile site, you can always make sure that it’s as mobile friendly as possible i.e. limited use of flash and clear page layouts. However, another way of getting your products in front of your potential customers’ is to ensure your products show up on mobile comparison and voucher sites, sites such as Sccope or Vouchercloud. Reserve and collect It’s a very useful function, and we know it works when online. So make sure your customers can do this via mobile, it’s also pretty handy at getting customers in-store. Barcode Scanners This is a handy extra for retailers, a barcode scanner allows customers to scan products when out shopping and compare prices or find reviews. Amazon’s app has a different approach, it uses photo recognition instead of a scanner, a good tool for offline shopping as it allows shoppers to easily check prices and reviews. So we hope you have a very merry Christmas, as it’s not all doom and gloom out there, people are spending, just get your brand ready – by the way we’re Brandthing and we’re a brand consultancy, hint, hint, nudge, nudge. And here’s a little something that may make you smile… The first ever Christmas card – 1843

Commissioned by Henry Cole in 1843, and designed by John C Horsley. It cost a whopping 6 pennies, and that was a luxury pricetag. The advert to purchase the card in Athenaeum Newspaper stated:

‘Just published. A Christmas Congratulation Card: or picture emblematical of Old English Festivity to Perpetuate kind recollections between Dear Friends.’

Simply spiffing, we’re sure you will agree. Tweet us @brandthing, ho ho ho. Sources: Comscore EAUK Econsultancy Neondrum.com Postal heritage

Jack Daniels Christmas Tree

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:59:36 +0000

So to get you into the holiday spirit rather than tucking into your advent calendar and getting tubbier this season, why not feast your imagination on our advert calendar. We’ll be posting either a Christmassy advert or some lovely Christmas 2011 statistics all centred on… you guessed it, advertising! Whoo. What better way to get you into the Christmas spirit, than the first of the series being about a spirit we all know, and if you’re like me… love! Jack Daniels Christmas 26ft tall barrel tree. The ‘Holiday Barrel Tree’ developed by Arnold Worldwide who created the TV and press activity, and the London office based group Arnold KLP, created the Facebook campaign. The ‘tree’ actually exists, though it’s quite a journey if one of us Brits would like to go and take a look. You guessed it; it’s in JD’s hometown – Lynchburg Tennessee. However, you can view it on the Facebook page. Adam Morton, group business director at UM London stated “ Jack Daniel’s communications are all about having an enduring understated dialogue with consumers, but this Christmas the Barrel Tree adds a new dimension – and our exclusive Facebook competition lets everyone be a part of it.” So without further ado, Merry Christmas and please do drink responsibly this season. Santa doesn’t like a leery drunk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDqUVoENIWk And here’s how they made it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5xMbeLtsBk&feature=related

Avios: Anything Can Fly

admin — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:21:59 +0000

Our Ad of the week
The first TV advert for Avios (the new name for airmiles) created by 101 is disruptive advertising at its best. The ‘anything can fly’ advert depicts household objects flying such as a CD player and a lawnmower hinting towards how anyone can earn points in the new Avios scheme by purchasing everyday objects. It’s even more fantastic that the objects are genuinely flying, far more impressive than CGI. The imagery creates an eerie stir on the TV screen, disrupting the usual advertising noise, usually split into short cuts that create even more of an unusual presence. However, the full version of the advert is wonderful to watch, we especially like the bumblebee CD player. The making of the advert is particularly good focusing more on the problems the production crew had; Rupert Brandon-King who is the brains behind the motorized sensations states that the BBQ was his “nemesis”. We hope you enjoy, we certainly did. The making of: Poster Campaign: Agency: 101 ECD: Richard Flintham Director: Simon Ratigan Creative Director: Augusto Sola Creatives (print and poster): Johan Dahlqvist, Zoe Sys Vogelius, Thomas Ilum

John Lewis The Long Wait

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:59:13 +0000

Our Ad of the week
Opting this year to focus on a single story line rather than multiple families, the new John Lewis advert is another hit from Adam & Eve. The advert since it’s debut on the X Factor has created a stir online, posting an impressive amount of hits and remakes including one featuring music from the horror film ‘The Shining’. The advert depicts a child waiting for Christmas to come, the twist is that he can’t wait to give rather than receive his present. It’s a touching plot that also cleverly promotes the John Lewis product range. The Admam & Eve and John Lewis partnership has proven to be one of success in 2009 they launched ‘Christmas’ which was a hit apart from some minor complaints about a dog left outside, this was then followed a year later with ‘for those who care about showing they care.’ It seems as though the adverts have done the trick too, as John Lewis head of selling operations, Maggie Porteous observed the comparable period last year was strong. “From our current trading figures, we can see that shoppers are starting to feel festive, beginning to prepare their homes for Christmas and buying gifts for family and friends,” Sales of John Lewis hampers have been growing at 33% year on year with one selling every 15 minutes. So without further ado here’s the advert and have a handkerchief ready, it’s a tearjerker.

M-Commerce The Future Of Your Wallet

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:28:31 +0000

With mobile subscriptions hitting 5.3 billion globally, that’s 77% of the world’s population the m-commerce market is one that is not only taking off, it looks set to explode! On eBay alone merchandise purchased via mobile phone topped $2billion in 2010. Mobile payments as a whole in 2011 will be worth $240 billion and potentially over $1 trillion by 2015, so it’s no wonder the market is getting a lot of attention and also increasing in competition. The biggest m-commerce market today is Japan at around 47 million users utilising tap-and-go. However, the Japanese could be surpassed by China in the future who are predicted to have around 169 million tap-and-go users by 2013. A little closer to home the USA m-commerce market is set to hit $31 billion by 2016. A recent report by PayPal and Forrester stated that m-commerce in our own island will have become mainstream in the UK by 2016. It also claimed that by 2016, UK mobile phone retail sales will hit £2.5bn annually – that’s 14 million of us purchasing with our handsets! So a market with massive potential but who’s competing for our attention? VISA V.me is VISA’s title challenge, initially it will be purely ecommerce allowing in-store purchases using mobile devices. It functions much like eBay’s service PayPal allowing users to top up their account using VISA and other payment methods such as Mastercard. VISA is currently teaming up with Samsung on a mobile payment service, to launch an NFC-enabled phone especially for the 2012 Olympics. One can imagine that a combination of these two services will be a similar offering to the Google Wallet. PayPal Paypal has also launched what it calls a ‘one-stop-shop’ for merchants to engage with consumers. Creating touch points among all stages of the shopping cycle. Such touch points will consist of, location-based offers, payments made accessible from any device, integrating local search and loyalty and reward features too equates to a broad mobile shopping experience. Scott Thompson, president at PayPal tied up the offering on the company’s blog with “Let’s be clear about something – we’re not just shoving a credit card on a phone… PayPal is reimagining money and making it work better for merchants and consumers…” Google On the same day Google launched its wallet service, it was Paypal slapped with a lawsuit, as former PayPal employee Osama Bedier (now Google mobile executive) was alleged of disclosing trade secrets. Still in its infancy Google Wallet only works with Citi-Mastercard and the Google prepaid card. It utilises near field technology, just imagine cruising down 5th Avenue in a cab and when you get to your destination, there’s no fumbling around for your wallet you just swipe your phone over the PayPass merchant and make your payment – cool! Google also has a seamless customer experience in mind. Google Offers app allows you to make your payment and save coupons directly to your Google Wallet, you can also make a payment from your default payment type, apply the coupon you have saved and on top of this apply the purchase to your loyalty card for that store. Even in its infancy Google Wallet shows massive potential, the only hiccup it has at the moment is not being able to tie your day-to-day cards to the system, instead you transfer money to your Google prepaid card, this adds an element of complexity that would be better avoided. So this just shows the competitive NFC space at a glance, and we can already see it hotting up. American Express also have their own mobile wallet initiatives. Soon we’ll see mainstream adoption in the market. However, with the multiples of solutions already at hand it may just confuse the market into which one to choose. Viva La M-Commerce! Heres Google Wallets video: Like this? Tweet us @brandthing, we’d love to have a chat. Stats and figures attained from: Mobithinking

Rodrigo Y Gabriela : Guitar Never Sounded So Good

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:50:58 +0000

Also known as ‘El Rodri y La Gabi’

We just love these so much we had to do a little post on them, plus it will get you in the salsa mood for your evening out tonight.

A Mexican musical duo, their rhythmic acoustic vibes are produced in a heavy metal fashion producing a fast and funky sound, it always either gets our head bopping or feet tapping.

They started out in a thrash metal band, ‘Tierra Acida’ but began to become frustrated with the breadth of their domestic music scene, they decided to move and set up shop in Europe and began to grow a cult following in their place of residence – Dublin.

Just wanted to share how fantastic they are, hope you agree.

Here’s a live performance for you to watch:

And here are some of the favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcL6z1TvFMo&feature=BFa&list=PL3A3CB454233080DD&lf=plpp_video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqplTlpTF6s&feature=BFa&list=PL3A3CB454233080DD&lf=plpp_video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLESmgh-VCE&feature=BFa&list=PL3A3CB454233080DD&lf=plpp_video

Another live one here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lvMQCmUVv8&feature=BFa&list=PL3A3CB454233080DD&lf=plpp_video

Tweet us @brandthing if you think they are fantastico! Twitter

Advert: Provocateurs Vs Summers

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:09:21 +0000

Our Ad of the Week

Actually this week we have a couple for you to look at.

An interactive campaign was launched by Ann Summers this week during The Only Way is Essex, it’s Ann Summers first ever TV advertisement.

A fairly long one at 2minuets it showcases the 10 potential brand ambassadors, all strutting their stuff down a catwalk – looking very glamorous in Ann Summers wear. The models are in fact ‘real women’ who applied to be in the advert, plucked from more than 4,000 entrants.

The task is to choose the top one, who will then become the new brand ambassador.

Jacqueline Gold said:

“The aim of the campaign was to find real women to showcase the brand new Ann Summers… All 10 showed amazing confidence and for me are perfect brand ambassadors… whoever wins they will make our Valentines collection look the sexiest it can!”

The advert shows a classier side to Ann Summers, and showcases the product range well. However, if you go into an Ann Summers shop this ‘classy’ appeal dosen’t transition very well – it seems far seedier. Perhaps they will be reinventing the in-store look to match the campaign.

Here’s the add:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g0ZOh99LDM

The next one is Agent Provocateurs online advertisement, which I saw a few weeks ago. Here the opulence is showcased through the advert and does transition to the in-store feel.

The quirky advert features a £15,000 crystal playsuit; this range is its crème de la crème of opulence and overly priced smalls – Soirèe.

The advert is entitled Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), it launched during Halloween time and plays on the Hammer Horror movies.

Sarah Shotton creative director of Agent Provocateur, to WDD stated “The collection is quite artistic and we kind of wanted to do something that was a bit off the wall… horror back in the day was a way of showing sex in film…it was a bit of history and a bit tongue in cheek.”

Check out the advert here – viewer discretion is advised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOnfrv54FVQ&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL471D1305D760BD80

Let us know which one you prefer @brandthing on Twitter

Advert: Barnardo’s – Life Story – BBH

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:42:06 +0000

Our ad of the week

Now you may think we have been slacking on the ‘our ad of the week’ but I assure you it isn’t the case, its just nothing has really caught our eye. Until BBH released this wonderful campaign for Barnardo’s, the TV campaign is to be supported by outdoor and digital activity. It was released just yesterday during ‘Sarah Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare.’ So without further-ado, here’s the ad – I’m sure you will agree, it’s powerful. Diana Tickell (UK director of marketing and business change at Barnardo’s) said “It has a high emotional impact that will resonate strongly with viewers… It will leave them feeling there is much that can be done and that they can help us make a difference.” We completely agree with the statement, it pulls at your heart strings just like a good campaign should, and just shows what great support from Bernardo’s can achieve. Great work, equally great cause. If you’re interested in how they made the advert click here