Once again, Apple has released a crop of super-cool products, like the new iPod Touch, a Nano Touch and all kinds of upgrades and enhancements that make the masses scramble feverishly for their credit cards. I noticed that the Steve Jobs Keynote was up on Apple.ca so I thought I’d watch a bit of it.
But what struck me in the video was not all the coolness of the products, nor even that Steve still looks so thin, but rather the company whose success is based on creating a user-centric interface has made it so you cannot fast forward the video, nor rewind. If you want to watch it, you just have to watch it like a TV show. An 85 minute TV show.
In fact, by accident I closed the window about 20 minutes in to write this post, and now I can only watch the entire video from the beginning again.
This focus on user-centric design is all well and good, but when Steve is talking, you just shut up and listen.
There’s such a wonderful bait-and-switch with this ad for Carlton beer. With the gorgeous slow motion photography and seemingly operatic soundtrack, at first glance it would appear to be in the vein of their famous “big ad” of a few years ago. And I guess you can see the similarity of thinking in the whole “parody of epic stuff” angle, but what I love about this one is that the story doesn’t reveal it self immediately. You see the dart miss, and that’s your first clue that this isn’t going to be about true greatness, but then comes the bad dancer, and you start to realize something is up. And just when you are in zone and enjoying the idea of a bunch of dorks spilling beer, hurting themselves and doing dorky things – all made epic with slo-mo – you get this lovely icing on the cake moment as you realize the opera voice in the background is singing, “Blah blah blahhhh… slo-mmoooooooooooooo….” to wrap it all up. Lovely, mate.
“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” - Pablo Picasso*
Ah, one of the great overused quotes of our time. From my point of view, I’ve always taken this to mean that great artists take other artists’ ideas and make them their own — in other words take possession of them so completely that they are not recognizable as from someone else.
That said, even if you take Pablo’s quote literally, he didn’t have Youtube to contend with like the now infamous Jemma Lyon. After she won the Nokia Phone Video contest with her clever one-shot remake of Forrest Gump, and was sent off to Cannes, it was revealed that her video was a pretty much frame by frame ripoff of another video posted a couple of years earlier. D’oh!
Lots of lessons here, both for creatives and companies creating UGC contests. But for some background, let’s see the winning video on the Nokia site:
Clever! But then here’s the video it was accused of plagiarizing from:
Okay, so not exactly a stretch to say that Jemma has been called out big time for ripping off someone else’s work.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Nokia has demonstrated exactly how NOT to respond to these issues when you’re soliciting UCG, first brushing it off, then trying to shift blame, then claiming it was looking into it when it was clear it wasn’t going away, then finally saying they were revoking the prize.
Beautifully captured in this one Twitter feed on their site in fact:
Social Media FAIL, as the kids say.
But, amazingly, it gets worse, as outlined here on Bloggerheads.com. Nokia involved in the creation of the video? Ignoring the original creator’s explicit claims of ownership? “Leaving Jemma to take the fall?” Oh my.
So, as I say, a few lessons here:
If you’re going to run UCG contests, accept that most the entries will suck. This is why it’s called “User Generated” and not “Company Generated”. The people submitting are not professionals. Unfortunately, it may also mean that all the entries will suck and the campaign will fail. Are you willing to take that chance? If not, go hire an agency and move on.
If you are going to engage public opinion about your campaign, then accept that that same public opinion can turn against you if you don’t respect it. Nokia has definitely found this out the hard way by not having a cohesive plan in place for something of this nature.
If you’re entering a contest where you have to submit some content, remind yourself: However you interpret the quote, you are not Pablo Picasso.
* Apparently, this has never really been verified as his quote. There’s a delicious irony in the idea that he may have stolen it.
Oh, and beautiful scantily clad girls are okay too, but what I like about Playboy’s letterhead is that it is an icon of a time when scantily clad girls were marketed as “modern lifestyle” and not, well, you know.
Anyhow, I’m fascinated by how the designs tell you something about the person and/or brand and/or intended use. For example in some cases there appears to be almost no space for the actual letter, which seems counter-intuitive. Then again, with Calvin & Hobbes, Waterston probably just wrote little notes to his fans on it so that’s all the room he’d need. In others though, they appear to see the letterhead serving a dual purpose as an ad, or maybe they’re just trying too hard to be clever.
And in the case of Playboy, it’s nice to see they wanted some room for detailed writing below. After all, we all read Playboy for the articles.
I love this new campaign by Mini USA, challenging Porsche to a track race. It’s so simple, and not even totally original, and yet everything about it is brilliant. So, here it is:
Why do I love it?
First, it’s a buzz-worthy challenge where Mini has nothing to lose. Even if, you know, they lose. They’ll have succeeded in putting themselves in the same conversation as a vehicle synonymous with high-end performance. That alone is a cooper — uh, coup (oh God I kill me) — because I’m sure I’m not the only one whose initial affection for Minis cooled considerably as they saw it driven around town by the same crowd who bought Beetles in the previous decade.
Yes I’m a snob that way. Sue me.
But my point is, they’ve reminded me the Mini Cooper is a serious performance vehicle and they’re willing to show me how serious. And if Porsche doesn’t respond, or responds and loses, well it’s a jackpot all round for Mini.
Second, they’ve defined and stayed true to their brand in the challenge: it’s low-key and cheeky, but underpinned by a relaxed confidence. They set up the differences between the brands clearly, with the Mini taking the “non-pretentious” role. Jim says that Porsche is a great car, noting its quality, performance and the fact that it’s also good if you’re losing your hair and want to attract women. He also wears a t-shirt, while Porsche’s comically named Detlev Von Platen (really? that’s his real name?) is shown looking smug in a tux. Note that in the old-style “fight card” that comes up, the two cars are called “The Mighty” Mini Cooper and “Fancy Pants” Porsche 911. So there’s a class war implied here too. Perfect.
Third, the aformentioned spokesman, Jim McDowell, is the “Head of Mini in the United States”. Now there’s no question he’s an engaging guy, but also he’s not a slick spokesman type. He has additional credibility because he actually worked for Porsche and so, again, you get the sense that this is more than a stunt because he has inside knowledge. Most importantly, he’s not taking himself too seriously. He has an “executive at work” plaque on his desk and I like how his T-shirt changes and serves as commentary. “Are you man enough?”
But most importantly, Mini has created a situation where their audience is compelled to align themselves with one brand or the other. That’s the real score. For me, I find myself really wanting to watch this because I’ve always been a Mini fan (albiet lapsed as I mentioned) and would like to see how it does.
And within the context of this challenge, they’ve given me a way to express that without feeling like someone who traded in his Beetle. Kudos.
My colleague Craig Ritchie recently sent around this screengrab from the Lucky Brand Facebook page. Apparently many of their posts are met with this type of response, as Lucky seems to have moved away from its funky urban roots to more of a suburban style. Not surprisingly, it is meeting some stiff resistance from loyalists, as these comments show.
The natural response (well okay, my response, but I am a natural) is, “Ah, marketing disaster! The double edged sword of social media cuts deep when your customer turns on you and your brand is sullied!”
Which it may well be. But it doesn’t have to be. I’ll be curious to see how – or if – Lucky responds to this. Because the whole point of companies diving into social media is, well, to get wet. So they’ve been given a great opportunity to a) reassure their customers that this new direction is just one of many directions for the company and they haven’t forgotten their roots or b) tell them they’re moving on and sorry about that.
There may be a Lucky Brand Manager somewhere with his cursor hovering over the “Delete comment” button, but hopefully Lucky Brand will recognize what a gift they have in this frank commentary.
They’re not the first brand to move away from the formula that created their success, but unlike, say, The Gap of 8 years ago, they have the opportunity to learn about it long before it shows up in the year end P&L statements.
Oh, and I agree with the posts. The new look is lame and tame.
This is one of many questions Imaginary Forces, a film production company, poses as part of its L Studio series of short films. They are focused around “ highlighting the beauty and importance of the architecture in everyday objects, and details how the design and structure of these objects affect and reflect our lifestyles.” Really beautiful thoughtful pieces.
Google has taken a lot of flak lately for its apparent loosening of the ties to its “Don’t be evil” mantra, but every now and again they do something so light-hearted, so goofy, that you can’t help but admire the fact that they’ve kept the spirit alive. They’ve had a long tradition of playing around with their logo to mark occasions, which in itself would be enough to send most Brand Standards Managers into paroxysms, but they took it to a whole new level when they converted their logo into a PacMan game.
No really.
With all things creative, my greatest joy comes from when the work has one level more of thought than you expected. Given that lack of items on a Google search page, you might think that would be tough. But no, the “I’m feeling lucky” button has been renamed “Insert Coin”. Come on, how good is that?
The comments from around the office here ranged from “awesome” to “the awesomest ever.” Now who wouldn’t be willing to compromise their logo a bit for that kind of consumer sentiment?
