Sports nut and Thinkhouse Director David Coyle jotted a few words on sports and sponsorship for Marketing Magazine last month, here is a little snippet...
Brian O’Driscoll lifting the cup celebrating Ireland’s 6 Nations win against Wales marked the end of the recession in Ireland. Leinster’s recent win against Leicester to become Heineken Cup Champions surely marks the beginning of Celtic Tiger Part II? Well, ok, that’s a stretch – but rugby is going some way to give Irish sports fans a form of escapism they so desperately need when times are tough.
Remarkably, despite the economic climate, big brands are spending big money on rubbing shoulders with some of the best sporting teams and individuals in the world. Major visible deals like Leinster’s sponsorship of Bank of Ireland are supplemented with a number of additional off-the-pitch sponsorship deals that stack up to make sport the business to be in. It’s not just teams that are cashing in. Ireland’s rugby stars are individually benefiting from brands that want to be associated with winners. Brian O’Driscoll has deals with among others Gillette, Paul O’Connell with O2 while the younger generation of players such as Rob Kearney have deals with brands Nike, Audi and Glanbia Nutritionals.
Dracula is a thing of the past, a new breed of Vampires live among us and are accepted by the living. Such is the scenario in True Blood, the latest HBO series to generate buzz on this side of the pond. To publicise the second series in the US, Digital Kitchen came up with the interesting concept of creating ads on actual ad sites using real life brands… targeted to vampires. They also created a series of virals featuring vampire attacks and news stories. Irish viewers will have to wait a while to watch the show on TV but it looks like Channel 4 has already signed up for the rights. The hit show also features possibly the coolest opening credits ever seen.
Following a week where 90million Euro’s worth of Ronaldo met Paris - and we all died a little inside, it’s a relief to find that there is still glimpses of depth and personality within the beautiful game…. One in particular is that cheeky little Gallic chappy – Frank Ribery.
The gifted Bayern Munich dribbler is one of a kind, seldom has there been a player who has taken to the European stage like Ribery. The player is admired universally for his behaviour on and off the pitch and the perfect personality for a brand to get creative with.
Nike and Adidas have been battling it out for some time now with their quirky football virals but this find has to be one of the best. To celebrate the controversial new, rather fetching PINK Mercurial Vapor Rosa kicks, Nike join hands with Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam to pay tribute to the iconic Pink Panther with a new video starring the mercurial Franky boy , check it out…. Maybe pink is the new black, hope not!
The First Family and friends enjoy the Superbowl in 3D, pic from Whitehouse Flickr
Much was written on Barack Obama's use of Social Media in the run up to and after the election. Some people even suggested it was his clever online campaign that gave him the edge. We really don’t need to explore that whole campaign again but what did think was worth a mention was the continuing efforts of the staff. After more than 100 days in office, the Whitehouse is still going strong, launching a new official facebook page last week and releasing new photos on their Flickr account. There are also live streams of presidential address' on their youtube channel. The Flickr account has some great snaps of the first family at home, check it out for a look see.
We stumbled across this rather impressive example of ambient advertising over on Liveleak recently, seven HD projectors were used to create a massive digital screen that projected specifically fitted graphics onto the surface. The effect was pretty astounding, we need say no more, just have a watch.
Our friends over at Scully Media have a range of ambient projection options available, drop by the site for a look.
The below is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the current issue of IMJ.
Working with brands to impress and engage youth audiences, the most fickle, sussed-out and media savvy bunch that exists, is often considered the most challenging. But it’s what whets the appetite of Thinkhouse and is what has defined the agency. For brands and agencies, determined to make their brand feature in the brains, hearts and ultimately the pockets of 18-35 year olds, what’s necessary?
Firstly - the product. A good product (or service) will engage and win the hearts of any audience. A product that is beautiful, useful and memorable. A product that matters and has a place in today’s society. A product that innovates and actively seeks out ways to outperform the competition. And while many PR professionals think that product development is outside their control – why should it be? Good marketing and brand teams should have PR at the heart of every brand stage, right from conception to launch.
Secondly – the message. Catering for today’s Y generation means communicating to them in a way, and an environment, that they are comfortable in. As today’s youth audiences are just as likely to be found tapping away on social networks as they are plonked on the couch watching the latest episode of SKINS, that’s where brands need to be. In a very fragmented media environment, connecting with youth audiences is done on many levels; from on-street and online to traditional media and word-of-mouth.
Thirdly – them. Today’s Y generation want to be involved. They are more willing than ever to contribute to brands. We can see this popular trend almost creating ‘user generated’ brands - brands that are ultimately designed by and for the end users. By interacting with the brand developer – usually online- brand fans are creating their own trainers (NIKE ID) Credit Cards (Permanent TSB) Flavours (Ben & Jerry’s) Teams (The Guardian Fantasy Football) to name but a few.
Lastly – engagement For an audience that digests endless brand messages from their mates, from their desks (YouTube; Facebook ; Twitter) from their heroes and from the media, today’s youth generation know marketing as well as we do. Once we recognise that, we’re on-side. Once we capitalise on that, we’re winning.
In a brand-bashed environment only brands that ultimately understand the nuances of youth culture, communication styles and techniques will be effective in engaging and ultimately winning younger brand fans.
Thinkhouse, specialists in youth communications. www.thinkhousepr.com
Myspace has teamed up with The Simpsons to celebrate 20 years of the ubiquitous TV show with a competition allowing American users to upload their own couch gag. Possibly the most famous family on the planet, The Simpsons is so engrained in popular culture that it is hard to imagine an evening without them. Just think about when the last time you heard a Simpsons reference, perhaps the last time you ordered a salad, or booed someone? They came even closer to the hearts of Thinkhouse when Barry's (one of our delicious brands) appeared on a recent episode. Well, now Fox is giving some lucky viewer the chance to get even closer to our extended TV family with this Myspace based competition. Unfortunatly it seems to be only available for US users at present so there is no hope for any Thinkhousers in bagging the top prize of a trip to the season 21 LA premiere party and other Simpsons goodies.
It’s a nice way to bring people back to Myspace who have lost a lot of ground to Facebook in the last few years, Fox, who show The Simpsons in the states bought myspace in 2005 for 580 million so no doubt are starting to look for a bit of return on that investment.
This week Chelsea FC make a fresh effort to communicate to fans with the launch of an official Twitter account… shame mourinho’s not still there… imagine the tweets….
Facebook's changes to updates and newsfeed functions can definitely be seen as a sign of the times. No doubt a bit shaken by Twitter’s rapid growth Zuckerberg and Co. were quick to make changes to how users 'follow' and interact with each other. Whereas before what you got in your newsfeed was dependent on who you were interacting with (your friends), in the future you will be able to 'follow' specific people directly- friends, brands and public figures (see Obama, Oprah etc..). Sounds familiar doesn't it? It's a fast moving world out there and people are fickle when it comes to social networking, always looking for the next craze, with the massive value placed on Facebook it's imperative they don't miss a beat less they be the first major casualty in a Web 2.0 burst.
Those schemers over at Paddy Power are at it again with probably the most disturbing advert we have ever seen. Carlton Palmer (90’s football icon with go go gadget legs) suddenly appears in the bath to give one unsuspecting punter a Money Back Special…. It’s the ‘Sshhh’ that gets us. Don’t have nightmares, kids!
Travelling on Ryanair may not be the stuff of jet setting dreams but one thing you can’t fault them on is their headline grabbing tactics. Yesterday, Ryanair launched a competition offering €1,000 to whoever can come up with the best new charge in lieu of the recent uproar over the potential toilet charge. You have to admire their chutzpah and ability to turn around a little bit of controversy to their advantage. Accompanying the press release on their news page is a viral that travelled round the interweb mocking their money making ways. Bloggers are always calling on companies to listen to what the masses are saying… perhaps we should be careful what we wish for?
The Creative Circle awards took place across the pond recently. All the results are up here, you will notice that one particular campaign cleaned up. DDB London's Harvey Nichols Bristol Store Opening won gold honours in all catagories in Poster and Press including best newspaper campaign. It was a great idea to utilise Bristol's 'favourite son' for this campaign and the end result looks fantastic.
The New York Museum of Modern Art is doing its bit to brighten up New Yorker's daily commute, it has taken over all advertising space at the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station and replaced them with replications of work from the museum's permanent collection, including Monet's water lilies and Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Not only will this provide a lovely backdrop for commuters to go about their business, it should also inspire a few people to head down to MoMA too. Maybe with the cost of outdoor advertising falling we will see more of these kind of initiatives repeated around the world. It is also a amother example of the ‘free marketing' trend that seems to be growing in popularity around the world. We can get a little taste of it too with this virtual fly through.
Facebook is overhauling its fanpage layout and content management in the coming weeks. This came as great news to Thinkhouse who, as operators of many brand fanpages, are often frustrated by the limited features available. While it’s perhaps best that you can’t mail everyone directly (although only silly marketers would spam facebook fans unnecessarily) the limited appearance of updates meant unless someone searched for the brand directly it was hard for word to spread virally. This meant communicating with brand fans was very limited as the current ‘updates’ system was mostly overlooked by facebook users. The new plans mean that brands will be able to update their status - just like any user - and this, along with wall updates and other news, will appear in fans newsfeeds. Other changes include a shift from the current ‘movable box’ format to the tab format in use on new personal facebook pages. This marks a giant leap for brands, celebrities, small businesses and bands using social media as a marketing too. Needless to say, we at Thinkhouse can’t wait to get stuck in
Get The Glass - California Milk Board. The California Milk board was developed in 1993 to combat declining milk sales and has been at the top of its game since. They appointed ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to come up with a campaign to transform people’s perception of milk from boring nutritional beverage to cool fun ‘brand’ capable of challenging the Pepsi’s and Sprite's out there. It was clear from the offset the ‘milk is good for you’ messaging wasn’t working so they employed similar tactics to the flashy lifestyle brands they were up against, using a lot of humor to develop a fresh take on the brand. They came up with Got Milk?, a campaign that crossed many reaches of popular culture and went on to become the most culturally influential tagline since the advent of broadcast television. So successful it was then licensed out to National Dairy Boards across the States and still has milk moustaches appearing on billboards 15 years later.
Over the years they have developed the brands online strategy, creating a fictional rock band called White Gold complete with myspace, youtube channel and website. More recently after branding milk as a ‘superdrink’ they created an online board game Get the Glass, featuring the Adachi family facing a terrible predicament- life without milk. The game is very playable and the animation superb, the perfect extension of the milk as a commodity message.
These guys really set the bench mark for a digital campaign and for a product that was as ‘unsexy’ as milk that is no mean feat. The Got Milk website is fantastic, it has recipes, great tips on recycling, and is full of fun mini-games to play all, animated beautifully. Raise a glass of the white stuff to them.
Thinkhouse’s MD Jane McDaid will present a talk on ‘The impact and importance of social networking and blogging in the PR industry’ at the upcoming PR Social Networking and Blogging in Practice seminar hosted by Mediacontact.ie. The talk takes place on the 21st April in the lovely surroundings of the Lighthouse cinema. Jane will give an overview of Social Media in Ireland and will be joined by Tony Bilsborough, Head of Media Relations at Cadbury Schweppes, Will McInnes- Director of UK social media agency Nixon McInnes, Dan Haliwell- Commercial Manager of Mediamarket and blogger Damien Mulley of mulley.net.
It seems more and more companies are realising the value in PR over advertising. According to PR Week nearly half of industry bosses said their PR budgets increased last year. This despite (or in response to) the economic troubles the world finds its self in. This from their site:
"PR chiefs are reporting that they are taking client cash away from the ad industry – but not much. 49 per cent of industry bosses said PR budgets increased slightly in 2008 as a percentage of clients' total marketing budgets.
However, only 2 per cent say budgets increased significantly, in a poll of 48 CEOs who are in the PRCA’s leaders’ panel.
15 per cent of agencies say their budgets have decreased slightly, and 4 per cent have decreased significantly compared to their clients’ ad budgets.
LexisNexis corporate marketing executive Richard Dean confirmed the findings: ‘PR has increased in importance in my marketing budget due to the fact it is considerably easier to measure than advertising.’
Van Communications director Mark Cooper said: ‘This recession could prove to be a blessing in disguise. It will remove the comfort blanket of the multi-million pound media budget and force everyone to be more creative; to spend more time coming up with publicity ideas that can travel.’ "
We have always championed PR over advertising (what PR company wouldn't!), good to see our thoughts backed up by some captains of industry too.
Assistanttothebrandmanager has an interesting piece on Apple up at the moment questioning the wisdom of placing so much of a brand’s success on one individual- Steve 'God Man' Jobs. How about placing all that success on one big wheel?
Strange thing is we can probably think of a few people who would still buy that. A testament to Apple’s brand loyalty. They really have created the ultimate 'alternative' lifestyle brand, completely accessible to all yet at the same time keeping its cool creds.
The Obama campaign provided fodder for many a PR and marketing story, it was indeed a master class on the subject. At the same time lots of companies saw opportunities in Obama's message of change and hope and made full use of them. This Pepsi campaign from titled Refresh Everything, invited users to upload their personal message to Obama via their refresheverything.com site and the activity coincided nicely with their branding 'refresh'. The new branding in question also raised a few eyebrows with its apparent similarity to Obama's own campaign logo. See for yourself.
For another piece of perfect brand positioning, see this Veet ad that appeared in an Aussie newspaper today. They must have been waiting for this idea for 8 years.
Our dear friends in Ben & Jerry's also had a nod to the Big Guy with their brand new flavour Yes Pecan, unfortunately it's not available in Ireland but we are assured it tastes almost as good freedom itself .
Lots more PR and marketing types are getting in on the blog world. This can only be good for the industry as it should give everyone a better understanding of what the other is doing and hopefully lead to stronger relationships between bloggers and PR companies. Piaras Kelly compiled a list of them the other day over on his blog, it's a great resource and led us to this little gem: assistanttothebrandmanager.blogspot.com A great read.
YAY! Thinkhouse has scooped PR blogger Piaras Kelly’s award for the Best Campaign of the Year. The award was for our charity mo growing Movember campaign with highlights including the gala party and the ongoing support of our media partner Metro. It really was a pleasure to work on, the Movember team are great fun and we are already planning an even bigger 2009 campaign. Start preparing those upper lips boys!
Piaras's blog is a great old read, check out his links to some of the better marketing/pr and advertising blogs in Ireland, up now. www.pkellypr.com/blog
The CEO of Second Life Philip Rosedale has come out with some interesting ways for companies to save money during the economic downturn. At the recent Leaders in London Summit he answered questions on all things Second Life, but one topic drew particular interest from the audience, how the Virtual World will fare throughout the GCC. A typically upbeat and positive Rosedale (what CEO wouldn’t put a brave face on things nowadays) had some interesting ideas:
“The most obvious and effective cost-cutting measure is for people to travel less. Tell your people not to travel to meetings if they don’t have to be there, why don’t you host your conferences at a meeting point on Second Life?”
Rosedale also suggested that the virtual world will outgrow the web to become the standard form of communication within 10 years, he was also named as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World last year; definitely a development all companies should keep in mind.
On a recent trip to NYC, Thinkhouse’s Jane McDaid, hooked up with some of the most inspiring, innovative and daring PR people on Earth. The most interesting of the bunch was Eric Yaverbaum, Founder of Ericho PR.
An unquenchable thirst for all that’s new in PR – Thinkhouse’s trek in NYC revealed that things in NYC aren’t that much different to Ireland. But then there’s Eric.
Having built a massively successful consumer PR agency Eric sold out. He’s now launching his own brands, and with no creative limitations, developing some of the most innovative PR campaigns America has ever seen. He’s the man behind ‘tappening’ – an anti-bottled water movement that encourages people to consumer water in an environmentally friendly way. An interesting concept that’s generated massive awareness as a result of Eric’s guerrilla and new media campaigns.
And there’s lots more where that came from. Check out his site & work on erichopr.com
So say the good folk at Omni Consumer Products who have just released Sex Panther Cologne. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the same cologne Will Ferral wears in Paramount’s Anchorman. According to Omni Consumer Products founder Pete Hottelet 'The fragrance is clean, fresh, and extremely manly. Manly like eating a bowl of cereal doused in motor oil, consisting mainly of shavings from the Apollo moon lander and Richard Petty's championship 1970 Plymouth Superbird’. The company specialise in licensing, defictionalization, and reverse-branding and have already released Brawndo- The Thirst Mutilator, an energy drink licensed from another feature film. Licensing from movies has always meant big bucks but the ‘defictionalisation’ of movie products throws the doors wide open to all sorts of possibilities.
The Anchorman Special Edition. Complete with Wake-Up Ron Burgundy is available now at all good DVD retailers.
Thinkhouse is a Dublin based PR company specialising in youth communications. Keep up to date with all of our latest news and see what's currently floating our collective boat on the World Wide Web.
