Honda’s power of dreams

Quite a few sites pointed me to the new brand image advertising of Honda: The Power of Dreams. While I wasn’t necessarily interested at first, the number of positive reviews changed my mind to have a look. And it is great, no doubt.

What I also noticed, the website showing the webversion of the spot is also interesting: All the products featured in the spot are there to explore, with explanations and stories around them. So make sure you check them out, too.

Oh, and not forgetting about the print ads: at adland, you can also see the print ads for this campaign.

Movie Promotion via a Blog, a forum, a videoblog

Superman returns in 2006. And Warner Brothers has employed a number of online tools to promote the new film. From the main website you get to all the subsites:

  • a blog with news that started on November 9th.
  • The Bluetights Network website, which is also a blog about the upcoming movie (not sure why they have two blogs now…)
  • A forum with surprisingly many entries.
  • And, most fascinating, there are the video journals within the BTN, which are also accessible through this site, where they are nicely done up within a flash animation:
  • Superman Video Blog

    So there is a lot of stuff on the web for people to get engaged with.

    And, as a sidenote: that they are also doing TV commercials for this Movie is a bit pointless, says AdJab, however in a different context.

    Ronaldinho Nike video is apparently partially faked

    In a previous entry, I wrote about the new Nike campaign showing Ronaldinho doing some „magic“ tricks with his new Nike shoes. Now the German Spiegel Online writes, that Ronalinho’s ping pong shots are actually not all real. Apparently Nike Europe admits, that only two out of the four shots are real, the other being reworked on the computer!

    While the video remains nice to watch even knowing about this fake, I am still rather disappointed. We’re used to „unreal“ ads, no doubt. But this particular one was interesting, especially because of the amazing ping pong shots.
    Or am I upset, because I believe that viral ads published on the web should have more integrity than ads on TV? Not sure…

    A whole new idea how to present a 360 shot of a car on Saab’s new Microsite

    As I just found out through these two blogs, Saab has launched a new microsite for their Saab95.

    While the microsite features the usual suspects („tell a friend“, „take a test drive“, „watch the TV commercial“) there are two things worth mentioning. One thing I really enjoyed, the other one almost fascinated me.

    What I enjoyed was the emo-clip. Probably at least 2 minutes long, it shows the car in action and a whole lot of motion. And that’s what I liked: it doesn’t just show the car as such. Quite a few times, the film is more artistic in nature, with nice effects and sequences of streets at night, etc.

    However, what caught my attention: On most car sites, you get the typical 360 shot of the car. Some Java applet (or something similar), that let’s you spin the car around and look at it from all sides. If it comes to worst all that is even shown on a plain white background.

    Saab (who’s their agency?) has created a little story around these 360 shots that makes it all the more worthwile exploring the entire site: you see the car stopped in the middle of a swedish forest – I guess the TV trailer spot acts as a prequel to explain what’s happening on the microsite. It just sits there, within that snow covered scenery (think of stereotypical Sweden!). An in the dark, you can see the eyes of several animals living in the woods.

    By clicking on these animals, you can look at the car through their eyes, which allows you at the same time to take different viewing angles of the car. For example: the red fox looks at the front of the car – sort of from below, because he’s small – while the moose looks at the back of the car. And because the moose taller, he can also look through the rear window onto the dashboard of the car, so you can see the inside.

    Saab Microsite

    Once you’ve seen through the eyes of every animal, it will give you the option to look through the eyes of a lynx. But you’ll discover is a little bit of swedish humour instead.

    Nike’s digital-only launch

    As PSFK and Adverblog write, Nike launched the new Tiempo Legend shoe featuring Ronaldinho in most media other than above the line. Especially through mobile, online and vidcasts, hoping that „magic viral“ will take over and spread the word – or rather videos.

    Well, I can only assume it did work fine sofar. My cousin already sent me the main video of the microsite a week ago, when I didn’t even know about this campaign. However, it was taken a little out of context. While Ronaldinho plays, what’s called on the site „brazilian ping pong“, I got the video via email with the subject line: „I’d prefer if he would actually manage to hit the goal instead“. But we all (even I, the most soccer illiterate) know Ronaldinho, so that missing context doesn’t hurt.

    The target group knows everything about Nike shoes and Ronaldinho, I am sure. So when they receive that video, it’s spot on.

    Considering the fact that this video even spread to people like me is a good sign of success. Even though it might appear accidental, that I receive something like it – or, on the contrary, quite obvious, as I spend most of my time online – even I have spent some considerable time with the Nike brand now.

    Offer DIY and the possibility to tell friends…

    Just found a good article on Newsweek via Adland, talking about viral marketing and the continuing rise of online advertising formats vs other media.

    Firstly, it lists some results about something I blogged about before. The trailer crashers website is a huge success. over 200,000 trailers have been created, and while the official trailer was only watched 1 million times, the crashed trailers were watched 3.3m times – because people sent them on to their friends.

    So the conclusion for a successful ad format is most likely: A little bit of DIY and the possibility to spread it amongst friends.

    But they also say, that online sweepstakes are a growing success:

    With online advertising so ubiquitous, it takes more than a clever idea to get consumers‘ attention. Increasingly, they want to get something in return for their time. Hence, the boom in online and mobile media contests and sweepstakes which are incorporated into various ad categories from streaming video to Web site banners. It’s hard to find a product that doesn’t offer a chance to win something on the Web—a car, a trip to the Superbowl or an electronic gadget. […] „In advertising now there has to be a value exchange—if you want the consumer to sit through a product demo or take a test drive, there has to be something in it for them.“

    As users tend to spend up to 5 minutes in front of an online promotion, often even returning several times to that site, the budget allocation will most likely shift, according to this article. Some 40bln will be shifted from TV to new media formats:

    „A 30-second (TV) spot used to be enough to sell your product,“ explains Linkner. „Now, your 30-second spot drives a five-minute Web experience.“

    Now, in Germany, we’re not quite there yet. But there are examples coming along. As a very much Internet minded brand, Mini is now asking users to send in their own video clips in order to win a Mini. Sortof like Converse and Coors did (see here).
    DIY clips (plus telling your friends about it). Should be a success, at least I hope so. Because then more companies might try that in Germany.