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Courtesy of BoSacks & The Precision Media Group
America's Oldest e-newsletter est.1993
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When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.
Steve Jobs
Dateline: Charlottesville, Va
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With a Little TLC, This Swedish Magazine Ad Will Turn Into a Pot of Flowers
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One man's trash is another man's springtime decor
The ad, which is made from plantable seed-paper, promotes a flower pot that consumers can use to plant the seeds, which come from flowers including snapdragons, catchflies and daisies.
Interactive magazine inserts are apparently becoming a thing in Sweden. First, Ikea came at us
with an ad that pregnant women could pee on to reveal discounts on a crib, and now Swedish hardware chain Clas Ohlson has concocted a similar idea (albeit, one that's less ... bizarre) to sell its gardening paraphernalia.
Rather than urine, this ad just requires a bit of water and sunlight to thrive, as it's full of flower seeds. The ad, which is made from plantable seed-paper, promotes a flower pot that consumers can use to plant the seeds, which come from flowers including snapdragons, catchflies and daisies.
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With a Little TLC, This Swedish Magazine Ad Will Turn Into a Pot of Flowers
Adweek 16 05 2019, 1 |
Swedish ad agency King helmed the idea in an effort to illustrate how easy it is to prep your home for spring. Ellen Marklund, copywriter at King, said the agency decided to "make the media our message" to drive home the point. Starting this week, the ad is being published in select magazines in Sweden as part of Clas Ohlson's spring campaign.
According to King, the interactive element was partly created in response to the general distaste that Swedes have towards advertising; a
recent study by the Association for Swedish Advertisers found that 50% of Swedes have a negative attitude towards it.
By making something that at least serves a purpose (if you're into gardening), Clas Ohlson is hoping that its target audience will find it useful instead of distracting.
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'Listen' To These New Print Ads From Coca-Cola
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https://www.forbes.com
You don't typically think a print ad can be audible. But Coca-Cola recently launched a print/outdoor campaign in Europe that, despite trying your best, you'll very likely hear. Not all brands could get away with an idea like this, but Coke can, and did. Here's why.
First, the ads, then I'll break down why I think it works. If you click on the images, the image and the "sound" will enlarge.
Only works with high familiarity.
An idea like this couldn't work with a new brand. A new brand doesn't have the conscious and unconscious familiarity and affinity locked up in our collective mental vaults. But Coke does. We've all enjoyed a Coke at some point, right? We've all experienced the advertising, the red and white branding, the script logo, the packaging, the bottle caps, the wavy-shaped bottles, the brown color of the liquid, the bubbles, the lip-smacking refreshing taste of a giant swig. And along the way we've all experienced the corresponding sounds of the "Coke experience."
Bet you heard it.
COCA COLA
Bet you heard that, too.
COCA COLA
And you definitely heard that.
COCA COLA
In fact, I'm hankering for a Coke right now after writing that last sentence.
But only after this kind of visceral familiarity with the "Coke experience" can we be teased in the way this campaign is teasing us. Only after lifetimes of experience with this brand and this brand's product can we be triggered merely by the
suggestion of a sound. Not a real sound, but the suggestion of a sound.
These ads are like ghost triggers. The sounds only exist in our minds. They are audible apparitions, yet we swear they exist.
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Actual sounds aren't as loud.
Now, Coke could have chosen to create videos or TV spots where the hero was the actual iconic sounds of the "Coke experience." A sound designer would have a field day with a bottle cap being opened or the "pshht" of a can being opened or the sound of a zillion bubbles expiring wildly atop the meniscus of a freshly poured Coke.
But they didn't. They wisely tapped into our intimate familiarity and affinity with the brand/product forcing us to create our own "sounds" straight from our own mental vaults. And you know what? They sound far more delicious and refreshing than anything a sound designer could muster.
Even the ads themselves challenge us to "not" hear these iconic sounds. And of course, given the powers of reverse psychology, we can't "not" hear them. The dots left open to the reader are immediately and uncontrollably connected in our minds. Which not only makes the mental sounds richer, but reminds us of, and cements, our familiarity and affinity with the Coke brand. But that's not the most important effect.
These imaginary auditory triggers make us want...the real thing.
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A VINTAGE AD INVITES THE QUESTION: WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THAT YOU TRUSTED AN AIRLINE?
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The Good Life looks at the good old days when carriers strove for service
Credit: American Airlines
While you're planning for Cannes next month you may want to ponder that, along with this 1967 American Airlines ad aimed at business travelers. It must have seemed refreshing in the day to admit that flyers had trust issues with carriers-and to illustrate that so boldly with this cartoonish man clinging suspiciously to his suitcase.
It seems he has a fear of checking. How quaint.
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Read on and you find out he's not leery that his bag will end up in Australia and he in Atlanta, nor that someone's Great Aunt Tilly has hogged the overhead with knitting, forcing him to fork over $30 to check his grey flannel suit-bag. Nope, he's scared that he won't be able to retrieve it at the baggage carousel within 30 minutes.
But American has something special in the air. It guarantees his bag won't just be returned to him-it will be reunited with him in seven minutes. Yes, you read that right. Less time than it would take you to cross the American concourse at O'Hare.
According to the Ad Age Encyclopedia, American had a history of honesty in ads. In 1937 it ran an ad featuring then-CEO C.R. Smith with the headline, "Why dodge this question: Afraid to fly?" As for its business-flyer cred, American created the Admirals Club in 1936 and the first frequent flyer program in 1981. Then in 1992, it pioneered the first value plan for discount fares, starting the race to no-you-can't-choose-your-seat bottom.
The clinging-suitcase guy was a big, er, departure for the airline, which a year later, in 1968, showed a woman flight attendant with the tagline, "Think of her as your mother. She only wants what's best for you." Or the 1965 ad showing women flight attendants seeing people off the plane with the tagline, "The Natives are friendly." (The capitalization is American's.) There was also an ad that inexplicably showed an Adirondack chair on a dock to highlight American's in-flight amenities.
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American broke new ground in 1991 when it sought government approval to base ads on maintenance and safety issues. "We think it's time to put aside the notion it's OK for airlines to compete on the thickness of their ham sandwiches and the breadth of their wine selections, but that it's not nice to talk about the quality of aircraft maintenance," American's then-Chairman Robert Crandall told the Association of National Advertisers in 1991.
Ah, free food and wine. Remember that? Neither do we.
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"The Industry that Vents Together Stays Together"
Responses to all Articles and Bo-Rants are greatly encouraged
and may be included in " BoSacks Readers Speak Out"
All news items and the various opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the opinion of, nor in agreement with the opinions of BoSacks. They are just interesting thoughts and other opinions that BoSacks thinks you should know about.
After all, as the Japanese proverb goes:
"If you believe everything you read, perhaps you better not read."
"Heard on the Web" Media Intelligence:
Courtesy of The Precision Media Group.
Print, Publishing and Media Consultants
193 Brookwood Drive, Charlottesville VA 22902
Contact - Robert M. Sacks 917-566-7437
BoSacks@aol.com
www.bosacks.com
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