Pacifico:::Peace project

BRAND OWNER:Pacifico
CATEGORY:Charities
REGION:Colombia
DATE:Sep 2008 - Dec 2008

Colombia has the oldest armed conflict in Latin America. A 36 year old Colombian doesn’t understand the concept of his/her country without war. Every 15 days 346 people die because of the armed conflict. In 2007, six kidnappings occurred every two days. However, the nation is making strenuous efforts to stop violence. Colombia has a Guinness Record for the world’s largest peace movement against war.

In 2008, 1,042 rebels handed over their weapons. Initiative set up a communications movement called Pacifico to support and promote peace.

The hub of the peaceful campaign was www.proyectopacifico.com. This is where Colombians could post their simple ideas to help Colombia live in peace. These included: “ask for forgiveness”, “remember to breathe”, “call your mother more often”, “don’t shout”.

Initiative approached leading advertisers in Colombia and persuaded them to transform the ideas into media spots so the message of peace could be spread. Leading media owners supported the project by giving free ad space. Initiative garnered support from the Francisco Santos, vice-president of Colombia as well as key media moguls.

More than 60 media owners in TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, outdoor and digital supported Pacifico with free spots, with a value of around $US 700,000. Around 1,000 simple ideas have been posted in the page.

The campaign also managed to unite media owners and advertisers in a single cause.

What Can Twitter Do for You? More than you might imagine

For me, Twitter is not another Facebook. It's not about connecting with lost friends or letting your virtual posse know what you're up to. It's not simply a source of breaking news . And despite the fact that it blows Google away as a real-time search engine, even that barely begins to describe Twitter's true potential.Instead, I've found far greater benefits to incorporating Twitter into my life and onto my desktop.
Here's what Twitter's given me:

1. Instant access to thought leaders in social media, digital trends, technology and marketing in the new age of community. They're all here: the staff of Wired, the lead strategists at the next generation of agencies, the pioneers of social media itself. Not just the expected names like @crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe) or @johnabyrne (BusinessWeek's digitally proactive editor) or @henryjenkins (MIT's director of comparative media studies) or @jaffejuice (Crayon's Joe) but a new generation of even younger social media enthusiasts.
Most of them are remarkably generous with their knowledge, willing to answer questions, share ideas, even give away their content.

2. An opportunity to experience crowd sourcing in action. Conduct a brainstorming session in your own agency and you're pretty much limited to the usual suspects. But on Twitter there are thousands of people willing to help out. And because no one pays attention to seniority or title, new voices are more willing to express an opinion that more often than not is both fresh and provocative. I'm constantly surprised where the quote or thought or insight or example I'm looking for comes from. But it's always to be found.

3. A new way to connect with Millennials. We live in a society that does its very best to isolate generations. But because a Twitter relationship centers around content, information and ideas, it erases differences in age. I'm now connected with college students in New York, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami.
Many of their blogs are far more telling than another research report from Simmons or Forrester. And all of them are willing to make me smarter about how marketing has to change if it's to connect with a generation defined by community, collaboration and responsibility.

4. The first hand experience needed to become an authority. As has been noted by Adweek, clients are critical of most agencies' lack of experience in social media, specifically calling them out for not using the space themselves. For me, hanging out on Twitter inspired ideas like Trash Talk from Section Twitter and RedCarpet09, two virtual gatherings created around the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards.
They not only became successful events in and of themselves -- generating visibility for Mullen and attaining status as hot topics on Twitter -- they demonstrated to clients how one agency in particular actually gets it.

5. A better understanding of how to weave together all things social. If nothing else, Twitter gives you a clear sense of everything a brand can and should do with social media: enable connections and ultimately create a community that let's you listen, engage, inspire, build and mobilize. Maybe you can't achieve social Nirvana with Twitter exclusively -- you still need a broader brand network, relevant content and genuine utility -- but Twitter makes it easier to create connections and to identify the content and utility that can help make sure those connections last.

Yes, there are challenges. Co-founder Ev Williams admits that Twitter needs to come with a set of directions; the functionality remains less than obvious. It also takes time to determine a personal strategy. Are you building your individual brand? Seeking new contacts? Looking to master a category? Or simply practicing what we all have to preach? To make things more complicated, there are hundreds upon hundreds of Twitter apps to consider, thanks to the open API. Figuring out which ones matter is in and of itself a chore.

Still, it's worth the effort. If you haven't joined yet, you're missing out. If you gave up the first time around, give it another go. And if you want help making it easier, contact me. I'm @edwardboches or http://twitter.com/edwardboches. I'll gladly share everything I've learned about the platform, and willingly introduce you to a few hundred people who can teach you everything I don't know.

Those who cultivate wind harvest a storm

Published in Campaign ME magazine, 29 March - 11 April 2009 issue, Page: 18.

Based on (unconfirmed) reports of up to a 40% decrease in advertising spending in the first quarter of 2009 and unoptimistic forecast still the year’s end leaves no doubt that the global economic crisis has castits shadow on Kuwait’s advertising industry; but the truth is that the industry has been dented long before the crisis due to years of malpractice based on “if it isn’t broken why fix it” mentality.

Advertising has an important role to play in the marketing mix as “Advertising presents the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost”– IPA.

Lets examine the situation based on “cause and effect”.

1. Cause: Price wars, “Brown envelope” culture and long credit.
Effect: Lower profit margins, cash-flow problems and redundancy across all ranks of the industry.

2. Cause: Stock photos and clip art copy-paste creativity.
Effect: Poor creativity and ROI (return on idea).Client’s messages are neither standing out in the clutter nor differentiated from their competitors. As a result clients perceive advertising as a commodity and seek the services of the lowest bidder further contributing to lower profit margins.

3. Cause:Hiring on the basis of “whom you know rather than what you know”.
Effect: Poor levels of industry practitioners. Media and printing press sales representatives compete with agencies by offering lower prices directly to clients than those offered to agencies - further leading to loss of business or contributing towards lowering industry profit margins.

4. Cause: Lack of (credible) media research, transparency and absence of media auditing.
Effect: Misleading data. Hindering the function of advertising targeting “the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost”.

5. Cause: Proliferation in the media mix.
Effect: Fragmentation of the budget (based on misleading data).

6. Cause: Lack of enforcement of intellectual property copyrights laws.
Effect: Copying the communication solution of a totally different set of problems, which does not yield a ROI - instead resultin a pandemic of copycat advertisements.

7. Cause: The over-simplification and generalization of obtaining an advertising license.

Effect: Advertising is not acknowledged as aprofession that requires certain qualifications to be practiced. Anyone can venture into the industry and cause havoc then exit leaving behind long lasting damage. Pre-press service bureaus, commercial printing press, advertising agencies, PR consultancies, calligraphers, sign makers, corporate gift items and premiums, event management, publishers and distribution companies - All fall under an advertising license with the exact same set of requirements.
Based on these stated facts; my conclusion is that the local advertising industry is in dire need of major restructuring.
If such problems are not seriously tackled promptly, the industry will remain in crisis long after the world economy recovers as per the Arabic proverb “Those who cultivate wind will harvest a storm

Follow the lines :Copy Cat

THE ORIGINAL?

Ariel “Stain-Free” - 2000

Source : Advertolog ad archive

Agency : Unknown

LESS ORIGINAL :

Persil “free the stain” - 2005

Source : Adsoftheworld,

Agency : DDB Warsaw (Poland)

Sony::: Kuwait Copy Cat

Published in Kuwait - 2009

Cheers and hope tarnished

Published in Arab Ad magazine February issue, copycat section, Page: 154.

Chevrolet :::Branching out into widgets

BRAND OWNER:General Motors
CATEGORY:Automotive
REGION:USA
DATE:Apr 2008 - Jun 2008


As gas prices skyrocketed, the American consumer was looking for an environmentally conscious car. Most consumers think Toyota, but Chevrolet wanted to make consumers aware of its commitment to environmental sustainability and conservation.

Chevrolet’s research showed that most consumers do not want to make the big changes in their life to become a true environmentalist. They will however, join and champion a cause that requires little personal time or involvement.

The campaign was launched on Earth Day across several media type, concentrating on key digital spaces that provided a one click platform where consumers could make a real world difference and show off their environmental commitment to their friends and family. Chevrolet teamed up with MySpace to develop and launch a virtual tree widget.

The Chevrolet widget allowed users to plant a seed within their profile that over 30 days grew into a tree to showcase their support for the environment. If users stayed committed to the cause for the full 30 days, then Chevrolet and MySpace pledged to plant up to 225,000 real-world trees in partnership with the Nature Conservancy in Florida. The widget was promoted within MySpace, but was spread virally.

To get the message across, each recruit would receive a note from GM’s VP of Environment, Energy, and Safety Policy stating that Chevrolet has “dedicated time, resources, and the brightest minds available to make our processes more sustainable, our vehicles less petroleum-dependent, our suppliers more conservation-minded, our plants more efficient and our planet more livable.”
Financial resources limited the number of tree plantings to 225,000, and this number of Tree Widget downloads was achieved in days.

To date, the Chevrolet Tree Widget has been downloaded by more than 18m MySpace users. Awareness of Chevrolet alternative fuels improved by 53%.