Tag Archives: Advertising

The Test of Time

Brands are aware that they must continually evolve in order to stay relevant in a society filled with noise. Gillette is an example of one brand that has already withstood the test of time. They make a testament to that in their new advertisement for their first ever men’s body razor.

The video takes an evolutionary approach to depict the different hairstyles of men over the last 100 years. The spot is a great nod to how Gillette has managed to handle the ever-changing landscape of product development and advertising.

Radioshack on the other hand is an example of a company that hasn’t managed to keep up with the world today, and is currently on the brink of failure. The dominance of e-commerce and competition from internet-based companies such as Amazon chip away at the profits of those companies that can’t keep up. Gillette has managed to do quite the opposite. And no matter how strange it seems that men want to shave more than just their faces, they embrace it.

What Sparks our Fire: The success of a brand that continually faces the changing times and excels at it.

What other brands can you think of that manage to withhold the challenges of change?

A New Take on Instagram in Advertising

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Social media has become more involved with advertising over the past few years. While Facebook and Twitter are among the most popular platforms for advertisers to creatively market on, Instagram seems to get less press.

Ikea has taken a new approach, both original and interactive, to utilizing Instagram when advertising its new catalog in Russia. By using the standard grid interface already established in Instagram, the collection is displayed much like a website. You can select each individual picture to see more of the collection and the pieces within each category.

Take a look at the Instagram collection here: ikea_ps_2014. It surprises me we don’t see more brands creatively tackling Instagram as they do their other social media platforms. Hopefully we will see more brands follow Ikea’s lead and come up with some new innovative ideas.

What Sparks our Fire: Seeing a brand take a creative approach to advertising on Instagram.

What do you think of Ikea’s Instagram catalogue?

Google’s Newest Technology: Cardboard

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This week Google hosted their developers conference, Google I/O where the tech giant announced a variety of updates to their Android operating system. But, seemingly the coolest thing that Google did announce came as a gift to all attendees at the end of the conference – cardboard.

Being that this is Google we are talking about, the Cardboard device is much more than what you would image from a piece a cardboard. Instead it is a full on virtual reality headset, similar to the Oculus Rift, except made of cardboard.

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All users need to do is assemble one of these devices, which is not that difficult, place their phone into it and then they can enter an entirely virtual world. Currently there are only a few apps available in cardboard since it was just launched this week. But, we can only image where this will go as a very simple and easy entry into the world of virtual reality.

This is clearly a sign of things to come though in technology. It is time for us as advertisers to start imaging how we can get our foot in the door of virtual reality and really ride the wave of this new technology.

What Sparks our Fire: How Google is able to take the simplest of materials, and make it an amazing piece of technology.

What uses can you imagine for Google Cardboard?

Let’s Be Frank: Curiously Rewarding

I just returned from Florence, Italy where my curiosity for art and fashion were again refreshed and enlivened. A must see, was the Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino exhibition at the Strozzi Palace and the beautiful leather and suede handcrafted creations by the Tattanelli family.

On the flight back I read my current issue of Vanity Fair with Jon Hamm on the cover. Now, I find out that because I’m an avid reader of this magazine, I was “born curious.” This is the current mantra for their new branding campaign promoting the print, digital video, and online editions. Interesting.

I’ll review my family tree to see if this trait is genetically grounded or a product of my environment. That should be fun. Meanwhile I checked out their online video to see where they were going. Pretty darn smart. Thanks Graydon Carter and company for making this branding message “curiously rewarding.”

Super Jenga

Next, international disputes will be settled with spirited games of Risk.

Jenga is all about balance, delicacy, and finesse. These are words you normally wouldn’t associate with heavy earthmovers like the ones that Cat builds. However, this video demonstrates the fine-tuned capabilities these machines have, all under the tagline “Built For It”. This is a very clever idea for video advertisement. Everyone knows what Jenga is, and the moment you see that they’re going big with 600-lb. blocks you almost need to watch it, even if you aren’t in the market for an Excavator.

In essence, this isn’t only a decent advertisement but rather a very strong move to rebrand the concept of heavy construction equipment in the public mind. Not only can they push a lot of dirt around, they can finagle heavy blocks to balance on each other.

For more fun check out the “Making Of” video below.

What Sparks Our Fire: Creative rebranding of something we see on a pretty regular basis.

Did this video change your perception of Cat equipment?