Main benefit of such actions, excepting the happy couple is free media attention. I’m sure that a guy hanged into a billboard for some time didn’t came unnoticed. I remember articles, when some guy just bought few billboards in Warsaw, also in the Valentine Day on his love daily route to work, and wrote his feelings to here there. MasterCard action was supported by a website.  Generally speaking it is a great idea, and well thought, like the violin players focusing attention of the passersby, who stops, and look on that poor dude. MasterCard logo is hardly imposing, always a temptation (hey, we’re paying for that, so lets put our giant logo there, right?). Thanks to that, message is not interrupted, and it is truly beautiful message: ‘The things we do for love: Priceless’. By that a brand ‘personalization’/humanization is achieved, it is no longer an inhuman institution, but a friend, who can help you, exactly you. No to some poor African kids by an affinity card, but YOU.

Inspiration: I believe in advertising

Tagi: Ambient, Guerilla, In ENGLISH, Marketing, Outdoor, SHORT. Autor: Jan Habza
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Other versions can be viewed on a Barclays YouTube channel.

I’m an avid fan of engaging Clients into an interaction. To show them, that they are part of our brand, to use their creativity (and do part of our job instead of us…). If properly conducted, it can be extremely beneficial, by i.e. showing our modern face, how open are we on new ideas etc. In this case Barclays decided to promote their contactless payment solution , by creating a competition where Clients could post their versions of this commercial, their own waterslide.
Sounds ok, but I see one main fault on the conception stage – campaign is only directed to the technical advanced/superior Clients. Clients who will know how to make a movie and post it. It is not a simple think-a-lame-promotional-slogan-for-us task. This is a demanding project. Additionally, even if Client meets our basic requirement – knows how to make a movie, doesn’t have to be good at it… And probably will not be.  So, obviously we’re promoting semi or full professionals. You may say that this is what competition is all about, but remember – we want to engage our Client, so we shouldn’t discourage him. The winning video is cool, but it wasn’t made by an average Joe… Also, with YouTube you’re completely upfront. It is hard to ‘cheat’. People can immediately see how popular your campaign is, how many entries you have etc. That is only good when we have of what to be proud, but when our campaign is completely missed – it will be hard to ‘hide’ the failure. I’m just naming potential dangers, there should be a sort of consolation prize for obviously tech-disadvantaged people, so they could also participate.
Concept – waterslide and contactless payment, hmmm the connection is not immediate but when you finally know what the spot is about, it works. It shows you the speed and easiness of transactions, and well it is what it should be doing. You can feel freedom, are not bounded with your money, cash is not an anchor for you, speed etc.… In general a good idea, and definetly a breeze of freshness.

Tagi: Ambient, In ENGLISH, Marketing, SHORT, TV. Autor: Jan Habza
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…when you’ve giant legs ;-). What I like in this spot is its consequence – it strictly follows from start to the end its concept, stylization and speed, what is especially hard to achieve. Everything here is family friendly (only where is the mom?), and strike the right strings. More important than the visual style is the song, here written exclusively for the ad (I’m getting tired of listening the well known hits in commercials which often does not have much in common with the spot message). But I feel a bit unsatisfied, while everything here is well planned, at the end it falls a bit, I’m speaking about the final messages, which, let’s face it, are the most important part of this spot form a commercial point of view. We want to sell something, right? ‘Create the freedom to travel’ is a very good slogan, but it is not presented strongly enough. While the overall tenor is calm, and you immediately want to hum the lead theme, the  Avion Card ( a cool product by the way):

Get any available seat, any airline

With Avion, redeem your points for flights when you want to travel:

• And no rewards seat capacity restrictions

• On any airline

• With no blackout periods

slippers away. Why did they split the ending period (when you are allowed to put your text message) in half, not only dividing the text (first part is unnecessary, and can be easily modified to work with the second, and be presented as one) but also image of our product – the card, and bank logo. Both items can be presented on one board, with the logo somewhere in the corner, and let’s say moving in the middle in the last second. We have to remember, that the card is important here, as it will hopefully generate projected income not the bank name itself.

Tagi: In ENGLISH, Marketing, SHORT, TV. Autor: Jan Habza
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‘knowing what they need to hear: priceless’

Priceless series is one of the best ever made, and that is a fact. This hokey version is an average for me, but it builds emotions. I was waiting for the coach explosion, didn’t known if they were AFTER or BEFORE the game (probably were during ;-)). The all-known UEFA Champions League version is the best made to date.

Tagi: In ENGLISH, Marketing, SHORT, TV. Autor: Jan Habza
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Very funny print campaign which is explaining the benefits of Chip payment cards. Transactions made with this card always require confirmation by PIN code. Itmakes them more secure, but this is only the theory nicely debunked here by Chris Skinner (also don’t forget who is responsible for eventual unauthorized withdrawals with such card…). Maybe it is because of the late time, but on the first sight I was under the impression, that Clients were presented as thieves. I’ve immediately though – oh crap, this is a bad idea to equate retail clients with criminals… But the second look made it all clear. Vendors are the bad guys ;-). This is even better, and the idea here is that when we’re giving someone our old-fashioned magnetic it can be easily copied and used in a malicious way. To properly evaluate this campaign you have to remember of which country does the Standard Bank originates from. It’s South Africa, a country with tremendous crime rate. But their message is universal everywhere on the globe:
‘If only they were this easy to spot’

Inspiration: Ads of the World

Tagi: In ENGLISH, Marketing, Print, SHORT. Autor: Jan Habza
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