Tag Archives: funny

Aug 24 2015
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Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Why People Root For Deez Nuts?

 racepolldeeznuts

How far are you willing to take this practical joke?
As far as America wants to take it.
– Deez Nuts in Rolling Stone interview

If you ever doubt the power of Internet, just check the rise of Deez Nuts. This “presidential candidate” is currently the highest-polling independent since Ross Perot. What could be a viral campaign for Straight Outta Compton (Deez Nuts is originally a song from Dr. Dre´s The Chronic) was just a funny idea from an 15-year old teenager. He realized that anyone can file to run for president with Federal Elections Commission and you don´t even have to use your real name or address.

deeznutsfecfiling

The hype has just begun. Warren G (the originator of Deez Nuts) has volunteered to become vice president for Deez Nuts. The search interest for Nuts has surpassed Hillary Clinton and is almost as high as Donald Trump.

searchtrendsdeeznuts

Why Deez Nuts has become such a phenomenon?

  1. It is funny. It is hard to think about more serious decision than selecting your new president. That does not mean that people would not want take the piss out of it.
  2. People adapt to everything. Donald Trump´s candidacy shocked people at first, but now it is already old news. You need constantly some new stimulus or otherwise you get totally numb to the whole election (and we have not even entered the primary phase). There is so long time till the actual election that people will get bored to pretty much everything: eventually even to Deez Nutz.
  3. Shareability. People share things that instantly make them laugh. If newscaster pronouncing “Deez Nuts” does not make you laugh a little bit, you must be too cynical for your own good. The name and the backstory is a perfect example of digital age and what makes people tick in 2015.

It remains to be seen how long Deez Nuts will remain hot topic in US election. For non-voting fans of practical humor hopefully quite long.

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Aug 13 2015
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Planning

Illusion of Innovation

allblacks

Our industry nowadays is obsessed about creating something “new”. We are creating stunts instead of establishing icons.

I was reminded by this illusion of new & shiny, when someone commented that New Zealand safety videos are getting boring. Here is the latest one featuring All Blacks as Men In Black:

The reason was that they are nothing new and they did All Blacks video “already” four years before. Not to mention they have done funny safety videos for years:

Hobbit

Betty White

Safety Safari

That comment does not really make any sense.

Firstly, the insight behind those safety videos is really solid. No one watches safety videos, because no one really cares (until it is too late) and usually they are also utterly boring. The idea was just to make those formerly boring videos funny. And that is working really well. Majority of those safety videos are getting millions of views, which is quite a lot of more than your brand´s latest viral video.

Secondly Air New Zealand has kept on innovating within its formula. They target to different target audiences (old, young) and their passion points (Tolkien, sports, weirdness). They have turned a necessary evil into a marketing vehicle and if they are smart, they keep on doing it for the years to come. Also they are really showing these safety videos on flights, so on top of the YouTube views, they are actual a beneficial asset for the firm. That is quite a lot more than you can say about your latest “innovation” project, which might get a mention in PSFK if you were lucky.

In our desperate chase of stunts, we have totally neglected building of formulas. When you have a winning formula for ad, the steps for the success are simple:

  1. If you find something that works, try to replicate it.
  2. If it still works, replicate it even more.
  3. Refresh and innovate but within the formula. No need to think outside the box, if you can rethink the box.
  4. Repeat as long as your audience gets truly bored with it.

The last point is the most important one. If the agency gets bored with the formula, that does not matter. Change the team. If the client gets bored with the formula, agency should fight back to retain the formula (or try to change the client). But if audience gets bored to the formula, change it and fast. It does not matter if everyone in the boardroom likes it, if it does not resonate with the real people. Usually the challenge is opposite though. Because of the cyclical nature of ad industry, we won´t allow things to grow and instead jump over to new things without any sense of direction. Creating iconic ads takes time and too often brands don´t let proven formulas to flourish to iconic ad series.

Finnish coffee brand Paulig Juhla Mokka (The Party Mocca) has been running the same ad concept from the year 1979. It shows artisan honing his craft and then establishes the parallel of the same dedication being applied to their brand. Approach is simple, recognizable and still working.

If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

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Apr 27 2015
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Advertising, Insight, Marketing Strategy

Sequels Don´t Work in Advertising…Expect When They Work

I could not put the following ad to Anatomy of An Insight –section as it is a little bit too in a meta-level. I also have had too many Foot Locker ads featured in here in any case (although they are all pretty much awesome):

Brilliant ad nevertheless and based on equally great ad as well. Now the situation has naturally changed and the match will be happening. Or is it?

Sequels don´t work in advertising, when you just try to duplicate the success of previously successful ad. However if there is opportunity to continue the story and it is still based on strong insight and great idea, you should not change your focus too soon either. The most challenging part in advertising and life in general is to know when it is time to turn on a new leaf.

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Jun 20 2014
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Business, Digital Strategy, Insight, Strategy

Yo.

Simplicity is beautiful. With messaging apps and especially through stickers our communication has become more effective and simpler. Is there a limit to how simple you can get?

Apparently not.

This week app called “Yo” launched from beta. It is the simplest form of communication I have yet seen. It works in iOs and Android. You select username. Then you add friends. Then you can send your friend “Yo” as a push notification and audio. So essentially you can only communicate through one phrase:

Yo

You got to be kidding?

No I am not. The company behind “Yo” has raised $1 million in venture capital. Currently there is over 50k users sending around 4 million Yos. They are also currently hiring.

For life-long hiphop-enthusiast I can see the merit of the app. Maybe in the future iterations you can have personalized “Yo” or an “Yo” from a famous rapper. Yo is simple, positive and universal.

Unlike many start-ups, the app creators have also thought about potential use cases for companies:

  1. A blog can Yo the readers whenever a new post is published. Imagine getting a Yo From PRODUCTHUNT.
  2. An online store can Yo its customers whenever a new product is offered. Imagine getting a Yo From JENNASHOPIFY.
  3. A football club can Yo the fans whenever the team scores a touchdown. Imagine getting a Yo From THE49ERS.
  4. An ice-cream truck can Yo the kids when it’s around the corner.… Imagine getting a Yo From THEICECREAMTRUCK.

The feedback for the app is hilarious as well. The current users have definitely taken supportive although somewhat ironic stance to it. Here are some of the highlights of App Store comments:

“Yo is all I need
When the wife texts me to go get some stuff from the store, all I do is shoot her back a “Yo”. When the kids text for money or a ride, I get on the app and hit them a “Yo”. Yo is a way of life. Live simply, live beautifully. Yo”

“This app changed my life
I am a professional scientist who has been scouring the earth for 7 years in search of a program or application so revolutionary, so outside of the box, so groundbreaking, that it could actually reverse the effects of clinical depression and bipolar disorder. “Yo” seems to be a fit. I have tested the effects of yo on several samples of depressed and bipolar tigers. Tigers were a natural choice for testing due to the little known fact that their anatomy is nearly identical to that of a humans. In a sample of depressed tigers, 8 out of 10 became happier due to the app yo and in an all male sample, 9 out of 10 experienced increased libido. I have taken my findings to Pfizer in hopes of negotiating some sort of three way contract between the creators of yo, Pfizer, and myself, Chisley Winsett M.D. So my message is this, creators of yo, this app that you have so sweetly crafted is not just an app, nay, but a highly scientific piece of medical innovation. We could do great things together. Please respond. Regards, Chisley Winsett M.D.”
 
“A life changing app
Yo is the best way to communicate. We no longer need intellectual discussion. We no longer need language. This is the next stage of human evolution!”

This feels more like postmodern commentary of the current app infrastructure or as an art project gone viral. On the other hand, it is hard to predict what eventually becomes hit. I would regard Yo only as a novelty app, but I do not use stickers either. It just might be that Yo will revolutionize messaging. Or it will be remembered as the tipping point when app bubble really started to burst.

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Apr 10 2014
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Advertising, Insight

Singaporean Viral Surprise

This week Singaporean social media has been buzzing about this “viral” video:

The reaction to the video caught Singapore Tourism Board (STB) by “surpise” and they removed the video. The discussion has not stopped though.

I don’t argue that the ad is quite hideous. I actually first bumped in the video in my FB newsfeed with the caption “I can´t stop vomiting”. Overall I think there is no reason to panic about, there is three lessons for every brand to learn about this “fiasco”:

1. Best way to draw attention to video is to remove it
Removing the video was total overreaction from STB. Firstly there is no such thing as removing something from Internet. Removed content is like Arnold Schwarzenegger: it will be back. Removing something just draws attention to it. Secondly it just draws more attention to it. If STB had left the video to its YouTube page, some people would maybe have found other STB content inspired by that. Even this newly upped version has gained over 60k views, which is quite good amount for advertising content in Singapore.

2.There is more horrible things in the world than doing a one horrible ad
Unfortunately the reality is that many firms do ads like this every day and no one raises an eyebrow. STB has done quite a lot of good content as well, such as this:


Singapore Board of Tourism from Yellow Box Studios on Vimeo.

3.Parody is the highest form of flattery

You can go viral from good and bad reasons, but this is quite far cry from a real full-blown social media crisis. The real problem for brands is not that people talk negative things about them. The problem is that no one is talking about them at all. When you start getting your first negative comments that just means that enough people have seen your content. If you spark any kind of emotion, it shows that people care about the brand. Snarky blog posts and parodies are an opportunity to join the conversation. STB should have taken more lighthearted attitude to the whole hoopla and turn these parodies into their own advantage.

I think overall Singapore Tourism Board should be happy that this video has raised so much emotion and conversation. It shows that people care deeply on what kind of message Singapore conveys abroad. Also it raises hope for Singaporean advertising scene. People should raise hell more often when they see a bad ad. There is still too much mediocrity around in advertising. Hopefully this gives us more opportunities to do more good and relevant advertising.

That is not only right for the brands, it is right for the audience as well.

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Oct 30 2013
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Planning, Slideshare

Planners Make Ugly Slides

I won´t deny it, in most things I am a straight ridah.

However there is one common characteristic, I share with all the wack planners around the world. I do really ugly slides. That is why I have condensed my presentations nowadays mostly to one-sentence blank slides (so-called power-slides).
This cheat sheet from Julian Cole comes definitely in handy for me (download here with a tweet):

If you want to see some of my ugly presentations, click here.

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Oct 22 2013
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Advertising, Insight, Planning

Anatomy of An Insight: Never Say No to Panda


Damn I am getting old, I am not up-to-date with all the different memes at the moment. I also have totally missed this advertising hit from 2010 as well.

Panda Cheese commercials are classic marketing. TV spots build around dramatizing the tagline. Simple approach: Just hammering home that you should never say no to panda. What makes these spots modern marketing is the craft and flair of them. Without the product tagline these would still be entertaining content and not out of place in sites like 9GAG or Reddit.

There is not really any major consumer insight here. If you don´t count that people like to laugh and it is disturbingly funny to see cute animal like Panda behaving like bully and terrorizing people. Too often planners spend time on inventing pseudo-insights like “Eating cheese makes you reminisce and you are actually eating your childhood memories” instead of being truly helpful. Cheese is cheese, make it fun and make sure your brand is remembered. Our field of work is not rocket science, simple is effective. Effective is beautiful.

Different approach and great idea trumps half-boiled consumer insight any day.

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