Do you Virgin!?

"Heck yes I Virgin!" And where-ever possible when it comes to transport, and can say: I am a fan. Still I don't drink virgin coke & wasn't too impressed with TV & broadband customer service, but that beardy Branson (who has appeared in some of the ad's) and his Virgin transport marketing boffins have got it right. I hate to give in to advertising but glad I did when it comes to air travel. Rather than flying Kuwait Airways, the last two times I flew Virgin Atlantic, the 'inflight everythings' had an element of funky-see-through-blue-plastic-edgey-ness.

When I used to visit Birmingham every 2weeks with Virgin Trains, the carridges did smell, they were far too busy and I almost always had to give up my seat to someone else and stand for the entire journey and there was an absence of windows to stick your head out of BUT none of that matters - their advertising and marketing campaigns are just spot on! My trips up to Brum were similar to their 'Booty Train: Where do you want to be?' advert, where for about a year after graduating I made the trek up to see my long term loved one. Their Native American ad, directed at business types is quite amusing however their launch advert was seen on platforms, billboards, online and TV. The Return of the Train campaign re-launched train travel and set the standard for other rail providers.

With all this recent commotion with British Airways, Virgin have now proved to be the flag flyer for Britain. Their 25th celebration is a perfect piece of creative, followed up with faultless production and direction. 'Still Red Hot' was launched and was aimed at such a wide target audience. There were complaints about how the ad was insulting to women, which you are bound to get, but was dismissed by The Advertising Watchdog. It was created by London based creative ad agency RKCR, whose website is certainly worth visiting. There is now so much brand awareness and customer loyalty/retention through their quality of service and for what you get for your money as the CVP. (Customer Value Proposition).

I watch the Red Hot ad and BOOM! It is such a well executed ad: from the props, the costumes, the soundtrack, the lighting, the hidden messages and for the positive image it gives the brand - it really is advertising that works!

Top 3 ad's for Friday

In my current job, I spend more time making tea and waiting for photoshop to format and save, but when creating a new concept or campaign, I am never short of an idea! Whilst at a Students Union, my aim was to maximise activity whilst working to small budgets, through coming up with damn good ideas. Take a look on the campaign page of http://www.owenmorgs.com/ and see what advertising and awareness campaigns I created.

These days, with a good idea, it's so easy to create brand awareness for a product or cause using viral or hype advertising (via social media/ word of mouth). I am constantly on the look out for advertising that works. Here are my top three for this Friday:
1. Old Spice - an original ad that is planned out to the last detail. Wieden + Kennedy, a creative agency based out of Portland, Oregon took 3 days to create without using special effects. Everything you see is real! (execpt the diamonds). There is such a huge difference between how advertising effects a brand. Old Spice in the USA sponsor NASCAR yet in the UK it's known as an 'old man fragrance'! If they brought the ad over here, it would certainly boost sales.

2. In this ad, Air New Zealand send out the message that their company has nothing to hide in their air travel costs. It shows air cabin crew and pilots with their uniforms body painted on! I spotted this and had to send the link to a professional bodyartist, called John Davis. The ad isn't that amazing but a clever ad' all the same.

3. In my last blog, I mentioned the awesome Drench campaign, well Evian made a comeback with a clever computer generated gang of breakdancing, roller skating babies! After watching the video - make sure you see 'the making of...' . Vince - the cute chinease baby is just great ... 'whatup'! The global creative agency who developed the concept was BETC Euro RSCG, who carried the advert on via youtube. A London based visual effects company filmed a total of 134 babies at Pinewood Studios, UK to follow up from the underwater baby ballet of '98.

ps.

today is the 30th birthday of pac man-visit google to see what they came up with!

What to drink?

With so much choice out there, I'm just getting confused as to what to drink!? I usually drink 1 of 4 things: water; beer; tea; and orange juice. Now imagine the choice of brands for each product. That must show the massive influence advertising has on todays generation as to what to consume! Advertising and marketing has such a ma-hoosive influence on what we drink and to end up creating ad's on such a large creative budget would be awesome!

It's not so much about the product these days (unless your innocent smoothies) but it's about the image you portray. Drench seem to have a good strategy to get people drinking their water as opposed to any other H2O with the youtube hit: Dancing Brains from Thunderbirds & the Hampster Band!

Another awesome campaign was the Lambrini. Aimed at a target demographic (female 18-30) it again didn't offer a quality product (lets face it, it's cheap+doesn't taste tgreat) but the image. It was successful as it drew in a wider following. Even I attempted to learn the routine! It does offer a feel good factor and gives you that 'i just wanna dance' feeling.

The alcohol industry however can get nasty, not so much in the UK but in the USA, beer giants Miller and Bud went head to head in the 'Great Beer Wars'. Their advertisment doubted each others patriotim through TV ads. I have always been a coors light drinker (since it's less calories) and ended up knocking up an ad. Sent it off to Coors and they gave me some pretty good feedback, just hope this doesn't cause offence to drunk ex girlfriends around the world! The creative team at bud light have come up with some gems - take a look at my top 3: Appology Bot 3000; Coffee Cup; Swear Jar.