[edit] looks like George Lucas didn’t appreciate the copyright infringement!

Via

Next day the posters appeared in due course, and the public were informed, in all the colours of the rainbow, and in letters afflicted with every possible variation of spinal deformity, how that Mr Johnson would have the honour of making his last appearance that evening, and how that an early application for places was requested, in consequence of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances,—it being a remarkable fact in theatrical history, but one long since established beyond dispute, that it is a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get into it.

Nicholas Nickleby, p.378

I bet Grolsch wish they’d thought of it.

via Dangerous Minds

Step forward MirriAd – a neat way of allowing product placement to be inserted post production.  Its effectiveness will all be down to execution, but it’s a very neat idea. Imagine being able to place ads into programmes tactically at a minute’s notice, or show ads for products a particular viewer has been researching online.

Check out the video demo.

/via @RobManuel

“ad for a sports brand, or an energy drink, it would have been a worldwide smash”

Well, hey presto, he’s back. This time powered by Red Bull…

Source: Ads of the world

link via the next web

• Use of story
  Appreciation of stories is hard-wired into our beings, and this is a good yarn with arcs, conflict, ambition and resolution. We’re being fed a brand story, but in such an engaging way that we accept it.
• Breaking media format
  They’ve made an ad that is six and a half minutes long. Up until recently, such a length would have been laughably prohibitive, and indeed the days of 60 or even 90 second spectaculars seemed to be on the wane. But of course nowadays, good content spreads on digital channels where media cost is free and not constrained by programming breaks or convention.

thanks to the excellent Word magazine for the spot

The ‘points of view’ (skinhead) ad from the mid 1980s remains the most famous ad from any newspaper and often appears in those lists of top 100 ads. However, viewed as a collection, I think they show the evolution of the brand, becoming notably more sophisticated, entertaining and inventive.

It was a critical task to modernise the paper, shake off the beardy, worthy image and fight the price-cutting Times and the newly-launched Independent. Good marketing, editorial vision, investigative journalism and investment in the product itself combined to strengthen a much-loved media brand and give it a strong platform to compete in the digital era.

One task I had as Assistant Brand Manager was to put together a compilation of all TMWTG ads as a memento for senior managers and for trade contacts. It’s a great reel as you can see here .

Before TMWTG, Guinness was perceived as an old man’s drink. The brand needed rejuvenating and to become relevant to the nation’s lager drinkers. A whole load of expensive research had been commissioned (I think from the Henley Centre) that identified Individualism as an emerging social trend. This was Thatcher’s 80s and people wanted to be different and parade their boom-era confidence. Guinness was perfect for this – it looked different and made you stand out.

Rutger Hauer was chosen because he looked like a pint of Guinness: black clothing and shocking white hair. He’d appeared in cool, cult films such as Blade Runner and the Hitcher and was an inspired choice.

Some insider memories of the campaign:

• The barbershop ad was predominantly aired with Rutger saying nothing. The ‘lost teddy bear’ edit was only shown late at night to freak out people just back from the pub. We had loads of calls from people claiming to have had a telepathic experience.
• The Dark Glasses commercial was shot in LA (those were the days). It’s the light, darling!
• The then Senior Brand Manager made a cameo appearance as a butler in one of the ads.
• The ads set in a tibetan monastery, and inside the stomach of a whale were made as a pair and cost a mammoth £1m. Though the joins seem pretty clunky now, they were pioneering in their use of CGI.
• In 1994, Rutger’s contract had run out, but a follow-up campaign had yet to be agreed. Guinness needed an ad, but had none to run. The solution was to edit Rutger’s face out of the portable TV in Chain and replace it with a pint.
• We Have all the Time in the World by Louis Armstrong was released as a single and made number 2 or 3 in the charts (a big deal at the time). Originally from the soundtrack to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it was chosen (thankfully) ahead of Nigel Kennedy’s rendition of the Four Seasons.
• The alternate, thrashy guitar version of Chain ran as a top-and-tail on late-night TV – 30 seconds forward at the start of the break, and 30 seconds reverse at the end. This was an attempt to surprise and appeal to yoof drinkers.
• The guitar edit also featured in a live Guinness experience we toured around student campuses. Some guy with one of those  3D motion/flight simulators that look like transit vans on hydraulic legs had  approached us and shown how you could feel you were in the ad. People loved it, though the man himself had to be stopped from telling everyone the distinctly off-message statement that Guinness was ‘a meal in itself’.
• A script was put together for Chain II, but never made.
• “It’s not easy being a dolphin” caused a great stir, dividing drinkers into either cooing advocates or those who thought advertising was becoming over-indulgent.
• The campaign came to an end after seven years and 27 executions because the ads were no longer recruiting new drinkers. Everyone admired the ads, but they were no longer acquiring anyone new. People had either already joined the club, or decided it wasn’t for them. The next ad, was the much less cerebral, and equally loved, Anticipation.

Do you feel the ads have stood the test of time?

If they didn’t, then credit is still due to them as a testamant to the power of their campaign idea

So watching Steve Jobs introduce the iAd platform at yesterday’s iPhone 4.0 preview yesterday, I wasn’t expecting much.

But it’s just possible, as Del Trotter might have said, that “they’ve only gone and bloody done it”.

And it is pure testament to unconstrained thinking. Audaciously, they’ve not only decided to get in the mobile ad game, but redefine it. And do better-than-TV along the way. AND suggest that search driven ads (hello Google) don’t work for mobile.

Check out the video. What do you think?

Full video here

Which is why it’s nice to see The Body Holiday. Their proposition is crystal clear and seems to tap into a genuine consumer insight.