Advertising or not Advertising?

So I came across this video today: (I would recommend watching the whole thing - bit of a twist in there.)

There are a number of things that I find curious about this video.

First and foremost - IS THIS SOME KIND OF ADVERTISING?

Why do I think this? Well, it was only uploaded on the 17th of February and it has had over 110k views? Also, I get the impression that this was shot in NZ... pretty impressive numbers for something from NZ. Social circles for boosting views can only stretch so far here.

I feel like there is something else behind it. I realise that working in advertising has made me quite cynical and question pretty much everything I see, but come on... what do you guys think?

Trying to find more info on this, I am officially loving You Tube's stats which show where the traffic is coming from:

These numbers all seem to be due to loading the video on Reddit. I don't know much about Reddit. Can anyone load something up and hope for the best?

Could it be that this is just one of those videos which has a little something which makes people want to pass it on?

It's doing my head in. If this is advertising, what could it be advertising? Castlepoint? Castlepoint is delicious, it sells itself. Viral for a new band? They have relatively decent voices. Is there a record label behind this?

Anyone else got an opinion on this? Or know a secret squirrel backstory?

Any or all information gratefully appreciated.

Respect

Before I move on to my last post of the year, I want to talk about something that is very important to me.

Respect.

Respect is an amazing thing. We all want it. We all have the ability to give it. But for some reason or another, it seems to be something that so many of us seem to overlook.

Everybody deserves respect in one way or another. Whether it is the president of a large country or the person that empties their bin at night, both of those people deserve respect.

Within an agency it is just the same. The Interns deserve respect. A receptionist deserves respect. The Accounts people deserve respect (theoretically they deserve the most respect as they make sure you get paid). The Creative team deserves respect. The Media team deserve respect. Production/The Art Department deserve respect. The Suits deserve respect. And Management deserve respect.

The Clients deserve respect.

I've probably missed someone out.

The point is, we all need each other. Without Clients, none of us have a job. Without Suits, Creatives have to deal directly with the Clients. Without Creatives (and of course the Art Department) there is nothing beautiful and amazing to show the world. And without Media there would be nowhere to put that amazing work.

We all need each other. We all have our role to play in this game we call Advertising and if we don't have each others back and respect one another, then what a sad sad world we live in.

This Industry is not easy. People are constantly putting down our work (if you don't believe me, read Campaign Brief) and rejecting our ideas. The thing that makes it better is the people that we work with. The ones that tell us that we're great, even if it didn't pan out. Hey, we all have to start somewhere, keep going, you'll crack it; or you'll write the brief more concisely next time; or you'll remember to check the material deadlines and make sure they're manageable before promising something to the client.

We're all still learning. Whether we've been in this game for 25 years or 5 months. We're all here because we were given an opportunity and we grabbed it with both hands because we knew this was the most amazing Industry to work in. For that, we all deserve respect.

So I'm going to put this out there:

Think about how you deal with the people you work with everyday. Do you show them the respect they deserve? And if you don't, do you have a fair and just reason not to?

I know that the world is not perfect and I tend to live in a bit of an idealistic bubble sometime, but if the pure and good feeling you can get when you treat people with respect is not enough for you, let me put it to you this way...

One day, you might be asking them for a job.

Nifty on-road advertising

So these came through from my boss, they are pretty cool, although I do question just how real they are considering they are all against the exact same wall. Either way, nice use of a boring medium.

Agencies are advertising

See the agencies advertising as of late?

Draft FCB have been pretty visible with both TV and print:

Sorry, I can't be bothered scanning this properly. The words you are missing are 'Change' and 'Sucks'. This is in the inside cover as a gate fold of the spanking new Metro magazine (which by the way, read a very interesting review of here). When the gate is folded all you can see is 'Change Sucks'. Kinda clever, definitely would have cost a pretty penny to place.

Can't say I am a massive fan of their TVCs.

At any rate then I noticed TBWA online ads on Stop Press:

I may be missing the point, but what's with the skull flag? Don't get me wrong, I like it, but that's just me, and I am a little strange. I do like the fact that they have embraced online and they link through to a very nicely put together site. Message seems a little odd to be running on Stop Press - not sure exactly who Stop Press' target audience is, but feels very industry to me. Preaching to the converted?

Anyway, something tells me that agencies promoting themselves is going to happen more and more over the next year or so. I'd love to see some crazy massive stunt. Just hope that everyone has learnt from the Wellington agency who (a couple of years ago) took out a full page ad in the Dom Post in conjunction with a client, and got the clients phone number wrong. Was kinda the most crucial part of the whole ad.

When I grow up

Fark, this is awesome!

"Have my arse kissed by every media rep on the face of the earth"

That pretty much covers it.

Ads to come on Twitter?

I have been in bed asleep all day today. I feel as though I am on the verge of the flu, but I am hoping that mass amounts of sleep and LOTS of vitamin C is going to ensure it doesn't actually happen. At any rate, that is the reason that I
a. haven't done a favourite site of the week
b. don't know what the buzz on Twitter has been.

Twice now I have questioned the 'sponsored definitions' without much response. Are these actually paid for? Whats the deal? Does anyone pay attention to them?

Well, what do we have here then?? Typically I use TweetDeck and otherwise I am a Chrome user, but on my MacBook , I access Twitter the normal way, and through Firefox. So, not sure how long this has been about, but it is looking pretty close to an ad:Hmm, hello very banner looking slice of yellow. Oh no, not a banner, how I loathe banners. I just feel as though they are too squished. I really do like Skys and Shows better, I feel there is a larger creative space for someone to do something spectacular. At least it is not at the very top of the screen just waiting to be scrolled past.

So this 'banner' (for want of a better word) is talking about upgrading Firefox, and this only shows in Firefox, no sign in Chrome or Safari. So, if they can target to browser... I wonder what else they may be able to target to when it comes down to it? More importantly though, how are they going to get around the API situation. I rarely use the web to check Twitter, and with so many applications, there is not going to be an easy way to bring them altogether. One thing at a time though.

I wonder how soon we can expect to see actual advertising in that space. Only a matter of time. Only a matter of time...

Banned in 1961

I do love this. This is a commercial which was banned in 1961. Thank goodness. I cannot believe that, even back then, they used children's cartoon characters to push cigarettes. It amazes me that Hanna-Barbera allowed it to be made in the first place. That is assuming that they were asked...

We don't have it that bad

Heard this week about a client getting slammed by Stuff users around the fact that their video advertising didn't have a pause on it. They were getting pissy about that it was chewing up their bandwidth and slowing everything down. Now, don't get me wrong, I kinda agree, but I don't think the New Zealand audience quite gets how good we have it when it comes to advertising.

I went to check out the pics from 'Where The Wild Things Are' today on USAToday at which point I was confronted with this:This advertising splash covered my whole screen, and actually says at the bottom 'advertisement will end in x seconds' and counts down. So, we might have annoying ads in NZ that you can't stop, but at least they don't stop you from reading/navigating the rest of the site while they play out! Unlike this little charmer.

I know that NZ is an emerging market and that the general public aren't going to understand how good we've got it, but does it really require emailing Stuff? Get over it. Man, people love to complain.

On another note, the images from 'Where The Wild Things Are' look amazing. Check this out:

Ideas/thoughts

Shall be very interested as to whether I get any credit for this idea, or if the person I told about it takes the glory, cos, dammit, its a good one.

After talking with Mark at the IAB xmas party I realised that the IAB seriously needs something that will make a lot more people in the industry stand up and go, hell yes, don't know what I'd do without them. With the likes of CAANZ coming up with this interactive industry body... something (I don't know, we're not a member of CAANZ because of their stance of advertising fast foods to children, anyway) the IAB needs to put itself in a position where it is indispensable. CAANZ has the numbers behind it when it comes to agencies and if they could initiate something that was useful, they could make the IAB redundant.

Rambling. So, the other day, when trying to make sure that I had all of the most up to date ratecards for some publishers (and not being able to find half of them because they are not on websites in an obvious place) I thought, you know what would be handy, if the IAB put aside a page where publishers could upload their ratecards. Then us agency folk could go to one place rather than 10 odd sites for just the main NZ publishers. More to the point, this would benefit both publishers and media planners. Sometimes you forget about the other publishers out there who perhaps don't have the huge traffic numbers, but could be environmentally a good placement. Nothing like a reminder.

There you go, if it comes to fruition, it was my idea first.