Salty, Sweet, and User-Oriented

For Toblerone's new Crunchy Salted Almond chocolate, we created a social media campaign that emphasizes the dual flavors: salty and sweet. We decided on a campaign that starts with an external website on which Toblerone fans could create flavor combinations from a list of 50-75 flavors. Fans would then be able to start a flavor combination with their favorite flavor and share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and enlist the help of their friends to complete the combination. These new chocolate bars created by friends would be pictured underneath a half-and-half shot of each friend's profile pictures, which would then be shared on each respective social network. 

These pictures would then be placed into a voting system in which the chocolate bars "battled" until there were a top three choices. Then, to engage Bay Area Toblerone fans, Toblerone would host an event in San Francisco at which the three top flavors would be made and distributed. The fans could then taste all three and vote on their favorite. At the end of the event, the top choice would be revealed, and that would become a limited edition Toblerone chocolate bar in the Bay Area.

We wanted there to be a focus on the dual-flavor chocolate, so we created the friend- sharing aspect of the campaign. The flavor choices on the site would be relatively gourmet foods, such as spices, mint, and exotic fruits. This would appeal to young, hip, sophisticated fans. We also wanted to market specifically to Bay Area Toblerone fans, so we created a fan event at the end of the campaign. But of course, the main focal point of the campaign must be the Crunchy Salted Almond chocolate, so each aspect of the campaign would be decorated with gold and the blue color of the new bar. When a new flavor combination is shared on a social network, it would say something along the lines of, "We created Crunchy Salted Almond, now you create something else!" At the fan event, there would be samples of Crunchy Salted Almond, and again, everything would be decorated in Toblerone gold and blue.

-Saige

A Casual Rant on Interruptive Advertising

As a consumer, and really as a teenager in the 21st century, I tend to dislike interruptive advertising. I'll close out a webpage if it doesn't load in ten seconds because it isn't worth waiting that long. So clearly, when my favorite TV show is interrupted every ten minutes to squeeze in three minutes of advertising, I can get annoyed easily. But most of the time, I really don't mind them, especially since I can spend the time that the ad is playing to do something else, like pee or check my phone or get a snack. I know many people share that opinion, so I definitely don't think TV is the "elephant in the room." At least not anymore.

That being said, I also don't think TV advertising is as lucrative as it once was for that exact reason. People just don't pay attention to it anymore. If they aren't doing something else during the commercial break, it's probably because they're just fast-forwarding through it. That's why there's a huge movement toward Internet video advertising. But unfortunately, this is becoming a problem too, because those fifteen second ads before a two minute video on YouTube, or minute-long commercial breaks on Hulu, get annoying too. In fact, they're more annoying, because unless you have AdBlock, you're forced to sit through them. You can't fast-forward or skip ads. And I've noticed that now, if you even press the mute button, the ad pauses. It's very forceful.

This presents a problem. People already generally hate advertising, so when the ad interrupts something you'd way rather be doing and actually forces you to listen or watch, 
you're not going to internalize or even appreciate the message. And since you usually see the same ad in front of every video, the saturation combined with the interruption get to be too much.

So what's the solution? It's near impossible to find an ad that isn't in-your-face because advertising, now more than ever, is literally in your face at all times. Advertisements are all over your phone, computer, TV, food, clothing, airplane, car, street, town, city, country, ...the list goes on. It's becoming harder and harder to get a message across without the saturation factor causing issues. That's why I think interactive advertising is gaining so much attention: it gives you something to do, so you aren't stuck with a blank stare or an annoyed look on your face.

I'm a relatively patient person, so I rarely find myself aggressively annoyed by interruptive advertising. But many people my age are, and since adults always tell us that we are the future, something needs to be done. 

Actually, I just thought of a form of interruptive advertising that I really hate. I hate when you're reading something on a website and those ads pop up that cover the text you're trying to read and can't be moved until you scour the page to find the hidden, microscopic "CLOSE" button. And sometimes you can't even press that button for fifteen seconds so that you can "read this message from our sponsor." They used to be found mainly on pretty sketchy pages, but now I find them more and more on news sites or professional blogs. Yeah, can that just stop, please? Ugh.

-Saige

Push It to the Limit

My favorite ads are often those that are the perfect balance between simplicity and innovation. When an ad catches the viewer's attention with something unexpected and then relays its message within seconds thanks to clear and concise imagery or copy, it really sticks in the viewer's memory. And now, when advertisements are literally everywhere, people are more and more inclined to ignore them. TV ads can be fast-forwarded. Print ads can be tuned out and grazed over. Internet ads can be blocked completely. In order for a brand's message to be received and internalized, it really has to shock the viewer. The success of an ad can be measured by whether or not it makes a viewer do a double-take.

Many innovative ads today are considered innovative because they are interactive. They encourage the viewer to take an active role in promoting the brand. Over the last few years, social networking has become the main source of innovative advertising. Oreo is a great example of this. Oreo created a number of user-based "competitions" between fans of the cookie and fans of the creme, but one that is truly inspiring (and my favorite campaign of the year) is their Super Bowl 2013 Instagram campaign. On Super Bowl Sunday, they had Instagram users tag photos with #cookiethis or #cremethis, and then had sculptors create the users' photos out of either Oreo creme filling or cookie crumbs. (Here is a link to Wieden + Kennedy's blog about this campaign. It is absolutely worth the read if you have a few minutes.)

Most are done on social networking, as seen above, but I think some of the coolest boundary-pushing ads are the ones that make viewers stop what they're doing while in public and take a moment to interact with the ad. That's a whole new level of "receiving a message." I especially like this campaign against domestic violence, which uses facial recognition to change what's on the screen based on whether someone is looking at it. It makes the viewer stop, take a second look, and interact.

Still, all that being said, I don't think boundaries need to be pushed so far to get that double-take effect. I recently drove down from San Jose to my father's house in Los Angeles. On the highway, I saw at least ten McDonald's trucks, all of which were plastered with images of McDonald's foods being "blown back" by the truck's 60-mile-an-hour speed.

These ads do everything I love: they have a simple, concise message, while catching the viewer's attention with something unexpected. Advertising on the side of a truck is by no means new or innovative, but it was the first time I looked at a truck and thought, "heh, that's clever." I think pushing boundaries can mean more than just doing something wacky to get viewer attention. It can also mean that something as boring as truck ads can be made interesting with a little out-of-the-box thinking. 

That's ultimately what I think is important about innovative advertising: you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to make the wheel interesting again.

-Saige

Out with the Old, In with the...Old?

To bring back the typewriter, we would create three ads on 3 media: ads in magazines such as Sunset, Forbes, and Time; 30-second spots on TV channels such as Travel Channel, History Channel, Good Network, and TV Land; and print ads in airports and subway or train stations. It would center around nostalgia and be marketed to an older generation of tech-savvy men and women.

The first would be a magazine ad that pictures a modern-looking desk covered in technology, like a smartphone, TV, and digital clock. In the center of the desk would be a typewriter, and coming out of the typewriter would be a letter from a parent to a child. The tagline would read, "Putting thought back into the conversation."

The second would be a TV ad in which an kind-looking older man would be seated outdoors at a quintessential cafe with a typewriter. People would be seen rushing by, doing fast-paced things such as texting with abbreviations/text talk and having loud phone conversations. Other people seated at the cafe would have big headphones on with faces buried in laptops. Suddenly we would see time slow and sounds of hustle and bustle dim as an image of the man happily typing away with the sound of typewriter clicks fade in. The final screen would be words coming out of a typewriter that say: "Putting care back into the conversation." 

The third would be a print ad again with a birds-eye view of a desk, this time more traditional and grandpa-like, with a cup of coffee or tea, a pair of glasses, and stack of letters to and from loved ones. There would again be a typewriter with a letter to a loved one in it. The tagline would read, "Putting love back into the conversation." 

-Saige

The Power and Pressure of Nostalgia

Nostalgia in advertising can be very powerful. People want to relive their glory days, or re-experience their carefree childhoods, or re-feel the time they first rode a bike, fell in love, watched their children's first steps. When a brand is able to successfully tap into consumers' pasts and stir up these joyful memories, it can influence them to purchase a product in order to bring back that joy.

I recently came across this ad for Internet Explorer 10 that is marketed directly to my age group and demographic. Watching the ad brought a huge, goofy grin to my face as I remembered my own childhood experiences with each item mentioned. I think this is an extremely successful use of nostalgia in advertising, but that might be because it is so clearly based around my own childhood memories. Nostalgia is a very personalized form of advertising, which is an advantage since it makes consumers feel something near to their own hearts, but it can also be a disadvantage because it must focus on a very specific demographic to have the most impact. Still, if a nostalgic ad can make you relive joyful memories, it's done its job.

However, this works in the opposite direction, too. People want to forget the pain they've felt in their pasts. When nostalgia in advertising goes awry, it stirs up traumatic memories and can avert consumers' attention from that brand entirely. This is another result of nostalgia's personalization, because what brings up happy memories for one person can bring up sad memories for another.

This ad for Dodge Ram trucks debuted at the 2013 Super Bowl, and was even voted the best Super Bowl spot of the year by YouTube's Ad Blitz competition. I can absolutely see how it appeals to the memories of an older demographic of Americans. I find it to be a very raw and even beautiful remembrance of traditional farm life, which is an important part of countless Americans' identities. But, on a personal level, it reminds me of my father's stories of growing up on a farm in Upstate New York. As a child and teenager, he was overworked and not paid as the youngest of seven on an operating dairy farm. And at age five, a farm mishap left him in a body cast for six months. These stories make me extremely sad as I think about my father in pain, and thus, watching this ad stirs up that sympathy inside and makes me sad, rather than proud.

Nostalgia is undoubtedly a powerful advertising tool. When it's used successfully, it brings a new level of personalization and warmth to a brand identity. But there are many brands that fail to realize the full power of nostalgia. I think this is largely the fault of new brands that have no history or backstory for people to relate to, or even brands introducing innovative new products that are meant to "be the future." There's a great deal of pressure on brands that use nostalgia to keep the memories light and the shadows hidden. When nostalgia works, it really works; when it fails, it really fails.

-Saige