Breaking out for MacArthur Central

Our new photo shoot for MacArthur Central is the cat's whiskers

While rival CBD shopping centres battle it out for attention, a smaller nearby centre, MacArthur Central, has struggled to be noticed. Marketing manager, Kelli Robertson, asked Black Eye to create a stronger public profile for this unique multi-use centre.

Our campaign required a new photo shoot to support our positioning statement "For whoever you are today".  Part of the campaign is focused on the quality fashion retailers in Edward Street, and uses a deliberately tongue in cheek poster aimed at our larger rival's use of animals in their marketing.

More images from the campaign can be seen here.

We shoot our latest TVCs for Marine Queensland

Brisbane International Boat Show to "Get on the water"

We've just wrapped filming on a series of TVCs for Marine Queensland's Brisbane International Boat Show using the theme "No matter who you are, now is the time to get on the water".

The shoot took just one (long) day and included scenes of a family taking their son wakeboarding on the Gold Coast spit. The concept shows 3 different bored people who are emotionally transformed when they "get on the water".

Cross promotion and interaction on the internet

Web interaction campaigns - do they work?

Just recently Orange (the UK telecommunications company) has launched the internet's very first balloon race across the internet. It's workings are quite complicated so I have quoted NMA below:

"The technically complex project (go to: playballoonacy.com) is a bid to engage with online audiences through blogs and social media. The race will promote Orange's mobile tariffs by inviting users to tag their name onto a balloon shaped like its dolphin, panther, canary and racoon brands. Entrants will be able to track and control their balloon as it travels across the web, with each visited site equalling one internet mile. The user with the most miles at the end of seven days wins a mobile phone package. Players can also get bonus prizes and energy boosts for their balloons."

You can also add your site to be visited by balloons in the contest. You just have to sign up. This is promotion for your own site and for Orange. 

Not all interactive promotions are successful

Tahoe, in 2006, gave their fans all the clips and online tools to create a Tahoe SUV ad. What they didn't expect was people to make anti-Tahoe pro-environment ads. The ads made it to youtube before Tahoe could close the site down. Tahoe had the right idea but wrong execution -they could have made an interactive game like the Mini Cooper Strike.

Movies take marketing to another level

Hollywood and Viral Advertising
Big budget movies have always been announced with trailers. More recently the web, with its one-on-one audio/video delivery, has become an important tool for movie marketers. Now we are seeing this medium being used to even greater effect.

Recently I was alerted to campaigns involving Gotham City's candidate for District Attorney - yes, Gotham City. It seems the new Batman movie's second tier character, Harvey Dent, is the subject of two in-depth faux websites. This is interactivity which gives potential filmgoers the ability to become immersed in the film's reality before they ever see it in the cinema.





Connect to the sites here:
www.ibelieveinharveydent.com
www.ccfabg.org

How much for a logo?

That depends.
One question we are asked a lot is - "How much do you charge for a logo?" This is a tricky one along the lines of how long is a piece of string. There are many other questions hidden below the surface.

We have done simple logos for as little as $500 and corporate logo packages for as much as $50,000. For some household name corporations there are reports of half a million dollars or more being paid for their corporate ID package. Is this insane? How do costs escalate to this extent? Coming up with a symbol for a company should be pretty easy, right.



Well, unless I just do a random thing like a pink rhinocerous with a parrot on its back or whatever, there has to be some thought put into the relevance of the imagery, its stated meaning, the concept it is required to communicate and its intended usage. Let's look at some of the hidden questions.

1) What is the product?
2) What is the product's place in the market?
3) Who are the target market?
4) What kind of brand personality should it have?
5) What image does the company want the brand identity to project?
6) How do we satisfy the conflicting interests of all involved parties?
7) How many different approaches will be required to be developed?
8) What are the competitors doing with their brand imagery?
9) What method of illustrating this brand is the best to embrace?
10) How do we avoid cliché?
11) Are we creating a unique symbol for the company as well as text?
12) Where is the symbol going to be used and how?
13) How many colours can we use?
14) How do we accommodate the differing values and opinions of those involved?
15) How do the multitude of parties affected by the new or changed identity know how to correctly utilise the identity?

It's easy to see that this whole process can become very time-consuming, making it difficult to quote a price. It helps if we have, at least, a little understanding of what and who are involved. Or we could simply quote every logo very high to cover ourselves. Of course the better the brief, the better value for money can be achieved for our client.

Funny how it always comes back to the brief.

WWF starts WW3

Does controversial advertising pay off?
A recent campaign by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) aiming to help protection of endangered species, used a heavy-handed demonstration in which animal killing was role reversed.

In an underground passageway in Beijing eight posters were hung depicting endangered animals aiming weapons at the viewer. Mounted in the picture behind the barrel of the weapon was a small laser. When a viewer walked within a certain range of the laser it would set off speakers sounding automatic gunfire.



With over 9,000 passers-by walking through the tunnel every day, the gunfire panicked so many people that they had to remove all the posters after the first day.



The question is, with only one day of exposure and the angst created, was it worth it?

Sure, we know about it now because of the unique delivery of the campaign and images of the posters have been broadcast on several websites. But what was the direct result of panicking all those people?

It turns out only 57 people signed up that day to support WWF. As one news commentator on put it, “maybe they would have had the same result just using the promo boys...”.

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/wwf_target_practice

Is the hit a hit for Telstra?

Thinking of using a well know song in your ads?
Use of hit songs in TV ads is widespread. It can be an effective (though expensive) way to generate immediate goodwill and connect with your target market. The other night I caught a new ad by Telstra which used the famous Harry Nilsson song featured in the movie Midnight Cowboy called Everybody's Talking.



At first this song seems a perfect fit. Then I caught the lyrics... and they weren't the lyrics I remember. Those went along the lines of "Everybody's talking at me... I can't hear a word they're saying, only the echoes of my mind." Of course Telstra (and/or their agency) changed these to "Everybody's talking at me... I can hear every word they're saying, with my phone and laptop combine." And it gets worse. Even more inane was the fact that the visuals were an exact rendition of the lyrics.

This turned me right off, and I am in the target market for Telstra's marketing. It got me thinking that advertisers should show a little respect for the special memories or associations their customers have with the song. Otherwise the advertiser, rather than enhance, could actually do damage to their brand. To see Telstra's ad click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhS9_jqh-Z4

Got any other examples of advertisers ruining a song for their blatant commercial purpose? Let us know.