FRANKthoughts

I don’t catch many TV ads these days thanks to Windows Media Centre  but the occasional one slips through when I am not paying attention. I was first drawn in to the latest AAMI Safe Driver Rewards TV spot by the tongue-in-cheek use of an annoying yet comfy Gen X classic ‘What about Me’, and the twit who crashed into the shop .. whilst tweeting…

Then as the stereotypical scenarios rolled out it kept me engaged and entertained. It also appealed to me because, like everyone else, I am the most responsible, safe and best ever driver in the history of driving and it annoys me that I pay for other people’s stupidity. A strong product built on a solid insight. And a well pitched campaign (even if they do drive ‘lorries’ at Badjar Ogilvy) that has generated some good early social media chatter.

After just two weeks there have been over 7,700 youtube views with over 60 positive comments . (they couldn’t all be from the agency could they?)

A quick search of Twitter reveals a similar picture of overwhelming positivity:

can’t get rid of the soundtrack in AAMI’s latest TVC out of my mind “what about me….” it’s been playing in my mind whole night…”

Lol at the aami add lol “I was twittering and drove into thr corner shop” :p

You know that car insurance add for aami, does that dude say he was twittering away before he crashed into the corner shop? Lolol

♫ ♫ ♫ I was twittering away when I crashed into the corner shop ♫ ♫ ♫

What about me it isn’t fair .. Cldn’t help myself AAMI TV ad LOL Lol -AAMI Insurance Ad – What About Me?

And ofcourse the odd whinge (can’t please everyone):

Anyone else cringe over the new AAMI TVC with “What about me?” song (orig by Moving Pictures)? The talent can’t sing, the song is wrong.

With so many fans of the ad I wonder what AAMI are going to do to nurture them? How about a simple facebook ‘what about me’ fan page where they get people talking about their own experiences and scenarios. Maybe incentivise them.

Does this campaign strike a chord with you too?

On the weekend I took the kids to see Fantastic Mr Fox. What a wonderful film! It would have to be one of the best ‘kids’ films I’ve seen – quirky, unique, non-stop entertainment underpinned by George Clooney’s brilliance! (Not the point of the story but I thought you should know).

The movie theatre was three quarters full of predominantly Dads with their kids and we all sat through the ads and trailers waiting for the film to begin. Not usually a hotbed of media innovation, the average movie pre-amble is a fairly straight forward affair: first the cheap ads, then the expensive ads, a few movie trailers, a Village or Hoyts plug, lights down and off we go.

On this occasion however we were all shaken out of our comfy daze by a unique and engaging piece of cinema advertising.

One of the expensive ads we saw during the pre-amble was a Federal Govt Spot featuring a melanoma surgeon removing a dangerous mole from a 22 year old girl’s back.

Fairly graphic stuff that had my 8 year old daughter’s hands over her face and my 4 year old boy’s eyes glued to the screen! The message was clear: protect yourself five ways in the sun and you can avoid ending up in his theatre.

A few more ads, a few trailers and just as we thought the movie would begin, the house lights went on, the curtain came down and a male voice began talking about the ad we saw a few minutes ago…. “Hey, that ad to do with skin cancer … was pretty nasty. Did he say 400,000 Australians are diagnosed each year with skin cancer? That’s like 2,000 cinemas like this full of people! They reckon that even short periods of time in the sun unprotected – like the length of the movie we’re about to show – could cause irreversible damage to your skin. So I guess the doctor was right …”

I looked around a saw that most people were listening intently, some nudging each other or simply sitting with puzzled expressions on their face. At the conclusion of this audio-only piece the room went black, the curtain went up and the movie promptly began.

A clever, unexpected piece of cinema advertising and an effective part of the government’s marketing communications mix executed well by the teams at UM and Val Morgan. We certainly took the government’s advice that afternoon at the local pool!

Do you notice the ads in the cinema? How effective do you think they are?

Flicking through the sports section of the weekend paper I was held up by something unusual. At first I didn’t know exactly what it was. Was it the unorthodox ‘fireplace’ format that runs across two pages? Or was it the vastness of the ‘hard working white space’ in the ad? I’d been involved in both of these techniques before so it can’t just be these. There must be more to it. 

Ah hah! Then I realised that unlike regular newspaper ads this did not have a border. Subtle at first, it only took a split second for me to work out that it was an ad for a “Borderless” TV, but it was this split second challenge that had me engaged. In the heavily cluttered world of newspapers, this little example of media innovation was enough to arrest me, make me smile and get me interested in the new product, even when I am not in the market for a telly just now.

The media placement also added to the overall effectiveness of this marketing communications strategy. Newspapers are a highly relevant context in which to display interesting new products, and with Tiger Woods in town the golf pages would be heavily read. Also according to Morgan Plasma/LCD buyers are 32% more likely to play golf than the general population, and over 20% of them watch it on the telly, so a strong target audience composition amongst golf fans.

Great use of press, but unfortunately when I jumped on the web site  the TVs displayed have more borders than Mexico!  You have to dig pretty deep to find any tellies that look remotely borderless which is a bit disappointing given the cleverness of the print campaign. Perhaps a video on the site (and on youtube) showing the telly in action from different angles?

Andrew Mudgway (no “e”) joins us today, 17 years after he began his career in advertising with George Patterson Bates. Mudge (with an “e”), as the industry knows him, has worked his way through Patts, DDB, OMD, Zenith Optimedia and latterly Austereo. Now at the sagacious age of 37 he has seen the wisdom of joining FRANkVizeum.

Clearly a smart guy Mudge’s forte is marketing communications and brand strategy. In addition to being responsible for the Carsales Network portfolio of sites including homesales.com.au Mudge will also have a senior role in helping to run the FRANkVizeum business.

We’re very happy to have Mudge onboard and we’d ask you to join us in wishing him every success.