Publicity Heaven » advertising

Special Bond adverts made me watch the ad break

Paul Green — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:42:21 +0000

Most people that know me are aware I am a James Bond fanatic (and not just when a film comes out. I will admit owning a mobile number that ends in 007).

Last night ITV2 showed Tomorrow Never Dies, the weakest of the Pierce Brosnan films. I never normally watch ad breaks, grabbing a book or making a cup of tea when they are on. But ITV caught my attention and made me watch this ad break by filling it Bond themed adverts only:

Advert for Quantum of Solace itself
The Sony TV advert featuring Daniel Craig as Bond getting blown up
HMV advert for the Best of James Bond CD
The Coke zero zero seven advert
Buy a Bond DVD, get one free at Sainsburys
A Bond themed advert for Intercasino
Scouting for Girls… with a track called “I wish I was James Bond”
Bond Girl 007 fragrance from Avon

Bond-tastic! What a great way to get people talking… about ADVERTS. A pretty tricky thing to do.

It’s all about packaging. None of those adverts were filmed just for that ad break, but they were packaged well. If you spend money on advertising, how can you package your adverts so people notice them more?

Can restricting something make it popular?

Paul Green — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:22:39 +0000

If you can create a perception that there is a restriction on something can that make it more popular?

This new advert of some model writhing in bed has been banned, and now it’s all over the media, getting a load more free exposure than it would have done as an approved advert.

The Fat Duck in Berkshire is an amazing restaurant with a limited number of covers meaning it is constantly booked up three months in advance. The phones go mad every morning as another date is released.

What can you do with your business to restrict something and create a demand?

The cake car advert

Paul Green — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:57:34 +0000

Have you seen the cake car TV advert in the last few days? My wife has been raving about it… a team of bakers build a replica Skoda Fabia, entirely in cake!

A great publicity stunt in an advert, driving lots of word of mouth.

My wife was so impressed she just emailed me details of exactly how the car was made (see below). Pretty impressive for her to pass on a viral email of this kind – great news for Skoda.

So, if you are interested…

Skoda have revealed what it took to put it together…

You must have seen the TV advert where a team of technicians put together a Skoda Fabia made out of cakes, chocolate and other sweet ingredients…

Now, they’ve revealed that it took eight people a week to make a mould of the car. It took another three days just to pour in the cake mix.

Even the cake engine was filled with golden syrup.

If you wanted to make your own, you’d need – amongst other ingredients – 270kg icing sugar, 128 eggs 40kg of milk buttons and 20kg of glace cherries.

Whilst a real driveable Skoda Fabia will only set you back £7,900, the edible version cost half a million to put together.

When adverts create talkability

Paul Green — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 05:02:35 +0000

This is a great example of a good advert that also has a lot of talkability. Sony covered a disused council block in Glasgow with 70,000 litres of paint to sell Bravia TVs. And that advert has just won best commercial at the British TV Advertising Awards (Media Guardian, free registration required).

The talkability comes from the fact they actually did use paint and explosives, and not just some clever digital effects. Fascinating to watch, you can see it here.