Category Archives: brands

Dodge Dart television commercials

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Quick-witted, energetic and amusingly excessive, Wieden + Kennedy’s TV campaign for the Dodge Dart has quietly become one of the most entertaining on the air. Now, agency and client are bringing some of that fresh perspective to the social space with the Dodge Dart Registry, an online program that lets friends and family buy bits and pieces of the vehicle for you—much like a wedding registry allows them to buy you housewares.

–AdWeek article posted January 23, 2013

 

The Dodge Dart television spots are great.  They are memorable, believable, and entertaining, but the online registry part of this campaign is what is really clever and smart because it:

  • will lead to viral marketing via social media,
  • reinforces the Dart brand image of innovation (all the Dart broadcost spots, the Dart product design, the way it was promoted, and now the way you can buy the car, are all innovative)
  • will lead to greater market education of product features (consumers who create and buy from the registry look at the car in terms of it’s individual parts)
  • will maybe even lead to people buying cars in this way.

Pretty darn clever!

Government Solutions Group gives consumer brands an alternative marketing medium

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Government Solutions Group (GSG) helps cash-strapped state parks hook up corporate brands to sponsor public park improvement projects, providing brands with the opportunity to demonstrate the brand’s values to its target consumers.  Below are my takeaway’s from the AdAge article that reported on the GSG and its recent partnerships with Coca-Cola, Odwall, and Juicy Juice.

Odwalla’s and Juicy Juice’s campaigns were smart and good, but Coca Cola’s achieved something even greater in terms of brand engagement.  Coca Cola’s campaign actively involved the consumer as a partner in the brand’s effort.  Such “playing on the same team” I think results in the consumer developing a deeper connection to the brand.

These campaigns make the most sense I think because they are obviously reinforcing the brand’s values, which are shared by their target audience, but the also make sense from a numbers perspective.    In sponsoring these environmental projects, the brands affect a physical space that will be visited by their target consumer for years.  Eventually the same number of eyeballs will see the work of the brand in these environmental projects as are seen in a superbowl ad, but the dollar cost will be far less as well.  For $350,000, these brands are spending far less than they would on a 30-second superbowl commercial.

Bottomline for me though is that the brand is communicating more effectively with their target market that the brand’s values are the same as those of their target consumer.

 

Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign and “Jogger” commercial

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Nike’s Find Your Greatness. — Jogger commercial  is a great ad.  It is one ad in a series for the “Find Your Greatness” campaign, which tells us that greatness is about the spirit within and pushing ourselves to our own individual limits.  Greatness in athletic pursuits is not about being faster or better than someone else; it is about being better than you were yesterday.   Endurance athletes generally know this well.  When we practice and compete, we are battling ourselves, our own will, and our own endurance more than we are that of someone else.  We must conquer what is happening in our own bodies and minds if we wish to compete against someone else.

Nike is a great brand, and there is nothing wrong with their supporting the Olympic gold medalists; but with this ad campaign, Nike wonderfully reminds us that sport and exercise is for everyone; and that we all compete against ourselves; and that we are our most important competitor.