Happy Halloween

With the 30th of October just around the corner a deluge of Halloween ads and themed store fronts have been popping up everywhere. Both of these ads for Levi's 501's are from AboveGrey and are written and directed by Ezra J. Stanley.

This video was the winner of Best Commercial Award at the 2009 Burbank International Film Festival.



This ad won the same award this year. It's got a similar vibe, but different ghouls. Again he uses contrasting sounds really effectively.

Stand Up If You Love Fig Rolls

Jacob's have started an humurous ad campaign for their Fig Rolls (not to be confused with McVites Fig Rolls) which involves men and women dressed in skin tight red shiny full-body suits, supposedly representing 'taste buds'. The ad revolves around the taste buds referring to each other as 'buds' and each of them vying for a bit of Fig Roll- which makes their taste buds stand erect...

Taste Buds

Here is the ad...




Jacob's have taken to promoting this campaign under the line by getting groups of people to dress in the taste bud body suits and run around certain busy areas of Ireland promoting the fig rolls. This was caught on Friday on Henry Street, Dublin.



I reckon this is a top notch complete campaign. After I captured the video of 'Stand Up If You Love Fig Rolls', I went back to the office and told all of my colleagues about the unusual awesomeness I had just witnessed. They had all seen the ad on TV and we all immediately started talking about Fig Rolls. This led to one of the girls running off to Tescos to by a pack of fruity biccies. Although they were McVites and not Jacobs.

I think the whole ad strategy is very effective, particularly as it is slightly off the wall which is good for WOM. However, special emphasis needs to be placed on the fact that they are Jacob's rolls and not McVites. It's not clear enough, and a bit confusing. The last thing you want to be doing is spreading WOM for your competitors. Perhaps some more distinct Jacob's branding is needed?

Kit Kat - Catch a Recession Break

This was spotted in the bus stops around Dublin (Ireland; where the Celtic Tiger has been hit harder than most other economies by the recession).

I think it's a unique angle to go for, which actually fits in with the brand's positioning: take a temporary break by chomping down on a Kit Kat choc and stand the chance to catch a permanent break from all your recession-accumulated debt. It's not too exciting, but let's face it everyone turns to a bit of chocolate during hard times.

Crap New Gap Logo

Yesterday standard US clothes supplier Gap unveiled this entirely new logo...

As you can see, it's crap. And the rest of the world tends to agree; with designers and fans everywhere expressing their collective disapproval of Gap's new logo. So much so that there is already a mock twitter account, user-genreated logo competitions and even a Crap Logo Yourself webiste. 

The people (social media) have spoken, and Gap seem to be listening, last night they updated their Facebook status asking for users to submit their own take on a new logo for the company.

So in less than 24 hours Gap have announced a new logo, received a truck load of backlash, and called for a user subtmitted logo's in response- all through power of social media. Impressive.

(Source: Mashable)