With a three ring circus including a ringmaster taming wild animals on a TV screen and a knife thrower hurling knives at a woman on a TV screen, Philips has launched the twenty first century's version of HBO's Carnivale.
In a refreshing departure from traditional advertising, Philips has launched a three country circus tour that will put Philips products front and center ring. The approach is to engage customers amusingly with Philips products in a memorable fashion. The show was put together by Philips and FiRe Advertainment, an advertising and entertainment division of Omnicom Group's DDB Argentina.
Busta Rhymes is caught with his pants down in this soon to be launched commercial for Virgin Mobile. The commercial is being pre-released online by U.K. based viral marketing firm DMC and will promote Virgin's new text messaging rate plan.
The campaign's cheeky ads were created by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and directed by Paul Hunter, who has been responsible for directing a number of high-profile music videos for stars including Britney, Madonna and Michael Jackson. 'Bling' - already released on TV - results in Busta literally going down the toilet, while "Butt Naked" features him doing an unwitting striptease for his fans. The online versions of the ads invite viewers to click through to www.bustabutt.com, where they can see each clip and find out more about Virgin Mobile and Busta Rhymes.
In a New York Times article, Stuart Elliott interviewed Zoe Lazarus and Richard Welch who head up a new trend tracking division of Ogilvy. Absolutely nothing new is revealed in this interview and the whole trend tracking movement, while important, comes off as just being all about good 'ol marketing 101: Know Thy Target Audience. Witty repartee included:
"Q. Why has trend tracking become such a trend? Or is it just a fad? A lot of the so-called cool hunters, self-styled experts at spotting trends among younger consumers, seem to be fading away.
Ms. Lazarus: It has maybe been a bit of a fad, but the ideas behind it make good sense. It's good to have advance-warning radar about what's happening among consumers."
Brilliant.
