Sipho Mabona is an origami artist. Origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper folding, can create stunning video commercials when combined with stop motion recording. This video, created for Asics by Sipho’s company Mabona Origami, won several international prizes.
Bagvertising isn’t new, I’ve seen it many times before, but the results are often very nice.
Just like this one for example:
Although I like this example, I seriously doubt that the optical illusion is as good in real life as it is in these pictures. If the optical illusion is any good you can be sure of two things:
a) this bag will turn some heads when an old lady walking down the street is carrying it.
b) a lot of people are going to want one of these bags.
I like this campaign for the Vancouver Police Museum. Especially because I recognize myself in it and recognition is always a guarantee for success: in music, in movies and also in advertising.
When I drive home from the movie theatre, after seeing a movie with lots of fast car chases, you can bet on it I’ll put my pedal to the metal: full throttle all the way home! That feeling is just what advertising agency Cossette West tries to put in these ads and in my opinion they surely succeed in it.
This second one from a series of 3 print ads is less powerful I think; It doesn’t look natural and it’s not spontaneous enough.
The viral that got the most views and the most buzz was this clip of Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard shooting at clay pigeons with his teammate Xabi Alonso at the Liverpool training pitch. Advertising agency 180\TBWA Amsterdam claims that they didn’t use any kind of computer manipulation for this clip. For some people that’s good enough to believe Gerrard actually hit the pigeon. But I’m not some people, I don’t believe it!
The camera phone effect should contribute to the credibility of the clip but for me it does exactly the opposite. The effect should make us believe that this video isn’t staged by Adidas (or it’s advertising agency), that Gerrard and Alonso are just kicking footballs at clay pigeons for a few hours and that a fan was filming this the entire time with his cellular phone. For me it would be more convincing if they dropped the amateur look. It would be more credible if Adidas just came clean and admitted that it’s partly staged: that they asked Gerrard to shoot at clay pigeons for a commercial, just hoping he would hit one after a few tries and that he actually did it eventually.
In France Adidas gave us some better stuff: they put French goalkeeper Steve Mandanda in the showroom of the Marseille Adidas store. Actually it wasn’t the real Mandanda, it was a holographic clone of the goalie. The ad agency also put a Making Of clip online, which is pretty smart because the holographic goalkeeper now leads a second life on the internet. As far as I’m concerned, this trick is way better than the 4 other virals combined.
Secretary’s Day is approaching! Belgian electricity operator Electrabel has launched a website that lets bosses produce a mini-opera for their secretaries. A florist sings a personalized song with the name of the secretary in it. Available in Dutch and French.
By the way, did you know that Secretary’s Day was created by a marketeer? Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam launched the idea in 1952. In the US the concept is now known as “Administrative Professionals’ Day“. This year it falls on 23 April. In Europa it’s still called “Secretary’s Day” and it’s celebrated on 17 April.
What makes this billboard at Leipziger Platz in Berlin so special is not so much its panoramic format nor the 50 kilowatts of lighting. No, it’s the giant size, 5,000 square meters, and what you see behind the poster. The building-under-construction supporting the billboard was covered with lots of synthetic turf.