It's incredible but true, folks. According to their latest campaign, the technical guys at Coke have done it. A soft drink without ANY SUGAR IN IT AT ALL.

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather. I thought every can of drink had to contain at least a bag of sugar. And that's really bad for you. But unbelievably, these guys have finally cracked it. I take my hat off to you.

Actually, I don't. At the risk of sounding like a retired major from Surrey with nothing better to do with his day than write in complaining about the bad language on TV, I was outraged.

Is this entire campaign really based on the line "It's possible?" We already know about Diet Coke, a drink with absolutely no sugar in it. So we know it's possible. And we don't need telling, especially with the self-satisfied tone that Coke have adopted in this campaign.

OK - I'm being a little disingenuous here. I understand they are targeting the male demographic with Coke Zero, because Diet Coke is a bit of a girl's drink [apparently]. That's all fine and good, and I wish them luck. But does this positioning really warrant such a bold proclamation that it's now "possible" to produce a Coke without sugar? Male drinkers may not be the principal target of Diet Coke, but they know about it.

In fact, they have known since 1982, when it first came out, and therefore may resent - as I did - being told in such a patronising way that they have done it. Again.

In fact, if they think sugar-free Coke it is such a big thing, I'm considering getting in touch with their marketing department and letting them in on a few more amazing developments. For example, we can now record TV programmes and watch them later. Amazing but true. We have electric cars and portable phones. We can store an entire record collection on something no bigger than a matchbox.

These things were amazing, but aren't now. And that's why we don't need Coke to tell us. Could they have found a better way to advertise the benefits of Coke Zero to their target audience? Now that really is possible...


DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author alone and do not represent the views of Base One. But if Base One could talk, I have a feeling it would agree.

These days web users are savvier than ever. Chances are that when you're surfing, you'll ignore banners and other online advertising so much that you hadn't even realised what they were trying to communicate - or possibly that they were even there. This, of course, makes the role of the online advertiser a lot more challenging.

 

Interactive banners are an attempt to stop this happening and catch the user's attention. They're capable of expanding, containing input fields or even interacting with the content within the page. And they're becoming more and more elaborate as their capabilities extend much further than an animated gif within a letterbox banner.

The World Cup is fast approaching - and there’s no hiding from it. For weeks before a ball is even kicked, the free wall chart promotions, the media hysteria and St George’s Cross flags hanging out of every other car make sure that, when it eventually begins, everyone with even the slightest interest in the national sport is struck down with football fever.

And in the same way that the build-up to Christmas wouldn’t feel like the build-up to Christmas without the Coke adverts, the World Cup wouldn’t feel the same without a big-budget, overblown Nike TV advert.

First they gave us Eric Cantona saying au revoir to the devil, then they treated us to some Brazilian flair in the departure lounge. And now we have the Write The Future ad, created by ad agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, previously responsible for Hollywood blockbusters Babel and 21 Grams.

A main ingredient to these Nike ads is usually a selection of the world’s best footballers, and this ad doesn’t disappoint. Ronaldinho (who, amusingly, didn’t even make the Brazil squad), Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribery and Cristiano Ronaldo all star.

The full-length version was aired during the Champions League final and, despite being more entertaining than the final itself, has already drawn criticism from some quarters. The Guardian saw it as more of a triumph of huge budgets than creative talent. A big budget helps, but there’s no denying it’s another very impressive ad.

The way it draws on the thin line between success and failure is an interesting concept. One mistake can certainly define a footballer’s legacy. (Unless, of course, you’re David Beckham, who successfully turned from pantomime villain into national hero.) Similarly, one moment of skill, or perhaps fortune, can not only elevate that player to god-like status, but also have a massive effect on all elements of popular media - from traditional print media to digital platforms like YouTube.

The ad successfully avoids feeling overly sentimental, and despite being action-packed, is also quite funny. (Perhaps solely because one would suspect that if Wayne Rooney wasn’t a multi-millionaire footballer, he probably would be slightly overweight with a wild ginger beard.)

Write The Future goes social

If the TV ad doesn’t float your boat, the Write The Future campaign has spread to social media. Nike are running a competition in which fans can write a message that will be stitched to Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole’s boots in South Africa. Supported by both Sky Sports and The Sun, it uses a Facebook app to let fans see what their message would look like on their chosen player’s boots.

Will those words have any effect this summer? We’ll have to wait and see.

Many male readers will sympathise about having to miss an important football match because of other engagements. (If you’re as sad as me, you’ll have all the fixtures in your diary so you check before you agree to do anything). Those less keen on football find it hard to understand how missing a football match can be such a big deal.

JWT used this common disagreement to their advantage in this very clever campaign for Heineken.

Over 200 accomplices were used to trick 1136 Italian students, boyfriends and journalists into missing a vital Champions League fixture: AC Milan versus Real Madrid. Much to their annoyance, they would spend an evening watching a combination of poetry and classical music. Little did they know that they would be in for a big surprise - and it would be broadcast to 1.5 million people.

Watch the video below to see the results.

It’s time to reveal something we’ve kept a bit of a secret over the past few months.

For Powwownow, one of our clients, Base One created - and starred in - a series of viral movies aimed at creating a buzz around the Powwownow brand.

The videos were filmed as if they were real CCTV footage retrieved by Powwownow, depicting office workers using unique ways to ‘repurpose the meeting room.’

One video showed a clumsy secret golfer putting the end of his golf club through a wall, one starred some sneaky office workers playing table tennis on the meeting room table while another starred a couple having a romantic liaison under the meeting room table.

So far the videos have had thousands of downloads on video sharing sites such as YouTube, Daily Motion and Facebook - and view counts continue to grow, months after they were uploaded.

They’ve even sparked up a bit of debate on the comments section of YouTube and on Twitter. The more web savvy viewers weren’t fooled: they were quick to point out that videos were all viral marketing, not real CCTV footage. Others weren’t so sure. And whether they thought the clips were real footage or not, judging by many of the comments and the amount of views to date, the viewing public certainly found them amusing.

And that’s what they’re about, really: a bit of fun.

But as well as being great fun to make, the videos go to show that you don’t need a big budget and a host of stars to make waves online. Just a simple concept backed up by some well executed and edited video recording made this viral campaign such a success. People who hadn’t previously heard of Powwownow started talking about the brand and traffic to the Powwownow site steadily increased as the popularity of the videos grew.

So watch out, Hollywood! The time of the viral stars has come.

Watch the videos for yourself on Powwownow’s YouTube channel.

About three weeks ago, following massive objections by working mothers, the Outdoor Advertising Association ordered the withdrawal of an outdoor campaign, the first creative of which read "Career women make bad mothers".

Naturally, as a career woman/working mother myself, you can imagine my initial reaction in seeing a billboard with such a slogan plastered all over London! But at this point I thought, 'NO, NO...I won't give in to this...it is clearly supposed to raise a storm and I won't give them (the 'creative' agency) the satisfaction of showing my anger...'

But then, a week ago, I went to a dinner party, and lo and behold, what was the subject that we debated and argued about for an entire hour and half? You guessed it. The time had come to speak out.

 

 

With the London Olympics on the horizon and the World Cup only a few months away, there are reams of evidence that we truly are a sports mad nation. Ever since I first worked on the Samsung brand, I came to realise just how sacred sports sponsorship can be to a company. The scrum for Chelsea tickets was a sight to see, and that's before their agencies got anywhere near them! This scene reverberated across many of my clients - Land Rover and English rugby, B & Q and sailing and Vodafone and cricket, the list goes on...

There has come a point (and it crept up slowly so I couldn't tell you exactly when it happened) when I've stopped trying to pretend that advertising didn't have an effect on me.

I expect that advertising has always had the largely sub-conscious effect that marketing agencies intended, but I've recently also realised that good marketing can have an entirely conscious effect when I make a decision about buying a product.

Take this advert for Chivas Regal; a premium Scotch whisky.

I am probably a pretty good target audience for them: I have never tried Chivas Regal, but I do like Scotch, and spend a reasonable amount of money on it, so I could probably be convinced to buy a couple of bottles of Chivas a year. On the other hand, there are plenty of whisky brands out there, and I am fairly loyal to a handful of producers, so it may take something special to make me try anything new.

This advert has probably done it, and yes, I'm quite happy to admit that I have been convinced to buy an expensive and untried product simply on the basis of a cynical marketing campaign which makes no mention of the quality of product itself.

Why? Well, because the advert does exactly what the ad agency intended, and it taps in to a sentiment which I like and approve of, and which strikes a chord with me. Do I really believe that drinking Chivas will make me a handsome, cultured, horse-riding, dinner-jacket-wearing fireman who carries bridesmaids through puddles in the rain? No, of course not, I expect drinking Chivas will make me drunk, but that's not the point. The point is that Chivas Regal have managed to make me believe that their values align with my own, and that alone is enough for me to want a bottle of it on my drinks cabinet.

More than anything, perhaps, this campaign is a testament to the power of knowing your market, and making them want to be associated with you.

Take a look at this TV commercial:



An advert using all the classic cinematic storytelling techniques - setting the scene, the build up, the tension, the twist, the reveal, with a bit of comedy and branding peppered in for good measure.

How important is it for an advert to entertain? And are these television commercials with immensely high production values wasting money and getting ahead of themselves?

Sometimes I feel uninspired. There's nothing I can do about it. Creativity doesn't work office hours. The problem is, I do. So I've found a way to uncreatively be creative, a simple structure to come up with an idea. A way to brainstorm without the brain!

It's a simple formula that anyone can use...