A new way to advertise the ‘old school’

You can’t really get more old school than a book. So how, in this day and age, can you capture the attention of people with declining attention spans who are addicted to screens and checking their emails?

Bookworld captured my attention on two separate occasions. Now, that may seem pretty normal; we all encounter ads in our day-to-day lives. However, these were two occasions during which I usually am not easily distracted.

The first occasion was around 5:30am on a rainy Sydney morning. I was out for a run. Like all good runners, I religiously use my apps to track my speed, distance and stamina. I take my track record so seriously that I sometimes don’t even stop at intersections (if I’m sure there are no cars coming!). However, on this particular morning, something caught my eye. Bright, simplistic and cheerful, a bus shelter ad seemed to call out to me, “Mates Rates. We’ll beat Amazon by 10%, Guaranteed.” I thought – no way! I sacrificed my best speed and did a double take. When I turned around, I saw that the other side of the ad was full of books! How cool!

The second time happened when I was waiting to load a music video on YouTube. Anxious to get my Beyonce fix, I was irritated at the growing frequency of ads on the website. Usually I hover over the ‘Skip’ button, grinding my teeth as I count down to the moment I am no longer forced to watch. However, this time was different. 10 seconds passed. 20 seconds passed. I was still watching. I had watched the whole video! And it wasn’t a short one either. Totalling in at 1:37min, the ad defies the statistics of our declining attention span. Below is a short version, or you can watch the long version, here.

With their cheerful message and honest approach, Bookworld has done a great job at capturing the interest of potential customers. Due to initial successes, there’s no doubt they will be capitalising on this great way of advertising: creating great interactive moments, moments worth sharing, that encourage word of mouth and conversation around the brand.

Hongi Luo
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at The University of Sydney Business School

And the Oscar goes to…Samsung

If there was an Oscar for Marketing, this year the gold statue would definitely go to Samsung. If you have no idea why this is the case, you must have missed the most tweeted "selfie" of all time. As soon as Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres snapped the celebrity-stuffed selfie, including Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence using a Samsung Galaxy Note, it was nominated as one of the most epic product stunts ever.

 

Reportedly, Samsung was mentioned 40,000 times over Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms while the ceremony was broadcasting. Although Samsung has not been referred to by Ellen DeGeneres in her tweet, the brand reached a top of 900 online references a minute because of the epic selfie. By the end of day, the tweet itself was retweeted over 1.3 million times, breaking the record for the most retweets previously held by President Obama on the night of his second election in 2012.

Despite my absolute addiction to Apple’s iPhone, I have gained a lot of respect for this Samsung marketing stunt. It is speculated the electronic giant spent around twenty million dollars for its entire Oscar sponsorship package. Yet, there is no evidence whether it was a spontaneously taken selfie of Ellen DeGeneres and the mega movie stars, or whether that product plug was carefully designed prior to the moment, but at the end of the day, Ellen’s photo makes every dollar the company spent on its Oscar sponsorship worth it. "Ellen's selfie is going to be more impactful than their commercials. You can't buy that magic of going viral," – said Allen Adamson, Managing Director of Landor Associates - a branding firm owned by WPP PLC, in a Wall Street Journal article.

The Samsung Oscar selfie already has my vote for that gold statue. It is not simply because of the brand’s huge social media success, but because it has actually left me searching for a white Galaxy Note 3. 

Elena Sveshnikova
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Ultra Reality: What would you do in this situation?

LG Meteor Prank
The LG, Korean electronics company created hidden camera prank advertisements to show off the clear image of their HD TV. Unknowing participants showed up to what they thought was a job interview, but were actually walking into the “ultra reality” of the LG TVs. Participants were secretly filmed, and their reactions to the episode have gone viral. LG successfully promoted the great image quality of their TV product.

In the online commercial advertisement, job applicants walk into an artificial office where an 82-inch Ultra HD TV is installed behind the interviewer, disguised as a real window displaying the city landscape. Interviewers begin the job interviews like normal. Before long, a huge meteor and a shining orange light slowly starts to be seen through the fake window by the interviewees. The reaction by all is panic, as the meteor drops and crashes into the city landscape, creating what looks like a huge dust cloud that sweeps over the office. The commercial ends in a comical relief, as participants find out they were only experiencing the "ultra reality" of the LG TVs.

For several years, the excellent image quality of this LG TV has been acknowledged by many certificate authorities such as Intertek (UK) and UL(U.S). Unfortunately, showing off the clarity of the product through a traditional TV commercial proves difficult to the customers watching the ads on their old TV, mobile phone or computer monitor. LG seemed changed its commercial strategy to a viral marketing strategy. The reactions were posted on YouTube and the audience attention was huge. Around 5 million views were recorded in the first five days, with over 10 million views after 3 weeks (23/Sep/2013).

According to the "SCORE" method of analysing advertisements, which I learned in about in my Integrated Marketing Communications class, LG's strategy had a considerable effect of attracting attention from its customer. I believe the key message that LG wants to portray about its product to people is that it achieves a high quality of image, which is very simple and clear. LG realizes it needs to concentrate on what it is good at; crystal clear images. This commercial's target audience could be, I believe, people between 30 and 35 years of age who comfortably use social media and have the economic capability to buy an HD TV.

The method for showing the crystal clear image of the TV was highly creative, which combined a hidden-camera prank with a "movie-like story". LG achieved its true goal of demonstrating the superiority of its product in an unforgettable way.

Joonam P. 
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at The University of Sydney Business School