2 years ago
Thanks to Mashable for the h/t on this campaign.
Many of you have seen the video above circulating around the Internets of late. What a great example of creating an experience that aligns with a brand’s core value (i.e. VW is more fun to drive) without it feeling contrived or forced. Hats off to VW and DDB Stockholm for using a social media channel in YouTube to push a brand agenda to support a microsite.
I haven’t, and doubt I ever will see, an actual paid placement supporting this campaign, but that didn’t stop nearly 2 million people from viewing the first of a series of Fun Theory videos.
Most “viral” campaigns rub me the wrong way from the start. This one, however, is straight up delightful.
2 years ago
Apple may not have exclusive rights to tastefully integrated, high impact custom rich media executions with tier one publishers, but they may be the best at it. Following up on their Mac vs. PC TV commercial extensions into the online display space, Apple has once again recreated their TV campaigns online.
There are two things I really like about Apple’s approach to their display campaigns.
- Extend your TV brand creative online for reinforcement and engagement. Don’t put different messages in different mediums, use consistent messaging across your brand campaigns to reinforce the message. There are plenty of companies that use the same imagery, fonts and language in their static display campaigns as they do on TV, but Apple excels at bringing the intangible emotional connection to an audience that a great TV campaign can induce along with the nuts and bolts of the design.
- Leverage the 1:1 relationship with the publisher in custom and tasteful ways. We saw how an egregious site skin can be so damaging to the publisher’s brand identity on their own site in Tim’s most recent post. Apple integrates their brand into CNET in a creative way that plays with and off of CNET’s brand identity (i.e. the Red Ball) that adds value to the CNET brand as well as the advertisers. This is an example of 1+1=3.
Thoughts on Apple’s online executions? Anything that you would do differently?
As a publisher, where do you draw the lines between playful and positive interaction with your brand and the advertiser’s content and a potentially negative brand experience?
