Two months ago, in Prague, it opened the Communism Museum. The uniqueness
of this museum is that makes you intimate with History – or, at least, is what
they say.
That idea is mostly stated in the advertisement campaign when the
opening of the museum:
Through this three pictures, we have a glimpse of that message: by
having Stalin with women or Marx cutting his nails, scenarios in which we would
never imagine the these three figures of communism, we can the perception that
actually we are going to be in contact with more information about Communism;
you can actually be in touch with History in a way that you never were.
In the end, it’s a way of showing how this is not just one more museum,
but something more; you get a different perspective about History and its
participants.
Actually, it’s a bold campaign: putting in the centre of your campaign
figures so controversial as Stalin, actually expecting a good outcome from it,
it’s not what you could expect. But we are talking about a museum, and these
are the central figures of Communism. In a way, we can also get the idea that
we are going to see these figures with new eyes, besides the knowledge we get
from school.
Probably, this is where the target gets in: people who really want to
know about History, more that the common sense or the History classes. In that
way, this museum appears to be the solution.
Besides, it has a humorous side, although playing with these characters
and humour, once again, can be a tricky thing.
Nevertheless, it’s a different way of getting people to know what you
have to offer. For a museum, this is probably the boldest campaign I came
across with; it’s different and not common. If more effective or not, I don’t
know, but I definitely became curious.
A month
ago, a Turkish shampoo brand launched a commercial which arouse some criticism:
In this
commercial, we can see an adaptation of one of Hitler’s speeches, in order to
tell people how, to be a real man, one must use the Biomen shampoo. This way,
Biomen shampoos are relating the image of the real and strong man with Hitler
and his ideas. This kind of connection caught attention to a lot of experts and
buyers (especially Jews), for the wrong reasons: "It's totally
unacceptable to make use of Hitler, the most striking example of cruelty and
savagery," said the Turkish Jewish Community.
For this matter, we know that the
brand tried to use Hitler’s image as a mockery, following the idea of the “Hitler
reacts to…” videos (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can always
search “Hitler reacts to” in Youtube and pick one example. I’ll leave you one
right here). The thing is, the brand didn’t realize that their message could be
taken the wrong way: having Hitler telling you that if you want to be a real
man, you have to buy Biomen, it could not have the same result in everyone.
Some might find it funny, others (like the Jewish Community, as we were able to
see) may feel strongly offended with that connection.
Each brand should know,
not only their target, but also who could possible get in touch with their ads.
In this case, even if the usage of this character resulted in the brand being
talked about everywhere, the thing that were being said about it weren’t that
positive. A few days after the campaign being launched, the commercial was off
the air. For the online comunity, it was a Youtube phenomenon , with 414152 vies. But, for what we
know, it might have worked: the youtube video got 779 likes and only 518
dislikes. If the young people in Turkey think just like the ones who rate
Youtube videos, maybe the brand was right after all and the commercial did
work. All in all, bad publicity it’s still publicity.
We got to the point that it's needless to say that marketing can be used in all sort of campaigns. Football is no exception. In it’s own way, a football match is a product that must be sold – the tickets are one of the most important sources of profit and, if the team is not popular enough, there are also no sponsors. Getting fans to go to the stadium, buy the tickets and enjoy the match it’s a double profit: not only because more tickets are sold, but also because the team gets enough popularity to get the attention of sponsors.
Sporting Clube de Portugal (or, in English, something like Sporting Team of Portugal) is one of the three most important football teams in Portugal. Being one of the most important, it has a large amount of supporters in the whole country and it’s also one of the teams most talked about. During this year, the team has been out of shape, the results are not the expected ones and the supporters are not happy. Last month, the administration hired a new coach, but the supporters continued unsatisfied: the new coach is an old player with no relevant experience in coaching and better results were needed.
This was the administration’s move: (you can check the translation bellow the video)
When a friend calls for help, what do you do?
When there’s a tear in someone’s face, can you make him smile?
Or do you choose night if the day turns out wrong?
Have you forgotten the day Alvalade (Sporting’s stadium) received you for the first time, next to the one who taught how to love and to be loved?
Have you forgotten the goals that made you jump, that stole your voice, that made you dream… Have you already forgotten who taught you what it is to be distinctive or you forgot what it is to honour a history that taught you, that to win, you need to fight? Or maybe you’re forgetting that there is the Jamor’s battle (a Portuguese football competition) to win, and that it’s not only in the past that Europe has your name carved on.
Or do you rather quit, forget that there is an honour to defend because this is our time to discover who is loyal, to remember that only Sporting has Portugal in its name?
Because this is the moment to give a sense to loyalty, to accept the honour for which you were chosen, so today we can believe that there is no biggest strength than the heart that makes you scream, the far roar that remembers you that, if you’re a lion, you don’t cry if you’re losing but you fight until death!
And you, do you have a lion’s heart?
First of all, I’m sorry for the Portuguese ad. The fact is that I found interesting how all we learnt can be applied, even in such a thing as football and this video is an example of that.
As you can see though the video and the narrative, the main target of this ad are the fans, the ones who truly support Sporting. With this video, the administration wants to reach to the supporters who really are there to help the team to go further, to create the need to believe in the team again because it already gave to the fans so many good moments. The ad was shoot in tones of green, not just because it’s the team’s colour, but because it’s also the colour of hope and hope is what they need; they the support of the true fans, who fight strongly with the team, not only when it’s up, but mainly when it’s down.
We can say that the Sporting’s administration is selling the brand with an emotional link to the fans – it’s the team to gives us all the good moments and feelings we can remember, who taught us what it is true support. In a way, you can see how the message goes against the critics that the team has been receiving: you’re only a true fan if you still believe in what we can achieve as a team and, if you don’t, if you don’t remember, you’re not a true supporter. Even the fact of choosing the new coach to say the last words, to ask to the fans if they are true supporters, it’s a way of maintaining that position of “you can say whatever you want about our decisions and our performance, but if you were a true fan, you would not criticize us as much”. It’s not only about selling the brand, but also about giving a perspective of what the brand thinks of itself and what it stands for.
To complete the message that the big victories are not just in the past but also in the future, the administration promoted a single game against Manchester City with a new video (you can see it here, but it’s in Portuguese, again). It talks about past victories when no one believed that the team could win and asks fans if they still believe in victory, again speaking to the supporters and if asking if they continue to believe in their team.
Concluding, marketing can also be a way of responding to the critics and give a new image of a brand. After all the criticisms and bad choices, Sporting shows itself with a new message - that the future can be as bright as the past, that fights against adversities without quitting and its true fans do the same. It creates a connection between team and supporters, leaving players aside - the important thing is the support, the soul, the heart.
Born in the 60’s in Guiné, Fula is a brand of oil with natural and vegetable components. Regardless of their healthiness, all the range of Fula products, up until two years ago, had the same problem as any other brand of oil, and that was the smell that stayed behind after cooking. So Fula and its Marketing and Innovation team came up with a solution: to create oil that was different from all others and didn’t left behind any smell – or, at least, was more subtle in that aspect.
Researchers discovered a compound of essential oils of aromatic herbs that, incorporated in the traditional Fula formula reduced the nasty smell. Next step? Test the product. For a long time, hundreds of house-wives used that new oil. The results were way above Fula’s expectations and the oil should be soon put on the market.
In that respect, this “smelly” campaign was done. Both in a TV add, printed press and outdoors - showing a great range of media presence -, the objective was to get the attention of the consumers – especially Fula’s main target, house-wives – and directly remind them that they could still love fried food at eat it at will without having to deal with the bad smell. The pictures show three members of a family (daughter, mother and grandfather), and the TV ads had even more family members in it. Appealing to the emotional side, bringing up the consumers’ family values - the family dinners and lunches, the ‘get together’ moments…-, and producing a direct and unambiguous slogan (“For the ones who love fried food but hate the smell”) were effective marketing manoeuvres. And of course, there was a dash of humour to the whole campaign, what certainly helped to its massive success.
Queer Lisboa is the only portuguese national LGTB film festival. Once a year, exhibitions of the most relevant creations in the area are held in various and famous theaters and cinemas around Lisbon, providing the opportunity for the grand public to view them (since the access to these movies it's somewhat restricted. For example, I've never seen a outspoken gay movie and a major theater. I suppose that speaks for the ignorance of my fellow contrymen. But that's a whole other subject).
But the festival is more than just the movies - although all the ones being exhibited are in the run for Best Film, Best Short-Film and Best Documentary. Queer Lisboa is also about seminars with the directors, or lectures about a particular country or theme portraited in one of the movies, or even retrospectives about homosexuality in the history of cinema, amongst many other parallel pedagogical activities.
"There's lots of people that simply won't go to Queer because they think they won't like it or aren't ready to see movies with gay and lesbian characters. Which just sounds like prejudice.", explains the co-author of the campaign made to promote the festival in 2011. So then: what to do to fight that prejudice and to get people outside the LGBT community to come to the festival?
Action, science-fiction or road movies served as an insipiration to the making of several publicity spots. The objective? To let the grand and mostly heterosexual public know that, as their slogan states, they have seen more gay movies than they think. The clips above and below were two of those spots, the first one referring to the famous movie Thelma and Louise. Fuel, the company that produced the spots, therefore managed to specialise the product being sold - in this case not exactly a product, but a event - successfuly. These very short clips leave the viewer thinking if, in all truthfulness, most of the movies he or she has seen have gay characters in it, and that there's only one way to find out: going to Queer Lisbon.
"The so called traditional cinema is full of gay characters. The difference is that the ones exhibited at Queer's already got out og the closet" (by Fuel's creative director).
We all know the Muppets: those little fury creatures that we used to see on television when we were younger. I must confess I always loved them, from Kermit the Frog to Miss Piggy or the Cookie Monster.
As you may know, in the end of the last year it premiered a new Muppet movie, with the not that creative name “The Muppets”. As you may also know, before the launch of every movie, there is a marketing campaign attached to it: from posters to trailers and interviews with the professionals involved in the film. For the Muppets movie, there was a different and very original one.
Bellow, you can see some of the posters launched before the premiere of “The Muppets”:
So, you can see what they did: they took a really well known movie poster for the younger people and replaced the main characters with… muppets. Films as “Twilight” or “Captain America” are recent and everyone, from kids to grownups, know these movies but specially kids and even teenagers, who probably didn’t had the same contact with the Muppets as their parents, get to know them and can even get curious about these funny characters. But this wasn’t the only Disney’s idea for the promotion of “The Muppets”:
This video is a parody to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trailer (here, you can watch the original version). Right in the beginning, you can see the statement that they know (the muppets, of course) they’ve been away for a long time, but now, they’re back! Besides, during the campaign, the various characters were guests on shows such as Saturday Night Live or even the Jay Leno Show, programmes made for adults, specifically. So, it's not only for the children, but the parents of those children who always knew who the Muppets are; there is a new movie for you all go to see out there!
All in all, we can conclude that Disney tried to aim their campaign to a considerably wide range of ages: from the kids who are just now getting to know the Muppets to their parents, who grew up with them. We can’t also forget that in every commercial or appearance, all this characters so well known to us showed always a funny and “trolling” side, convincing the potential consumer how amused they’ll be if they choose to see the movie (like we always expect from a Muppets movie). By the end, we just believe that “The Muppets” is the comic movie among all the others who got out at the same time and more recently.
