Skribe Productions » australia

The Ad Song

skribe — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:43:23 +0000

Australian commercial mashup.

Make Those Bodies Sing A Narrative

skribe — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:45:09 +0000

Fourteen years ago The Australian Banana Growers introduced a commercial that captured the essence of what it meant to be a happy and healthy child in Australia. It featured children running, playing, swimming intercut with various shots of bananas. The message: Bananas are good for your children so feed them lots.

The commercial is a good example of the type but what sets it apart is that a few years later they made a follow-up, revisiting some of the kids in the original commercial. Well they’ve done it again and this time those kids are fully grown adults. The message: Happy, healthy kids grow up to be happy, healthy adults. This is a great demonstration of how you can renew a successful marketing campaign by creating a narrative.

Humans love stories. Especially success stories. Creating believable characters in believeable situations allows the audience to identify and form a relationship. If that relationship is a favourable then the audience is more likely to adopt a favourable identity towards your brand. You don’t even have to start out with a narrative in a marketing strategy. I’m certain that the Australian Banana Growers didn’t. But you can tweak an existing campaign and breathe new life into it. Once you have established characters that the audience like then why not use them. After all nothing sells like success.

One of the pitfalls in creating a narrative, however, is becoming too didactic. Having your characters waxing lyrically about the benefits of your brand. When creating your narrative it is better to be subtle. Show don’t tell. Even when the original is didactic you can create a subtle touch and create an emotional bond between the characters and the audience. Consider the example of the 1956 Aeroplane Jelly commercial featuring the girl on the swing

Now imagine a hypothetical follow-up of that commercial featuring that same girl, now a grandmother, surrounded by her children and grand-children all singing the song. The original commercial is a ideal example of didacticism at its unsubtle worst. But with the follow-up that is masked by the narrative. We like finding out what happens to the characters after the story has ended. especially if it’s a happy story. By conveying a happy family the commercial is generating a subtle favourable emotional attachment to the brand by building upon the nostalgia of the original rather than just rehashing it.

Narratives should be an important feature of any marketing campaign. They’re the easiest way to create emotional bond. After all buying is an emotional issue.

Seven is about seven years too late

skribe — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:55:32 +0000

The Seven Media Group, who control the Seven television network in Australia, recently announced a partnership with TIVO to introduce digital video recorders into the Australian market. Those in the US and Canada will know about TIVO, the company having been offering digital television recording since the late 90s.

Tivos are suppose to revolutionise the Australian television industry because they will allow consumers to record television programmes and play them back at a later time. You know, like you used to do with VCRs and, now with, PVRs. The Australian industry has long resisted the introduction of digital recorders. They even sued to prevent the publishing of their programme guides. But now, with changing viewer habits and rapidly declining revenue streams Seven has been forced to act. Unfortunately, for Seven and the other networks, it’s too little too late.

The problem is that the Tivo is old tech. It was great when the networks were the only distribution system for your favourite television programme. However, now most tech-savvy fans download their shows from peer-to-peer sites, often years in advance of the shows been broadcast in Australia. Even better the downloads come sans commercials. And despite the measures of the MPAA and their ilk, this method of distribution only seems to be on the increase. Australia has the highest number of users per capita downloading tv shows in the world.

Commercial television is in a major flux. Audiences and subsequently revenues are declining across the board. It’s clear that what was once a cash-cow is now under serious threat. But for the most part the industry only has itself to blame. It has been slow to adopt new technologies and as a result consumers are looking elsewhere for their entertainment. The industry needs to completely re-educate and remodel itself otherwise it risks irrelevance.