As you read this, there is undoubtedly somebody, somewhere
in the world teeing off a golf shot. In reality, there are probably
hundreds of people doing exactly that. And yet, outside of the very few professional golfers out there, everyone is doing so with no fanfare whatsoever. For the most part, golf is a sport played with the general peace and quiet of a wide-open landscape of a course while in the company of just a small number of acquaintances.

Callaway Golf seems to have no interest in the quiet, graceful and classy elements of golf when it comes to their advertisements. They have traded all that for the bright lights, rowdy crowds and excitement that accompanies pretty much everything in Las Vegas. With the mainstream-friendly events of a guy knocking a golf ball across the fountain pond at the Bellagio, Callaway has created a golf atmosphere unseen since the fictional days of Happy Gilmore.

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In only three days, a commercial for MLB 12: The Show is closing in on two million views on YouTube. Such a thing for a commercial is very much out of the ordinary, but then again, so is the content of the video. Thoughts and dreams of “what if my team won the big one” drift through the minds of sports fans everywhere, year in and year out. One baseball franchise has been carrying those thoughts for 103 years and counting, all the while carrying its continually downtrodden, yet fiercely loyal fan base along for the ride.

While a rapid rise to viral status is tough to achieve, a World Series Championship for the Chicago Cubs is something so much more rare. It is through that rarity that Sony captured the attentions and imaginations of that many viewers. On top of just the idea of the Cubs winning a World Series, as unfathomable of an idea as it may be, one can only wonder just how crazy the City of Chicago would really go should that dream be realized one day. The video shows celebrations in all kinds of forms, from mob scenes in the streets, a business man and a priest each expressing joy in their own privacy and even a girl grabbing the a random popcorn vendor in the stadium for a celebratory kiss.

If we learned anything from the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks, that city won’t hold back any excitement for its teams’ successes.  More than two million people were estimated to have crowded downtown Chicago to celebrate the team’s first Stanley Cup title in 49 years. So one can only imagine what 103  years of pent up frustration could do.

While Sony’s commercial for MLB 12: The Show might just be some neat commercial to most baseball fans, for die-hard fans of baseball’s lovable losers, it was almost like a window to a future Cubs fans hope for. It isn’t so much a commercial for Cubs fans, but rather something they all had to see and share with their fellow fans with the hope that someday, that will be them. But even still, as Cubs fans send that video around more and more in the coming weeks, more and more people will get a glimpse of the product Sony has put out there. With a little more digging, they might even come to find that the game is receiving lofty praise from video game reviewers. Suddenly, Sony is on a lot more people’s radars than they were before.

And it all started by tugging on some heartstrings.

When Roots Canada was preparing to launch a new line of clothing behind the inspiration of Douglas Coupland, they took aim at something more than just a simple release of the line to the public. Having always valued a strong online presence, Roots needed to come out of the gate stronger than before with a line they hoped would largely represent what makes Canada, indeed Canada.

Enter Farstar.

Roots brought the Texas-based agency into the fold to team up with Coupland to create something that could create an online buzz to accompany the buzz of the new clothing line. The end result was a website dedicated to the Coupland line of Roots clothing that masterfully blends together audio and visual senses for a web experience that is almost literally eye-popping.

James Connell, Vice President of e-commerce and digital marketing for Roots Canada said, “All of this is an effort to further establish Roots as a pre-eminent digital retailer in Canada. It’s not only about social media and marketing – it’s also about being an online retailer, which we feel that the Canadian market needs more excellence in.”

The site, which can be found here (headphones also enhance the experience), opens with the classic analog TV colour bars before leading into a video intro to the main part of the site’s introduction. Rather than pitch clothes in the video, aspects of what make Canada unique and great are the focus of the introduction. From there, a unique and innovative visual layout provides stunning aesthetic stimulation while tracks of soothing background audio accompany the page’s kaleidoscope-style navigation.

And all of that is just what you see on the surface. Below that surface are videos, artwork and a description of the line’s inspiration, just to name a few things.

“Off the wall good,” is how one Twitter uses described the site. “Superfluously esoteric,” is how another user put the experience into words. Those were the lighter honors for the Roots Canada site too.

The annual Webby Awards given by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences nominated the site as a finalist for the category of Art. Roots found itself in a group of five nominees with the likes of technology giants YouTube and Adobe. Although Adobe eventually took home the Webby Award, landing among the top five websites on an internet that is home to more than 138 million different active domains speaks volumes about how tremendous a site that Farstar had assisted Roots in creating.

The site was also named as the Most Effective Online Brand Awareness Campaign at the Excellence in Interactive Marketing Awards.

When all was said and done, the collaborative and creative efforts of Coupland and Farstar created a website that propelled Roots’ new line to something much more than just a new line of clothing. The promotional efforts became something that had to be seen, and in turn, got that extra exposure for Roots.

So many of the tactics used in marketing in this day and age revolve around knowing your customer. “What kind of products do certain customers buy,” “what appeals to certain people,” and “what can win over new customers,” are all crucial questions that marketers seek to answer.

For retail giant Target, they appear to have perfected the art of (fittingly) targeted advertising. Recent news has surfaced of how exactly their tracking is done, as well as details of certain product purchases that indicate a current situation for customers. Based on certain purchasing patterns, Target uses that data to compile specific sets of advertisements to be mailed out to customers, essentially specifying their mailers to 1 to 1 marketing. The catch is that they’re tactful enough with it that the mailers still appear as a traditional 1 to many marketing campaign, but in reality, they’re customer-specific.

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Without a doubt, the business world is fiercely competitive, and the push to stay ahead of competition is endless. The backbone of communicating what sets a business apart from competition is marketing, which can be executed through seemingly countless strategies over countless outlets. As products and technologies progress over time, keeping customers up to speed on that progress to spark their interest in the nicest and newest products is crucial.

But what if the advertising goes too far past what the majority of people know or understand? What if the knowledge of new technology gets left behind of the hyping new technology? Read More »

Now days, many companys are trying to add real entertainment value to their advertising. You see athletes, music artists, actors and actresses offering their talents and star power to advertising in order to captivate the audience in hopes of making a company stand out.

Then you find a rare instance where a commercial can capture people’s attention purely on entertainment value, leaving them almost entirely unaware that they a product pitch is right in front of them. Usually by the end of such an advertisement, it will come clean as to what it was doing all along. If you can grab full attention from an audience for the first 25 seconds of a 30 second commercial, you’ll retain that interest for those last five seconds when a logo and slogan land on the screen.

Wheat Thins saw an opportunity for such a thing that could get people’s attention in that very way, bringing in Stewie and Brian Griffin from TV’s Family Guy to use one recurring joke of theirs to their advantage. Check out the video below.

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In the marketing world, direct competitors within an industry do whatever they can to make their brand and their product stand out. Once in a while one company will even directly call out a rival company, a move that is often met with criticism. Whether it’s a matter of ethics or fearing a counterattack advertisement, calling out a direct competitor can be a risky move.

When Audi placed a billboard in a high-traffic area of Los Angeles, featuring the Audi A4 and a caption saying, “Your move, BMW,” opportunity for a brilliant counterstrike presented itself.   Read More »

From 2000 to 2009, Chrysler’s domestic auto sales declined by an average of nearly 8.9 percent per year, capped off by drops of 30 and 36 percent in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Things bottomed out for the company with its 2009 declaration of bankruptcy, leaving nowhere to go but up for the Detroit-based car company.

After their total domestic sales were more than cut in half over a two year span, Chrysler saw growth in 2010 for only the third time in more than a decade behind a push to rebuild the company’s image. The biggest splash in that rebuilding process came in the form of a goosebump-inducing commercial during last year’s Super Bowl, centered around the city of Detroit; The blue-collar, hard-nosed, beacon of the American dream known as The Motor City. Rapper and Detroit icon Eminem brought the star power to the commercial, backed by a remix of his 2002 megahit single “Lose Yourself” accompanying images of city landmarks and a description of what makes Detroit special.

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To many people this story is, without a doubt, the greatest sports story ever told. A story so improbable and so seemingly impossible that without video evidence to capture the moment, it would almost be unbelievable. But the cameras were rolling on the night Greece Athena High School’s final home basketball game of 2006, and what they captured was a series of events that made for something of marvel.

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