Check out this Holiday Inn commercial featuring three corporate dweebs capping on a female cohort’s blog. It’s not participation with a blog, but it’s certainly acknowledgment of the power of blogging and the significance of viral video in the blogging community.

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Creating a powerful advertisement is tough… really tough. One approach would be to keep the ad to a simple powerful title, a sentence of small descriptive text (just enough), and one reeeeallly powerful image that combines something unexpected with something a little shocking. Here’s one:

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When writing ad copy, knowing it’ll be translated into a foreign language, you have to stay on your toes. Derrick Daye, with Branding Strategy Insider, shares some brand trivia which includes some of these gaffes:

In Spanish, Colgate can be translated into “Go hang yourself”

KFC translated it’s tagline “Finger lickin’ good” into Chinese for the first time and it came out as “Eat your fingers off.”

Pepsi translated it’s tagline “Pepsi gives you life” into Chinese and it meant “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”

Here are a few more …

Chevrolet’s Nova flopped in Mexico because it means “No go”

Similarly, the Ford Pinto failed in Brazil because Pinto is slang for “tiny male genitals”

A Parker Pen ad slogan, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you” was translated for the Mexican market as “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

Frank Perdue’s slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish (Mexico) as “It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.”

Let me tell you, I am DEFINITELY gun shy about translating our tagline “Go nuts”!

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Although the tagline “Think different” evolved from the former “The power to be your best”, you still get the strong sense of how Apple connects with people. The rebellious, do things different than the masses idea. Click to watch this classic commercial;

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My post about GMs assembly line robot was misunderstood by some which led to my clarification that I don’t endorse GM’s decision to create such an ad … but do encourage that type of bold, emotion-based ad development strategy. They just picked the wrong emotion to tap into …€” suicide, dispair, fear.

Now consider;

• VW Polo: Suicide Bomber
• Electrolux: Suicide Jumper
• VW: Suicide Jumper
• Career Builder: Cliff Jumping
• Levi’s Jeans: Train Track Girl
• Washington Mutual: Mass Suicide Jumpers
• Bridgestone Tires: Dog Suicide
  

Let’s consider that this trend may NOT be mass hysteria. There may be a logical reason for all of these commercials … whether we agree with it or not. Case in point; In September of 2005 VW fired long time Boston agency Arnold Worldwide and signed up (hopefully more aggressive) Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami. CP+B is known for taking these kinds of “in your face” risks in the development of ad campaigns. There’s no such thing as “bad press”, right?! As long as the ad gets talked about, it’s a sound approach. That’s dangerously logical.

As much as we believe in a hyper-aggressive, jolting approach (as one possible strategy), we also think the emotions you shock with are as important as the shock-value itself. Take another look at a CP+B classic;

VW Jetta: Safe Happens ad campaign

The emotion is “relief” …€” all summed up in the words cut off at the end of the commercial “HOLY SH..!” This shocker ad celebrates life … it doesn’t dwell on the darker side of suicide. Big difference, don’t you think?

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When designing logos for a client, I always explain that simplicity in design is tough. It’s much harder to pull off a simple, elegant design than it is to create a complex one. In a similar vein, marketing and advertising concepts are the same. Simple; hard. Complex; easy.

A couple of weeks ago, Lani Voivod wrote this scathing comparison of Toshiba’s magazine ad to the popular “I’m a PC, and I’m a Mac” ad campaign. This morning, after finding this post at Scootinger.net, from a 1996(!) MacAddict Magazine ad, I start to wonder. Are either, or both, of the new ads a blatant rip-off? … or is it a coincidental use of a similar, simple idea? The world may never know.

Important note; If you’re going to create “simple”, pay particular attention to the possibility that your idea isn’t new. In fact, it may be so “NOT new” that it crosses the line of trademark infringement.

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Note the way the title of this post was written. Now, take a look at this New York Times Ad called “Viewers Fast-Forwarding Past Ads? Not Always“. The key factoid in the article is that users of digital video recorders (like TIVO) don’t always time-shift their viewing and don’t simply skip past the commercials … to the tune of 40%.

I suppose that’s ONE way of looking at it (40% commericials are watched). But, the MUCH more significant perspective …€” at least from an advertiser’s point of view …€” is that a whopping 60% of the commercials are NOT being watched!

Like it or not, the world is changin’ … and right quick! Are you an advertiser? If so, what are you going to do about this?

Dig deeper into the article and you find out about tactics like;

• Running ads while fast-forwarding is taking place
• Running ads as marquees at the bottom of the screen
• Asking viewers if they would like to see an ad after the show is over

I understand WHY these attempts are made, but can’t the advertisers see that these tactics are just bucking the specific efforts of the viewer to NOT see their interruptive commercial in the first place?

The world of commercial advertising is going to have to get VERY creative … in a hurry … to overcome this trend…. Embracing relationship building, evangelism and great customer care are just a couple of steps in the right direction.

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