Ives Spritzer. Advertising blog

This is my Monalisa of advertisements. It has a very special place in my heart. It’s definitely not the first commercial I watched but the first that made my jaw drop. I remember tuning in the specific TV channels that played it and sit through every commercial break just so I could watch it again (Sounds lame but there was no Youtube at the time, ok?!?).

Nike, named after a Goddess itself, turns these soccer players into Gods themselves. This is the epitome of the common use of the “Hero” tone in advertising. Idolatry of super star athletes was taken to a whole new level in the 90’s thanks to commercials such as this one. Same applies to the Michael Jordan ads during this same period. It’s a formula that is successfully used to this day and the sales results because of it are quite attractive.

This ad is simply a synonym of the word “epic”. The fact that people are still watching it (14 million views on Youtube for an ad released in the early 90’s) makes it the perfect example of what every advertiser seeks: a memorable and timeless work of art.

Ives Spritzer

First of all let me explain. This is a print ad for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam, city known for celebrating the wild things in life like everyone is part of “The Hangover” crew. The hotel’s unique selling proposition is that it is a hotel that instead of charging a fortune, will charge you a fair price and allow you to spend your precious money on the finer things in life - the coffee must be amazing for the amount of coffee shops in the city…..The hotel brags about offering awful service, have prison like installations, serving watered down beer amongst other very “attractive” features for its guests. Check out its website: http://www.hans-brinker.com/

But if you’re a tourist in Amsterdam, chances are you are there to have a hell of a time. For a city that takes pride in being different in how it deals with drugs and prostitution, the type of tourists that it attracts will also be different and requires a different treatment. This kind of target market is just there to live the experience so they can go back home with a crazy story to tell their friends. Therefore, staying at this hotel might be the experience these people are looking for.

This applies to the marketing concepts of differentiation and positioning. Don’t you feel like all hotels advertise the same way? If you saw an ad for a hotel but without the actual hotel’s name, couldn’t it apply to every single hotel you ever heard of in your entire life? Same thing happens with ads for laundry detergents. They all send the same message and don’t differentiate themselves from the competition. Therefore, the only way to be positioned is through a boring star scale. Kinda sad, isn’t it?!

The fact that this hotel goes against everything that other hotels try to be and the perfect fit with the Amsterdam careless spirit is the high point of this print ad. 

On a more personal note, I wonder if this kind of hotel became popular. How would they be rated? Since no one would give a crap about the amount of stars, it could get 3.5 in the cockroach scale, for example. Or maybe the puke stain scale. Ok, maybe I should stop writing now…..

Ives Spritzer

Yes the creator of this blog also creates ads. But for now, it’s only been for fun in small university projects. And in the future it will be for the entertainment of the masses :)

This was the first one I ever made. It even includes a cameo of yours truly. It takes a few seconds for it to actually start because we created a little dramatic effect when presenting it in front of the class. Just skip to the 20-second mark if you’re impatient.

I’m not going to be the one reviewing my own work. So if I could have the absolute honor of getting a comment from you on the youtube page, that’d would be amazing.

In the end, all I want is to be happy by making you happy. In other words, I want to be a successful advertiser by entertaining you. I’m a work in progress trying to make it. We’ll see how this dreamer’s dream plays out in the near future.

If not, I can clean pools too. That’s my plan B. Just kidding……    

Ives Spritzer

Let’s talk viral.

Does it get any better than what happened on this campaign?

The more traditional approach will only measure success through sales increase. But now, my friends, we live in the information era. If you have a solid strategy for your product and a good message behind it, the sales WILL come if the message spreads properly. 

In the example above, the sponsorship was created for a sport that almost no one plays or even know about. Why would you risk your brand like that? How do you get success from that? You have to build awareness and have some serious balls!

A viral campaign is awareness’ best friend. 

Fun fact for ad: Topper is actually an Argentinian company. 

Here’s a little bit more from this campaign. You don’t even need to know any portuguese to get it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4aTsp9opDA

Ives Spritzer

As promised here’s a little project I did about Tim Hortons (Canada’s largest fast food chain). I highly recommend looking at other commercial from its campaign - “Every cup tells a story”. It’s advertising at its best.

Ives Spritzer

For those of you who are not from Canada, The Tim Hortons restaurants essentially offer nothing more to their customers than average quality coffee, sandwiches, soups and treats.  However, in the eyes of most Canadians this large food service chain has come to represent a lot more than that. There’s a store in literally every corner of the country and it is beloved by all Canadians. It has essentially become a part of Canadian culture. 

Now that you’re done wiping your tears after watching this commercial, let me explain why the ad is so good. The use of strong imprints! By imprints I mean common experiences of the population that have some sort of emotion attached to it. Think about the people you love the most in the world, try to remember the anxiety of being away from them and the happiness of being reunited. Or think about those mornings when you wake up, open your window and you see no sunlight whatsoever and the strong cold wind makes it seem like it’s hauling the snow horizontally. Sounds familiar? Well, if you’re in Canada it certainly does. The company’s entire ad campaign revolves around commonalities within the Canadian society. The campaign is called “Every cup tells a story” and is based on stories submitted by the customers themselves. 

Something else that is notable about the country is its pride for being so diverse. Such diversity makes it hard to define what its culture is exactly. But for all the population with all the different backgrounds, Hockey and Tim Hortons (named after a hockey player) are two unanimities when it comes to defining what a Canadian Identity is. So airing the commercial for the first time during the Gold Medal hockey game at the Vancouver Olympic games could not have been more appropriate. What a remarkable strategic move!

Also, the use of emotional triggers in the ad to create this connection to Canada is done seamlessly. The notion of family and home are really powerful for all of us. They are associated with comfort (warmth and safety) and self belonging. By linking this feeling of family warmth with buying a nice hot coffee for someone you love and this feeling of self belonging to Canada, the ad shows how brilliant it is.

I absolutely love this campaign myself and I had the pleasure of doing a report on it. My next post will be a little sample of such report and a little opportunity of showing my own work to you guys.

Ives Spritzer

Perhaps it might be a little cliche to start off this blog with a super bowl ad but I always wanted to talk about how I feel about it. This one screams out patriotism. It uses Detroit, a bad ass city, as its main theme. The car’s actual first appearance is in the 27-seconds mark; which, I can imagine, would make some of the more traditional folks at Chrysler a little concerned. I mean, every second of an ad for this event costs around $100,000!!!! (I’m not the one paying for it so I don’t care). And speaking from a spectator’s point of view, I love how most of the footage is done from the perspective of just driving around the city.

At this point the whole world knows about how the American automakers are suffering and how the Japanese are thriving so a little patriotism could definitely help Chrysler. With the whole Recession thing going, it’s been a tough time for everyone. Perhaps another reason why this commercial created the buzz it did is because it was a reality check among all the other Superbowl commercials where everyone is always smiling as they live in the immaculate “happy land”.

So let me get to my main point about this commercial. It’s all about being a bad ass and being triumphant even when the hardship seemed impossible to overcome. And all that can only be achieved with hard work. Now compare this story to Chrysler, Detroit, the sport of Football and Mr. Marshall Bruce Mathers III (aka Eminem) himself. Do they connect or what?!?!?! Even though I’m still trying to get over the fact that a rapper was pitching a sedan that doesn’t seem that special, Eminem’s story and his connection to Detroit fall perfectly into the concept of the ad. Just watch his movie (8 mile) and listen to the lyrics of the song that’s in the commercial (“Lose yourself”). Again, I’m not sure how well he represents the target market for this type of car, but he’s always been extremely connected to Detroit. Maybe the whole idea of rappers and luxurious cars might help out this car’s image a bit; who knows?

But in the end, even if the commercial failed its initial objectives, the quality of the movie-like scenes, the narration and the overall emotion it brings deserves praise. A memorable ad and amazing results for the company because of it - every advertiser’s dream.

Ives Spritzer