Marks & Expensive

Picked up a newspaper today? If so, then chances are that you've seen M&S's premium-position, DPS press roadblock activity running inside front covers in all of the Broadsheets, Mid-markets and Freesheets.

Marks & Spencer's Leading Ladies campaign, endorsed by (from left to right)  Lulu Kennedy, Rachel Khoo, Alek Wek, Rita Ora, Emma Thompson, Annie Lennox and Doreen Lawrence, launched 31st March 2014 to promote the outlet's spring/summer fashion range. 

Four creative executions can be spotted throughout the nation's press today running in The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, i, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Daily Express, Metro and The Evening Standard

Based on rate card costs, the accumulative amount would equate to over £500,000 ..... for ONE day only. So c. £250,000 in real terms ... More money than sense?

That said, it's probably just a drop in the ocean vs the budget they would have spent signing the Leading Ladies to commercially collaborate with them.

We haven't seen a big-money newspaper splash like this since BT Sports' almighty £100m  multimedia campaign launch back in Q3 2013 - which eventually led them into a mighty battle with SKY Sports.  However, fingers crossed that it will be a fruitful summer for M&S, it would be a shame for such a budget to go to waste!

#PurePoint

Past its sell by date..

He has knobbly knees and turned out toes. And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. His eyes are orange, his tongue is black. He has purple prickles all over his back. Oh help! Oh no! It's an 81 day old Gruffalo ad! 

Another sighting of an outdoor campaign that is well past its sell by date.

The Gruffalo is promoted as being ‘Live in the West End’ at the Lyric Theatre until 12th Jan … which was 81 days ago

Campaign over show publicising a show that is in fact over #PurePoint

"Unbelievable"

 

Ok, so the Pepsi Max bus T-side creative is a tad basic, and relatively non-distinct given the almost identical look and feel of the ad to the Coke Zero one currently running as commented on last week .... but the use of the 'Unbelievable' proposition really does play out in the 3-d interactive 6 sheet panel they are currently running at a bus stop on Oxford Street.

Rigged up with smart technology and a digital camera facing up the street behind the panel, real-time moving images of tigers prowling the street, stomping robots and curly tentacled squids can be seen along side unknowing pedestrians.

Truly engaging, interactive and impactful .....  'Unbelievable' indeed ... see video below

 

 

#PureAdOfTheWeek

Spot the difference / Taste the difference

 

 

Ok - slightly tenuous link mixing the old marketing metaphors ...... but the thought sprang to mind when these two buses passed by this morning.

 

Both buses sporting very similar looking creative on T-sides- arguably for the same advertiser / same campaign

 

White out of black CAPITAL font for a headline with image in the T-bar

 

 

T-side A running the headline : WANT MORE TASTE?

 

 

 

 

T-side B running the headline : MAXIMUM TASTE NO SUGAR. UNBELIEVABLE

 

 

 

 

Spot the difference ?? T-side A = Coke Zero & T-side B = Pepsi Max

 

#PurePoint

 

Remember, remember Movember happens in November

The perils of over-exposure?

Additional time and/or space is usually seen as a bonus in media – ‘free’ space achieved due to campaign overshow and exposure to extra sets of eyeballs seeing ads can only be a good thing, right?

Not always... Consider these Movember messages that were snapped on a train side last night (March 7th).

Movember is a hugely popular ‘event’ and really makes the most of raising awareness of its core proposition with some catchy creative and smart executions.  However, the tips are definitely starting to droop on this pomade-stiffened train placement. 

The concept is to make Movember / November synonymous with ‘tache time’ so seeing this message still chugging around in March is slightly confusing in our opinion.

Inspiring talent of the future

The Pure Team were asked to work with a local Primary School this month to help inform a group of Year 5 students about the postive benefits of key learning in school and how this may help them in the future to go on to secure (fun & enjoyable) jobs.

We explained how a mix of skills learnt in school such as teamwork, maths, languages, communication, writing, creativity, and problem solving can all be used to great effect ... and challenged them to work together to answer a creative and media brief we set them.

They demonstrated various skills such as literacy, strategy, creativity, numeracy, negotiation and team work - above and beyond all expectation - making us proud to have been a part of the educational programme they are currently on....and hopeful that we may have been instrumental in inspiring at least one of them to go on to do well at school and more importantly get a job in the future.

We are hiring ...

Due to recent changes, new business wins, and ambitions to grow our company this year we are hiring for various roles.

We're looking for short and long term Interns & Graduates, as well as more experienced Planner Buyer, Media Manager & Account Director roles....There are no defined roles and requirements ..the right candidates will determine our ongoing recruitment plans. #Pure2014

So if you are interested in joining us - please send your CV and covering letter to :-  recruitment@puremedia.co.uk

Pure Retrospective 2013

As we hurtle towards the end of an action-packed 2013, we thought it would be a good idea to draw breath and take a moment to think back over what has been a pretty interesting year. That perpetual  myth of ‘The Year of Mobile’ wasn’t realised (again!) but there does continue to be an ongoing shift in engaging consumers through multimedia campaigns and an added social media element. As our blog on the social media frenzy around Christmas campaigns showed, things are becoming ever more about engagement and less about just spot and space.

We decided to relive some of the highs (and lows) of the year which has seen some great ads and some really inventive placements. 

 

Definitely Love It

This is a classy and perfectly-pitched combination of placement, topic, creative....everything. The Guardian used a smart but sensitive ad to promote their review of Margaret Thatcher and her life. The clear divisions that Thatcherism stood for were supremely expressed in an understated and simple fashion. 

Love It...and Hate It

To keep on the Marmite theme, the controversial TV ad based on a faux-animal neglect team. This split opinions in the Pure office and led to some heated debate - which is exactly what the creative was designed to achieve. The tag line was 'Love It Hate It. Just Don't Forget It.' and the campaign ensured that this was precisely what happened.

Just HATE It

Santander's employment of Rory, Jenson and Jess (who we've nicknamed 'The Wooden Tops') creepily appearing in people's homes was one of the most appalling ads in recent memory. Three supremely wealthy sports stars selling their incredibly poor acting skills.


And one more thing - Jess' t-shirt is pink not red. Which MAKES NO SENSE! Aaaaaaand breathe....

Great Ikea

One of our favourites is the gnome campaign by Ikea - it used TV and print as the mass media platforms to generate interest and then successfully coupled this with social media for the conversation/story.

It also created a positive amount of PR by being controversial and showing “gnome slaughter” - there were over 50 complaints to the ASA (!)

 

Share a Coke:

Positives and negatives abound when looking at the Coke summer campaign. It was a fantastic and original idea, with lots of PR, #ShareaCoke social media presence and tactical print forays including Wills and Kate & Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes (pictured). 

 

There were supposedly 150 different named bottles, which increased our expectations when looking for ads - but it appears the reality of production costs got in the way as the lack of variety in the creative copy (e.g. only 3 names on the bus sides) left us feeling slightly like an old Coke - a bit flat. 

 

There was also 2 or 3 other campaigns running at the same time for Diet Coke and Coke Zero, resulting in mixed messages

Brian The Robot

Brian dominated our Summer - across radio, outdoor, TV, print, social media and anywhere else that he could try and "save us pounds". One of the truly multimedia campaigns of 2013, this was catchy (irritating) and ubiquitous - definitely at the forefront of the nation's consciousness! Although the controversial dogging ad (137 ASA complaints) left us all somewhat confused.com?!?!?




Big, Blue, Prickly Ad

More than just the memorable creative – a really interesting use of bus sides coupled with the strip ads which acted as high impact fractionals in press (although swiftly replaced with a more subtle creative we noted).

Should arid plants be used

for penetrative impact more often?!




BT's Struggle

Of course, how can we forget the seemingly never-ending Summer of Sports battle between BT Sport and Sky Sports.

Lesson learnt: no matter how much money you have for a campaign, no matter how high profile the celebs involved, if the relative interest isn't there the results will fall short of the ambition. Especially when trying to take on Sky!

Despite the 100's / 1'000's of ads BT Sport ran .... There was only ever going to be one winner.

 

Game changing? We think not.


Landmark lights

Quite simply a phenomenal use of the iconic London skyline to promote the launch of the Playstation4 to a mass audience and garner huge media attention - reworking the OXO Tower to feature the famous PS games console.

Christmas Ads 2013

Take a look back at the blog over recent weeks to see what we had to say about John Lewis, Sainsbury's and the likes ... Big budget, big Impact and divided opinions.

In the meantime - links below to some of the top 10 Christmas Ads featuring Aldi, Boots, John Lewis, Harvey Nichols, M&S and Waitrose.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2013/nov/29/christmas-ads-2013-john-lewis-marks-spencer-Video


Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year from Pure Media

So there you have it! Our high- and low-lights of 2013!

We'll be back in 2014 with our eagle eyes peeled for all advertising things weird and wonderful, clever and lazy, silly and poignant.

In the meantime, Check out our little dance and  have a fantastic Christmas and New Year!


#PurePoint

Inside Out

Intel has spent a reported £15million on a four and a half year deal to sponsor the INSIDE of the Barcelona football kit! 

At first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they've been hitting the mulled wine a bit too hard, but there is a really clever angle to this - promoting the 'Intel Inside' brand message through the propensity of Spanish footballers to put shirts over their heads when celebrating.

They are under no contractual obligation to lift their shirts or show the logo. This is Intel's first venture into football sponsorship and as part of the deal they will also provide technology to players and coaching staff.

We wait to see if it will be money well spent! #PurePoint
 

Meshy Impact

We are fans of the latest Sky Movies campaign currently running on Bus T sides ... The creative synergy of using Wreck-it Ralph bursting out of the modified 'SUPER' T is a simple yet effective way of grabbing the attention of an urban audience (much like the guy in the photo below who should probably be watching where he is going!)

The bespoke format covers up the bottom left window pane with a tightly-woven mesh enabling advertisers to utilise space without the loosing the benefits of a window - which has one slight drawback:

At night the back-lit mesh makes it hard to see the extra impact! Which could mean losing key messages. Especially with creative similar to the below where the message is written on the mesh.

All-in-all, the ad looks great from a distance and is an effective, creative solution for driving the message. 

#PurePoint

Enjoy the Festive Season!

Please click here to watch the full video

Have a fantastic Christmas from Pure Media :)

Is sharing really caring?

 #PureXmasAdWatch update


                      

This year, more than ever before, social media is at the vanguard of the Christmas ad battle, where people are sharing their thoughts and interacting as a result of exposure to the traditional advertising. It's not just a battle of the big TV ads, it's more a battle of the #hashtags and ongoing opt-in engagement levels.

There are plenty of numbers that advertisers will use to try and demonstrate their social superiority -from Twitter mentions, Facebook launch post interactions, #hashtags, YouTube views, Google+'s to number of  'Likes' to name but a few, so  we at Pure thought we'd take a look at how the campaigns that launched earlier this month are being run and indeed what results can show to date.

In our view, John Lewis has (again!) come out well on top. The crux of the argument behind this assertion is that as an advertiser we would rather have consumers consuming (i.e. watching) our ad rather than just talking about it.

Numbers such as Twitter mentions, #hashtag shares, Facebook interactions, etc. are useful data and indeed seem to suggest that there's quite a tight race going on with regards to interaction and engagement in this busy market. However, John Lewis launched their ad on YouTube 24 hours before it went 'live' on TV and it's on that platform that they have buried the others under an avalanche of views:

 YouTube views
(as at 20th Nov):

John Lewis - 7.8 million
M&S - 770k
Argos - 630k
Sainsbury's - 355k
Tesco - 320k







What's more, they have predominantly achieved their exposure through organic seeding, unlike M&S who appear to have been forced to try and combat JL's dominance by spending heavily on paid-for search. When looking at the John Lewis social campaign in its entirety, you can see that there is an excellent co-ordination of the composite parts - they all work individually but also support and enhance the others.

For example, the ad launch was coupled with a pre-emptive teaser Twitter #hashtag of #sleepingbear followed by #bearandhare as soon as it went live. On that first weekend, the John Lewis Twitter audience grew by 10% (4,000 new followers).

In contrast, Marks and Spencer have had approx. 4,000 mentions of #magicandsparkle and unforgivably, Tesco launched their ad on Twitter but failed to attach a specific hashtag, thereby surely losing both campaign theme and indeed trackability of popularity.

It's interesting to note that elsewhere, M&S has been quoted as having the most Twitter mentions (c.60million) with Tesco (49 million) and John Lewis lagging behind (45 million).

M&S have also been shown to have the edge on the competition when it comes to Facebook interactions, with 160,000 interactions to their launch post - Asda (87,000), John Lewis (71,000) and Tesco (9,000) are way behind.

Sharing is caring, but in our opinion active engagement and opt-in viewing is a far more effective result.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Pretty much all the (Christmas) cards are on the table, so over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving our comment and feedback on the efforts of some of the nation’s biggest retailers' Christmas advertising - remember it’s our thoughts that count ;)

#PureXmasAdWatch

So, let’s kick off with the big budget TV ad extravaganzas that have launched over the past week or so.

John Lewis’ bear is out of the cave to huge social and media acclaim. The #bearandhare ad has already amassed over 6.8 Million views on YouTube in just over 7 days.

M&S now stands for ‘Magic and Sparkle’ (apparently) and Sainsbury’s has wrapped Christmas Day up into a 3 and a half minute tearjerker.

Once we’ve digested these chunky ads, there’s Tesco, Boots, Morrisons, Debenham's, ASDA, Waitrose and plenty of others to get through….by which time we are well and truly stuffed like the proverbial turkey.

These big budget Xmas ads appear to have become the UK equivalent of the Superbowl advertising in America - and whilst incomparable in cost to the coveted Superbowl final ad break, one thing for certain is that the costs of the TV ads will be at an all-time high in the UK when considering the premium space. As announced recently, the X Factor final ad breaks will cost £200,000 per 30 seconds. This could net ITV somewhere in the region of £16 million. A nice present for their shareholders.

We will focus on the way advertisers are using press and the social media world in more depth in future blogs, but at this stage we are concentrating on TV, and rather than take the traditional powerhouse John Lewis as our primary candidate, we’re kicking off by taking a look at Sainsbury’s attempt at shaking things up slightly by promoting their TV ad as a film.

The ‘Taste the Difference’ brand waited until after the others had pulled their TV crackers and then started to promote the first airing of the ad in the press by directing newspaper readers to tune in and watch the ad.

The full film is reminiscent of Tinsel Town - 45 minutes long and due to have a premier as well as a release-date on YouTube. The campaign was launched in a 3 ½ minute trailer during Coronation Street. The length and exceptional nature of this media execution should ensure that it becomes a vanguard aspect of their campaign.

Repeating this ad length is clearly not sustainable or indeed possible to accommodate on Mainstream TV - so 40” and 60” spots based on different edits and themes will continue to run until 21^st December to follow on from the very strong groundwork already laid. 

M&S has a 150 second fantasy-story mash-up and the story-telling of John Lewis lasts a beefy 2 minutes but both pale in comparison to the size of this ad-break behemoth. Whether it proves a success is yet to be determined, as the multimedia element required for a successful Christmas campaign is becoming more important than ever before.

The Sainsbury’s ad delivers on  its highly successful pursuit of a ‘values-driven’ brand strategy, rather than focusing on product display, which is visible in the M&S effort and – more subtly – in the John Lewis version of Watership Down (I wonder how many alarm clocks they’ll sell this year..?).

It’s interesting how so many advertisers are choosing to focus on our emotions (trust, love, desire, greed, etc) as much as they are the cost or reliability in order to sell. ‘Value vs Values’ is a theme to keep an eye on as we head into the season of goodwill.