Happy Fathers Day

Fitting Tribute to David Abbott in Campaign Magazine this week. A re-crafted version of the beautifully written Chivas Regal Fathers Day Ad .... the words say it all.

#PurePoint #PureAdOfTheWeek

John McEnroe knows his score - PT 2

Pure Media Execute the Second Phase of Aegon’s Social Media Initiative Endorsed by John McEnroe

Following the success of the first phase (23.5K video plays in 3 weeks) Pure Media continue to work with Aegon’s Social Media team, driving awareness of their Retiready offering in-line with the launch of the Aegon Tennis Championships yesterday (9^th June). 

This phase promotes the second in a series of viral videos (hosted on YouTube) endorsed by John McEnroe across Facebook and Twitter:

With selected audience targeting based on both psycho and demographics alongside carefully constructed content, the campaign has already achieved over 2,000 “engagements” after only four full days of activity.

The second phase of the campaign is due to finish on 20^th June.

About Retiready: Retiready is a new digital service from Aegon that will help you take control of your retirement planning. If you're new to Retiready, a great place to start is to get your score.

#PureCampaign

#Retiready

Cabbies lose their way

If you were in and around London yesterday, you probably noticed a heavy increase in road traffic as almost 12,000 cabbies took part in a ‘go-slow’ protest. The cause of their action was Uber, an app-based taxi-service, which traditional London black cabs claim is operating on their exclusive turf.

While one could wonder about the effectiveness of a transport group protesting against a taxi-service in this way, Uber capitalized on the situation beautifully with full-page ads in yesterday’s Metro and Evening Standard.

As commuters flocked to the trains and tubes due to the action, it seemed inevitable that thousands of new (and frustrated) eyes would feast upon Uber’s sleek creative...

...and so it proved. 

With the ad in question sporting a £20 discount code, it proved highly effective. Uber had its most successful day of downloads since they launched two years ago: up by an incredible 850% in comparison to the previous Wednesday.

This represents a supremely timed media buy by the challenger brand; the cabbies may well need a sat-nav to find their way back from this one!

#PurePoint 

McEnroe knows his score, do you know yours?

In the run up to the summer of grass court tennis and the Aegon Tennis Championships at The Queen's Club next month, Pure Media's client Aegon continue to maximise their association with the sport and leverage their sponsorship by signing up big hitter and tennis legend John McEnroe,

Promoting Aegon's Retiready offering, he features in a series of videos showing him "moonlighting" as a luckless door-to-door salesman and features some classic McEnroe catchphrases:

The film is designed to be a tongue-in-cheek prompt for those approaching the retirement stage of their career to think about how financially prepared they are for retirement.

#PureClient

The Big-Top Bungle

We have pointed out a few unfortunate online, outdoor and print ad placements in the past, where context and content have been uneasy and inappropriate bedfellows.

This has predominantly been as a result of advertisers booking ads that have fallen foul of being placed in contextual environments online that happen to have a negative context. They are therefore being caught out by algorithmic oversight as opposed to natural human instinct to place ads correctly, with positive synergy.

Or print ads running as per the guaranteed position booked ie. colour fractional right hand outside edge - omitting to consider the consequences of the editorial proximity ie. facing inappropriate current affairs and news stories in print - example below:

However, this week in the Metro, there was an internal editorial conflict between the image and cover headline of the ‘Life and Style’ section and a sad topical news story that ran earlier in the paper.

Surely there was an editorial flat plan assessment ahead of sending the paper to print?

Whilst ad misplacements are an oversight that can occur due to fulfilling guaranteed positions or trusting the

technological systems that associate ad context and placements - this editorial faux pas seems far less

understandable as there should be much greater flexibility to move things around from an editorial perspective and avoid such overt negativities.

#PurePoint

Down the Tube

On 29th April 2014, a 48-hour tube strike started after talks broke down between London Underground and the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT). It was predicted by BusinessZone that the strike had cost businesses "£600m in lost working hours, business and productivity" alone; without even considering the cost of wasted advertising spend.

Underground advertising is typically bought in 2-week cycles, and it doesn't come cheap. Meaning, 2 of the 14 days of ad space occupancy were totally useless during the strike, because nobody could see them! 14.5% of wasted advertising spend throughout the underground.

Another point to consider is the huge decrease in freesheet newspaper circulation / readership:

In retrospect, the prediction of £600m is a lot lower than the true impact and wastage caused.

Those losing out include names big and small:

Especially Virgin Trains - an outside back cover never to be seen

And as reported by CityAM last week - Gatwick certainly didn't Bank on the major Tube strike either - The

airport had staged a week-long advertising takeover in both Bank and Westminster Tube stations but with the Tube strike, which spanned much of two days, it’s likely to have had far less of an impact than they’d hoped.

#PurePoint

Prostate Cancer UK probes Moyes sack story

We at Pure Media are always on the look-out for perfect placements; ones where you almost chuckle with delight at the near symbiosis of location, message and timing.

Well, in The Times earlier this week, there was more than just a smirk of pleasure, as Prostate Cancer UK took advantage of David Moyes' misfortune (or lack of ability depending upon your footballing opinion) to nab the page facing the outside back page of Sport with the following ad.

The sporty messaging resonates suitably with the editorial and the message is clear and direct. We wonder how long they've been waiting for Moyes to go so they could get this into the public domain. Companies can make unintentional contextual mistakes with their placement and timing which gives rise to the possibility of negative impact, however, this one is just deliciously perfect, despite the very real and serious nature of the message.

Whether the prostate or the sack, it's definitely an important pair of messages.

#PurePoint

KLM - (Kings of Limited Media?)

One of the key benefits of media takeovers (of any kind) is that you are able to make use of the different shapes, sizes and formats available to showcase the business's creativity and use different creative assets to deliver brand impact and messaging. Much like the (simple) Microsoft Office 365 example below:

Sometimes, however, brands shamelessly fail to make the most of media takeovers by executing THE SAME CREATIVE over and over (and over and over and over...) again!

KLM, the Royal Dutch Airlines company that "works to provide innovative products" recently executed a Paddington Station takeover. Please see snaps below:

...what a waste! Why wouldn't you make the most of all the different ad spaces and run at least 2 or 3 different creative executions? Possibly something to display how "innovative" you can be? We're baffled. *Shakes head in disappointment*

#PurePoint

Wall-ter into Wine-dow

From the eyes of a media agency, there is nothing worse than seeing abandoned or derelict ad space not being put to any use.

So, when we walked past ABC Imaging the other morning we fan-girled over the brilliantly creative use of window space. Take a look:

#PurePoint

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