Tanned Creativity

Gates vs. Jobs - Greatest Duel of All Time

2008-10-19T11:58:00.001+08:00

Digging the new Microsoft ads

2008-09-20T10:11:00.003+08:00

Haha..

2008-06-29T00:51:00.001+08:00

Who's really clicking?

2008-05-04T09:09:00.000+08:00

Have you ever clicked on a text ad? I pose these questions to people I meet regularly. The typical answer is "never". The results are even worse if I ask about banner ads or rich media.

How can this be? Search advertising has risen to become a behemoth; yet why is it that so few consumers seem to engage with it? My network of people are, after all, more tech-savvy than the average Joe. How is it that despite extended use of search engines on a daily basis, so few savvy individuals have clicked on an ad? Why is it that everybody is in love with Google's stock price and yet so few people love the ads that it displays?

Could it be that the ads really don't work the way they are supposed to? Could it be that we are in the midst of a search advertising bubble driven by overconfidence in the abilities of overrated services and an abundance of small, undiscriminating advertisers eager for any bump in traffic?

Let's take a look at the largest type of advertisers, and the largest type of publishers for text ads.

For the longest time, Google, Yahoo, Ad Center and other online ad services have focused on the click rather than the attitude change. This is problematic. As this tends to work well for small businesses, which do not really have strong brands and do not have an interest in branding. By only counting clicks, the online advertising universe underestimates brand impact - something that large advertisers care about.

Blogging is one of the big content engines driving the current price of text ads. And yet bloggers are among the most under-appreciated, utterly exploited and overworked content workers who rarely see the fruits of their labor. Bloggers simply have to deal with a lot. They put up with snippy PR folks who constantly see bloggers as illegitimate actors whose voices need to be squashed, and IP lawyers who would be glad to shut them down on the pretense of IP infringement. On top of that, services such as Google's AdSense do not pay bloggers their ad revenue money until it exceeds $100. Unless you are on the top 100 list of blogs, you are making very little money. The result might very well be that the current blogging movement is simply unsustainable.

So, back to the question. Who's really clicking? The tech-savvy people who literally is the majority of the blog visitors. Or, is it the average Joe who's not reluctant to click on text ads? Or, perhaps both?

Effective targeting?

2008-04-24T15:55:00.007+08:00

Not too long ago, I logged in to Facebook and not surprisingly at all, I saw ads. Now, FB is supposed to leverage the collective power and input of my information (and my friends) to identify, filter and prioritize the relevant ads for me. Relevant as in something I would be interested in, something that can fill the needs I have and make me "click". Here's one ad that I often see - Haircut Salon in Sweden.

Great, I'm Swedish and I'm more familiar with the Swedish "way of doing things". But, here's a problem - I'm in China now! Seriously, is not that hard to figure it out! It's stated in my profile! Also, wrong timing! Take a look at my profile pic and you'll see that I have a great hair style now :D.

A great timing to show me that specific ad (with a change of location) would be, when I update my status to "hate/looking/need a new hair cut". Or, when I post messages on my friends' walls; asking them where I could get a good hair cut. Do a "semantic crawl" through my messages or my friends! And you will find out exactly what ads would be relevant for me! Privacy issue? Puh-lease, with that amount of information I have put up, does it look like I care if a computer scans through my messages?

If you don't have any relevant ads for me after "crawling" through my pages, then don't serve me any ads at all! It's annoying to see an ad saying "meet Christian girls", when I'm not religious at all!

Another one bites the dust..

2008-04-24T15:47:00.003+08:00

Found this in our archive.. hip, huh!?!

2008-04-06T23:55:00.001+08:00

Soccer ad.. quite some time ago -

Muhaha.. rejected!

2008-04-02T23:15:00.008+08:00

Handycam.. post-production work.. not good enough!

30s

15s

Shanghai F1 - Toyota

2008-04-02T14:04:00.004+08:00

After the race and the successful execution.. celebration at some Japanese restaurant with the Toyota folks!

Little Red Men.. Assemble!

2008-03-31T12:58:00.004+08:00

The art that we used for the Bravia tv/print ad -

Sony Bravia By Fallon

2008-03-26T21:03:00.006+08:00

This is the one that piqued my interest for advertising!

Ads around Asia (that I wished I did)

2008-03-21T16:02:00.006+08:00

Korea - The Fastest Auto Focus

Hong Kong - The Sticky Poster

China - Olympic

Sweden - Perfectly Tuned (not from Asia.. just felt like giving props to the place I grew up in).

Oldies

2008-03-21T12:28:00.005+08:00

Some old projects.. though fun ones (some) -

The long red..

2008-03-21T10:48:00.011+08:00

Here's the 30s Version -

Red is the color for Sony this year

2008-03-20T17:50:00.010+08:00

Another work done for Sony! Straight from the production house.. will only be aired in China! Duh! Now, I'm off to another Sony project.. not Bravia though.

I have my inspiration, now I need an epiphany!

2008-03-19T14:18:00.006+08:00

I want to create an idea around this picture -

Picture from National Geographic - Best Photos Award

Where did the ball come from?

2008-03-19T10:39:00.004+08:00

Creative Motto
You are sitting at the cafe drinking your coffee, while trying to filter out the mayhem caused by big sport events that you are not even vaguely interested in. In these stressful days, you just want to get a bit of the sunshine and peace before, tackling the rest of the day. Suddenly, from the corner of your peripheral, a ball rolls towards you. You take notice, your eyes follows it as the ball gets closer. It stopped right at your feet, another annoyance - you think. You notice some markings on the ball, as you tip the ball over; a ‘smiley’ face slowly unveils itself. You finish the coffee and take the ball with you as you leave, with a smile on your face.

Strategy
By means of, 10 000 Adidas branded balls, hand draw with a ‘smiley’ face on each one. During UEFA Euro 2008, between the Quarter Finals and the Final match, these balls will be rolled out to people in the capital city, Vienna. From high profile tourist places to urban commercial areas, “agents” will be roaming around and distribute the balls to people, without being seen. They will target cafes, public areas and even the front doors of people’s homes. The “agents” will be operating in stealth mode, from the blind-spots of the targets’, they will roll the balls towards them and then leave, unseen.

This concept is to make Adidas together with the icon of the football world, the ball, into the emotional link between the non-enthusiasts and football. Hoping to touch the people with the simplest feeling one can get from football, ‘joy’. With the approach of “the rolling ball from nowhere”, the consumers should question themselves. Where did the ball come from? What is the meaning of this? Finders, keepers? And then, with the ‘smiley’ to tell them “you should be smiling now”.

Target
Great sport events move and inspire people; this target groups are those people. Whether it is an 8 year old boy or 40 year old white-collar, balls will be rolled to them. Create a halo; when an office lady tells her friends about the ‘smiley’ ball, then at least 1 or 2 of her friends should also have the same story to tell. Or, when a young boy brings the ‘smiley’ ball to play football with some friends, and then finds out that his friends also have the same balls.

Realization
Local people, who know their way around the city, will be recruited as “agents” to distribute our balls. Each of them will scout their distribution area beforehand to ensure maximum stealth when distributing the balls.

Execution will start during the Quarter Finals in Vienna, from the 20th to the 26th. We will roll our ‘smiley’ balls in the middle of the day, when the sun is high with people filling the streets.