Lexus just did something which is pretty interesting. They offered the supercar LFA to Tony Hawk. In change they got pictures published on Mr. Hawk's Facebook profile (2 million 700 thousand followers) and Instagram (250 thousand followers).
It is interesting because it sits somewhere at the crossroad of PR, product placement and endorsement. It does so by exploiting three channels with massive cultural relevance - Facebook, Instagram and Tony Hawk the skateboard myth.
But what it is even more interesting to me is how in choosing Tony Hawk as a personality and his penchant for Social Networks, Lexus succeeds in giving his supercar a real performance edge, something that the brand lacks completely. Something like jeez, Tony Hawk can do crazy things with his skate, that car must be wicked.
This is to me a really interesting use of both endorsement and social network that is not creatively flamboyant but extremely smart and coherent with the product.
They even got a few gloryshots of the engine and the design:
Wouldn't you buy a purer milk, without all the residual imperfections that every product carries?
White Power Milk is the purest milk you can find. And it is so because it is been filter by beautiful, white, rich, culturally superior girls.
At first I thought it was serious (ok, I'm dumb but hey, I've seen cuisine books with all the recipes based on semen, so this didn't sound that incredible). Then I thought it was a prank. In the end it's a performance by artist Nate Hill.
Inspired by racially inappropriate tweets and Facebook posts, artist Nate Hill creates a website with all the visual characteristics of a beauty/healthcare product. Models included.
The Behind The Scenes video pushes the whole thing into creepily uncomfortable zones:
You got me on my knees praying for everything you lack
These are the opening verses of List Of Demands by Saul Williams, a quite clear attack on the corporate responsibility of today's vast consumerism featured on his 2004 eponymous album.
Cut to 2012, and we see the very same song featured on this Nike commercial:
The choice obviously stirred a series of questions on the author and its credibility. Questions to which Saul Williams replied, in an interview on the Huffington Post, by claiming
I think it guarantees that the people in power in that corporation are listening close to what I'm saying and what their kids are dancing to. I think it makes them question their ethics as much as fans or reporters question mine. (...) My intention remains for these songs to be heard by as many as possible. They are the virus that I wish to spread. I've infected Nike and all within their reach with a song that raises awareness as well as fists.
I personally think is a fair position, but there is a self-determined orthodoxy, very quickly placing the sellout stamp on whoever gets engaged with a multinational corporation.
There is a one question, though, I think legitimate: if Williams is a sellout, why doesn't this commercial raise any questions on Steve Nash ethics?
Steve Nash is the athlete you can see around 0'32". He is a long-time Nike endorser, but he is also known to endorse companies he deems as socially responsible. In the sportsmen elite he has been one of the very few openly vocal against the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. His Twitter feed often features articles left-wing newspapers. He could be deemed a proper democrat, if such a label still made any sense.
So, how come Steve Nash isn't guilty as Williams? The problem is being an artist.
Art is considered (by those who don't live by it) an environment who needs to be pure and uncontaminated from whatever human transaction. Artists are those who connect dots and make people think about the impact of certain actions, wheter these actions come from politicians, corporations or other social entities. For this very reason, they are supposed not to mingle in any way with anything whose purpose is profit.
But if, for example, you read a book like the splendid Seven Days In The Art World, you get a clear view of how even the most conceptual and abstruse sculpture has a market and a financial aspect to it. Just as in the end, Public Enemy were signed with Columbia, Rage Against The Machine with Epic and Sheperd Fairey worked with Pepsi. Without losing an inch of their disruptive charge.
On the other hand, an athlete like Steve Nash is considered part of the corporate culture, so much that his activism and opinions are considered either a positive outburst or an unrequested banter. But never these opinions threaten his credibility as an athlete.
In the end the point is: does it still makes sense a credibility debate in these terms? I think brands can co-exist with artistic expressions. They can nourish and cultivate arts and artists. And they can benefit from this relationship. As long as they prove doing it for a purpose that goes beyond selling their products. Just like a musician needs to be demonstrate his artistic purpose, to sell records.
Coming from a conservative market and a quite conservative agency, this is a brilliant example of good creative work on Tv. Congrats to the team who wrote - and sold - this.
(the tagline says: Plants life is harder than it seems. Help them with Vigorplant mold)
A really interesting bit of interview where Damon Albarn talks about the difference of making an album on an iPad versus one with orchestra and important guests, and how the choice doesn't have to be between one method and the other, because they can both be relevant accomplishment by a musician.
It could be used to explain, in a sense, the relationship between classic advertising and branded content.
An interesting bit of interview from the 4A's website to Mr. Lee Clow himself and his point of view on a question rarely expressed with such blunt frankness.
Most of the time agencies are judged (hence, payed) for good executions. The idea is an unquantifiable capital no one is willing to put a price on. It's a bit like a sneaker manufacturer getting payed for the color of the laces.
But doesn't have the brand itself a value that can be quantified? If a hedge fund were to buy, let's say, Nike: would the value be calculated exclusively on the buildings owned by the company and the pair of shoes stocked in their warehouses or would the power of the swoosh have to be taken into account? And who contributed in building the power of the swoosh?
Incidentally, the going rate for laundry service in New York City is 95c per pound for wash and fold. And a 8% gratuity is expected, for delivery.
An interesting point of view on what is behind an innovative company, rather then a product-developing company.
The reason why it's interesting to me is because it forces a company to look inside and be clear about themselves. Too often companies are hell-bent on making the best product possible, that they lose perception of why they are doing it.
And losing that perception means losing the possibility to engage your audience in a relevant way. And not become a simple commodity.
(I do have to thank my friend Ryan for pointing me out this)
Apple shows up nearly twice as often as the the nearest brand. iPhones, iPads and MacBook Pros are featured in every possible hit, from The Muppets to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. McDonald's isn't anywhere in that list.
The most interesting moment of Apple though, it doesn't happen in a blockbuster. It happens in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Here, the brand really takes a leading role the narrative: Raj, notoriously shy to the point of becoming speechlessness in front of women, buys his brand new iPhone 4S, discovers Siri and falls in love with her until the final silly scene (where incredibly Apple seems to make fun of itself too, in a way).
Siri here is a real actor, interplaying with Raj and with the whole narrative environment: this interaction reaches its pinnacle when the system limits are shown through Barry Kripke and its notorious (to the fans of the show) pronounciation defect:
But McDonald's? To me it has an incredibly important role in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Here Lisbeth, the dark, anti-social hacker is shown two times with the iconic little red box of Happy Meal: the first time here, when Lisbeth is plotting a pretty nasty revenge against her violent tutor
the second time towards the end, when she's about to hack into the bank accounts of an evil CEO.
What is really interesting here is how the Happy Meal helps in a few frames establishing a side of the character we have never been exposed to, up to that point.
Happy Meal becomes a symbol of Lisbeth's fragility and too short childhood, the comfort food, the Linus' blanket where everything is colorful and normal unlike her dark and twisted world.
And despite all Apple's coolness, in this movie Happy Meal adds something much more subtle and relevant that the obvious MacBook Pro used by Lisbeth the hacker and Mickael the journalist.
