Seven relation army

Wimpy’s suburban heart of glass

With some of my South African relatives finally touching down in the UK post the volcanic ash cloud flight embargo, it was interesting to pick up on a musically led campaign emanating from the region this week.

A new Wimpy ad from South Africa offers an insight into a not-so-typical South African family unit in a bid to connect with close-knit SA suburban family life.  The commercial highlights the musical prowess of the ‘Skoltimaier Seven’ Read more

Cool as folk

Scared of beards

Fosters has launched a quirky new series of ads promoting its Carlton Draught beer. The ‘Any Excuse’ campaign sees a bizarre folk music trio (with creative facial hair) performing musical renditions to various male body parts in order to sing the beer’s praises. Each ad sees the heavily knitted warblers composing odes about the various different parts of a man’s anatomy Read more

The heat of the moment

A first for music

Coca-Cola China has launched a new online campaign fronted by Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit in order to celebrate Chinese New Year.  The promotion – which features the track ‘The First Taste of Happiness’ – invites users to customize their own festive Coke bottles and participate in an online UGC element which will see their video efforts placed into a collective ad alongside the band. The digital side of the ad campaign depicts Coke drinkers passing their bottles along from one video clip to the next Read more

Daft Vader

The empire sneaks back

There is an interesting meld of genres in this recent adidas commercial, which promotes a new line of Star Wars branded footwear in the style of its ‘House Party’ campaign commercial from 2008.  Read more

Sound Investment

Brands see the value of music

This week saw the 50th edition of the Brands Bands Fans newsletter. Since its inception in May 2007 – and the subsequent launch of our blog, Twitter feed, events and panels, we have covered a vast and ever expanding selection of brand and music partnerships and marketing activity. We hope you’ve found it as invaluable as we have and that it has opened your eyes to the full spectrum of opportunity available within music. Read more

Mobile break up songs

Sing your way out of a contract

A new online campaign from Sprint Mobile takes a direct musical hit at a number of its competitors. Visitors to the ‘mobilegoodbye’ website can create, watch and share a series of break up songs from a selection of hit tracks penned to their old carrier. Each track features a cover version with new lyrics performed by a karaoke duo. Read more

Tight fit

Band in a banner

Here at BBF we sift through a flood of ‘overly complicated’ or downright ‘conceived while inebriated’ music/brand marketing campaigns on a daily basis. However, we also occasionally stumble on some quite brilliant activity in the music space on our trails. This campaign, used to promote upcoming Universal act VV Brown, is simple but strikingly effective and definitely falls into the later category. Read more

Micha impossible

Busker makes a mint

Tic Tac has moved on from its “refreshing little lifts” tag line and has started making a bit of noise (literally) in the music space. A few months ago we highlighted a fairly major download giveaway with Sony BMG, and now the mint brand is taking a more quirky viral approach to its musical offerings. Tic Tac is sponsoring Micha Albacow, a 16-year-old boy from Uzbekistan, who does a mean line in mint based busking. Read more

Hitting the G spot

Switching on the electrolyte

Gatorade, the Pepsi owned energy drink, is having a major overhaul – taking its increasingly retro packaging up a notch with bold new colours and simple hard hitting statements. It’s out with the ‘Gatorade – Thirst Quencher’ tag line and in with ‘Gatorade G’. US rapper Lil’ Wayne (who had the biggest selling album of 2008 at 2.88M copies) is stepping in, not to contribute music, but to work as a voice-over artist. Read more

The great escape

You can buy without fear

Lily Allen’s single The Fear is being promoted via a viral music game. The game, entitled Escape the Fear, features Allen as the main character. Players must help Lily navigate 10 levels whilst avoiding obstacles such as paparazzi cameras, rabid handbag dogs, evil bankers throwing credit cards, alcohol and demonic puzzles. Read more

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