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’ who, resplendent in skin tight lycra and 80s shoulder pads, perform ‘Funky Town’ on collectible glasses in their living room – part of an in-store promotional giveaway effort from the restaurant chain.

The campaign kicked off with a short viral mockumentary of the homespun band. “We are like the Jackson 7, or 6, but we are better than those little guys with all their face jobs – we are all natural,” says the person playing ‘the `son’ in the viral.

The ad itself owes much to the Cadbury’s school of viral ad/music combos. The focus of the whole commercial actually centres on the youngest girl member of the family who, up front and centre, sports the oddest side-to-side head movement (almost as freakishly unnatural as – and remarkably similar looking to – the girl in Cadbury’s ‘Dancing Eyebrows’ ad from 2009).

With extended family as important as individuals in their nuclear family in many white South African homes, the ad – regardless of the light-hearted approach – uses music to promote this concept of unity and extend it to the notion of eating together. This could have been pushed further with some form of UGC element asking for other families to work together on other musical renditions.

Music Matters 2010

Music Matters is conducted in the heart of the world’s most dynamic region and is Asia’s only annual conference dedicated to the business of music. The event was created with and for the Music industry, bringing together major players from the entertainment eco-system to discuss, debate, do business and watch some of the hottest up and coming acts in Asia.

Music Matters 2010 will take place over a jam-packed three day programme (26-28 May 2010 in Hong Kong) including face2face sessions, high-powered discussions, keynote presentations and in-depth analysis along with fantastic and, often late night, networking events including Asian music showcases, parties, lunches and sector-themed breakfasts.

In 2010 Music Matters culminates in the inaugural “Music Matters Live” – Hong Kong’s first ever streetside, urban music festival – featuring some of the very best independent bands from around the world.

The event plays host to another truly global line-up with some of the most innovative and dynamic figures from across the music industry and beyond. Here are a few programme highlights:

• World-Class Keynotes: Including Spotify’s “game changing” Daniel Ek and The Agency’s, Neil Warnock, one of the best known agents in the business.
• Touring and Live: New, innovative marketing strategies for the live music industry from some of the biggest names in the business.
• Live Music Showcases: Over 30 bands performing from as far and wide as Australia, Canada and even Mongolia.
• Digital Dealmakers: What’s up next for the world’s largest digital communities? The global digital heads are back in Hong Kong.
• Breaking Asian artists in the West: More of a matter of WHEN not IF.
• Emerging Asia: Vietnam is a market whose time is now.
• Spotlight on Publishing: With the Music Publishing Associations of Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.
• Mobile Music Matters: Asia is the world’s # 1mobile music market, what’s new and which business models are winning?
• Namaste India: An update on the world’s second largest country.
• Three Strikes and You’re Out!: The ISP debate heats up.

Click here for full programme details. View the updated speaker list here.

Nike takes gaming to the streets

Nike’s experimental Alternate Reality Game (ARG) campaign is set to kick start this Friday across London. The footwear brand is promoting both its products and a positive fitness message via Nike Grid, a 24 hr urban running game that divides the capital into a game-board of 40 competing postcodes. The location-based game sees users registering online  and then running between telephone boxes, entering 4-digit codes as they go, in order to receive points. (Apparently locations will be monitored to stop users from donning skates or hopping on a bus)

The activity owes much to location-based service Foursquare, as it utilises the service’s ‘badges’ concept enabling participants to acquire badges for speed, endurance and stamina during the event. The person who manages to collect the most points in a particular area claims that postcode’s crown’ (aping Foursquare’s ‘Mayor’ status)

A promotional ad has been running online featuring London grime artist Tempa T – who created a track especially for the event -  encouraging users to get involved.

Gamers are in many ways a disconnected community despite their deep online social connections. A console gamer dispatching opponents on Call Of Duty, or thrashing a competitor on a sports game, has no more than an ID for reference. Likewise games such as World Of Warcraft are ultimately shrouded by the virtual self as users create uber idealistic identities online. ARG’s – which blend the real with the fictional, the digital with the actual – play out with a far more human touch. Confined by consoles, a clutter of Guitar Hero peripherals and deep MMORG networks, gaming is now looking for a new tangible lease of life outside the screen.

ARGs have been growing in popularity for a while now, but what is particularly interesting about this one is the use of ‘found’ or existing tech – in this case virtually obsolete phone boxes – as the centre piece for the concept.  With the advent of Augmented Reality and the ability to layer the real environment with digital media, the opportunity to explore the city – the reality you find yourself in everyday – suddenly opens up into an exciting and constantly morphing playground for brands.

Day 1 of the British Council music mission to China kicks off with a presentation to invited guests from the cultural industries in Beijing. The FRUKT philosophy is quite visionary in some ways – multi-channel brand story-telling through entertainment… tripping of my tongue like it’s skipped off the pages of the latest ‘post advertising’ book, written by some trendy counter cultural marketing guy. However, these kind of marketing bullshit statements are simply too abstract for the developing markets. The sophistication in communications practice may not be there yet, but the will certainly is. I heard the word ‘open’ used often by the enthused audience who stayed around to ask questions after the presentations – this enthusiasm counts for much.

I believe what is needed are a couple of strong modern brand communications case studies – there’s still a lot of unconnected single channel activity and traditional sponsorship in China – and some examples of brands doing things differently.

That said, the local marketing people I spoke to described a very fickle materialistic urban population in China right now – but theorised that at some point this obsession with the Western mega brands and lifestyle will calm down, and after the feeding frenzy people will desire more cultural stimulation, that’s the hope anyway – let’s see what clues I can find in the next few days as to whether this could happen anytime soon.

Forthcoming…

Everyone’s talking about BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the bounty that awaits us in these foreign lands… the big tech brands are trying to figure out how they can create solutions to the challenges that geographical scale and remoteness create with innovative programmes including getting entire villages to share phones – while the FMCG guys are trying to find ways to get new markets to wear their Western denim.

So next week I shall be reporting live from China as part of a British Council trade mission for young entrepreneurs from the UK. We’ll be meeting local music and entertainment businesses to get a better understanding of the opportunities there. With 1.3 billion people, and a low migration rate – it’s a market that’s growing, and ad spend is set to bounce back strongly this year according to Aegis predictions.

While I’m there I’ll obvious settle the Google spats with the Chinese government too… all in a days work.

Developing a real Bond with music fans

Bonds underwear in Australia is promoting the brand’s Original Hipster underwear – and its ‘hipster’ credentials – via an all girl rock group performing in their underwear. Simple, yet effective, this ad is part of the brand’s 10 year underwear celebration and marks yet another iconic commercial for the brand. The song featured in the ad – which Bonds are giving away as a free download via a dedicated micro site – is ‘Standing On The Corner’ by Melbourne band Super Wild Horses.

This is notably not the first time this route has been used by an underwear brand. The Vassarette US underwear company created an  all female rock group (The Vassarettes) who performed live in their underwear last year.

Bonds have utilised music across a range of commercials over the years, from underwear clad models rollerblading to the sounds of US indie group The Phenomenal Handclap Band; girls attacked by bees to the electro beat of Goldfrapp; a Patty Cake musical experience comprised purely from the sounds of skin on skin; right through to their `Evolution of Dance’ inspired mash up.

Bonds has ultimately positioned its commercials somewhere between Gap and Apple in terms of use of colour and music. Playful, simple, stylish  – much like the products it is selling. As far as underwear goes though music is used on face value here –and this is something that crosses across the whole underwear category. Whether it’s Victoria’s Secret in the US which uses music and its numerous brand ambassadors (Black Eyed Peas, Seal, etc) primarily as background entertainment, or UK lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, which occasionally veers down an album release route. Music is used to good affect, but often has a ‘listen but don’t touch’ application.

Bonds other ads, such as the ones below for its Hoodies and Tees, are evident of a swing towards a more narrative led focus.  There is a slight nod to a more emotive storyline, something that is generally absent from underwear ads. What you see is generally what you get from underwear commercials.  The Bonds Hipsters campaign could have possibly taken the desire to be in a band that bit further, perhaps with some form of creative application online enabling users to get hand on with music,  or perhaps a deeper alignment promoting the development of upcoming girl bands.

As underwear commercials are clearly telling us all to consider what’s underneath our clothes, perhaps its time for underwear ads to listen to what might be underneath the music sync.

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 and how they tell him he needs a cold Carlton Draft.

The seven ads Tingle, Elbow, Leg, Weenis, Wart, Nose, and Bump are currently doing the rounds online and are reminiscent of Reeves and Mortimer’s Mulligan and O’Hare. Apparently Fosters put this promotion on the back burner for a while after completion as they considered whether or not to use it. The commercials were stripped form TV schedules just before launch late last month, amid concerns the campaign could offend some viewers. The campaign will now run online to gauge viral effect and public reception before roiling out to a more mainstream TV and cinema audience.

Carlton’s ‘Big Ad‘ viral from 2006 won 30 awards globally and another recent campaign ‘Flash beer‘ saw a man reenacting a scene from Flashdance. ”I believe our target market will go looking for Carlton Draught material online. And online, it’s unable to offend anyone,” said Vincent Ruiu, group marketing manager at Carlton Brands.

As with any slightly off the wall ad campaign there is a very fine line between hilarious and repulsive. Get it right and you’ve got a viral hit. Get it wrong and you’ve also got a viral hit – but for all the wrong reasons. There is also the knock on effect of how your product is associated with the comedy you are providing.  There needs to be a perceived distance between what is awkward or unappealing about your ad. It needs to be funny ‘over there’ and not directly related to the experience of the product.

What does your website sound like?

We stumbled on an interesting new site last week entitled Code Organ, which lets you ‘play’ websites. You simply drop in a URL and it generates music from the HTML code.

The results can them be shared socially (via Twitter/Facebook).

We decided to test run a few well known brand home-pages through Code Organ to reveal the sonic branding hidden deep beneath the surface.

Here our some of our favourites:

Pepsi UK’s etheral chimes

Nokia’s hip hop twin peaks soundtrack

Ford’s metronome-backed scaling chords, Miami Vice style

IBM’s electro calypso

Blackberry’s machine gun/fireworks spouting  church organ

Levi’s Bossa Nova bassline tune up

BRIT (Ad)wards 2010

The BRIT Awards, the UK’s answer to The Grammys, is over for another year. Liam Gallagher threw an award, Kasabian fell over, Lady Gaga sang a song no-one knew, and Cheryl Cole’s lips operated from another dimension. However, aside from the myriad of performances, acceptance speeches and dubious choices of presenter something else was notably absent. The ad breaks didn’t appear to feature a single commercial for an album release – despite an audience of millions of devoted music fans.

In some ways this may seem odd, however a full 30 years on and the BRIT Awards now operate in a music ecosystem where sales are fleeting and brand alignments offer artists a whole new gamut of opportunity. A quick scan of the acts performing last night highlights their ongoing brand appeal, with the majority of artists present involved in brand alignments running concurrently with the event: Cheryl Cole (L’Oreal), Kasabian (Umbro), JLS (Nokia), Lily Allen (Xbox), Dizzie Rascal (Nike), and Florence and the Machine (a saturation of syncs across UK TV). Pixie Lott – who walked away with nothing from her three nominations – has also racked up a wealth of brand alignments in the last year (Nokia, Casio, Guitar Hero, River Island, EA, Orange, O2, and MySpace – to name just a few). Even Lady Gaga – one of the international acts that acted as a crutch to the show – is open for branded business, having recently signed up to a creative partnership with Polaroid.

As for the ads themselves numerous brands chose a musical route (Barclaycard, Hovis, Visa, etc), with the event’s title sponsor MasterCard rolling out idents featuring the Pet Shop Boys playing in a fan’s house. Some ads were subtler than others, with an ad for Schwarzkoff’s Live Colour XXL hair dye following Florence and the Machine’s flame haired award acceptance. Could Schwarzkoff net some of the traction that saw Florence Welch’s album sales rise by 1000% overnight?

Bearing in mind the high level of traction, and in many ways consumer anticipation, during The Grammys and Super Bowl ad breaks in the US, the BRIT Awards still have some way to go with regards to generating a major advertiser buzz. That said, with the lifting of the product placement ban coming into effect later this year, next year’s BRIT Awards could see brands taking a more central role in the UK music industry stalwart

Visa - Football Evolution ad

Schwarzkoff - Live Colour XXL ad (and Florence Welch’s hair BRITS 2010 & 2009)

WIN tickets to WIRELESS sponsored by Barclaycard

With a line up looking stronger than ever, where better to enjoy your summer than the stunning surroundings of Hyde Park at Wireless sponsored by Barclaycard?!

The opening day of Wireless already boasts a stunning line up with superstar P!NK headlining on Friday 2 July, supported by  The Tings Tings, Gossip and  The Temper Trap. Megastar JAY-Z and Mr Hudson are confirmed for the Sunday and with many more acts to be announced for the three day festival, temperatures are set to soar.   Wireless is guaranteed to be one of the hottest events of the summer and you could be there!

We have 2 pairs of tickets for Friday 2 July, headlined by P!NK.  For your chance to win a pair, just answer the following question:

What racing event is P!nk currently promoting? Answers to the usual address: competitions@brandsbandsfans.com

1. Spanish F1 Grand Prix

2. V8 Supercars

3. Nascar

4. Banger Racing at Wimbledon Stadium

For more information, go to www.wirelessfestival.co.uk