Monday, December 22, 2008

Möbius Commercial


This is my Christmas gift to all my readers involved in advertising. I would have made it a Chanukah gift, but I was working through Chanukah and this is a little better than a new pair of socks. But, if you want to think of this as a late Chanukah gift, feel free.

Over the last couple of years I have seen more and more attempts at piggyback advertising, commercials advertising two or more different products in an attempt to save money on media buys by sharing the cost with one or more other companies or divisions of a company. You have probably seen one or two of these commercials even if you are blind, fast-forward through commercials, and don't have a TV.


A fairly recent, extreme, and in my opinion, ineffective example of said piggybacking is this preview/commercial staring Serena Williams and Hayden Christensen which advertises the 20th Century Fox movie Jumper, Microsoft Windows Vista, Outkast, Nike, The HP Pavilion Desktop Computer, and Serena Williams' clothing line. I probably missed a couple of advertisers, so you might just want to watch it for yourself.

Piggybacking in commercials and sharing media buys to cut back on cost is an excellent idea, but only when the ads are effective for all products involved. I believe that my new idea, the Möbius commercial, will fulfill the wishes and dreams of advertisers wanting to share the cost of some prime time air to get more bang for their buck.

Here is the short explanation of how this works.

Don't get it? Well, here is the long explanation along with an example.




The Möbius commercial would actually be two separate thirty second commercials for different products that share a similar or identical target demographic. These commercials are able to function separately or together, and together they loop back into each other infinitely.

Here is an example:

Title: Very QuikWii

Bob walks into the kitchen with a sad look on his face. Seth, a man in his late 20's, sits at a kitchen table stirring up a glass of Nesquik chocolate milk.


"What's wrong?"

"I'm sad."


The Bob sits down. Seth slides the glass of Nesquik towards him.


"Close your eyes... take a sip of this... and I'll take you to my happy place."


Bob closes his eyes, takes a sip, and smiles. He opens his eyes.


"That is delicious and chocolatey, but we are still in the kitchen."

"Wait for it."


Seth claps his hands. Funky music starts playing and two very shapely black women, Mary and Kiki, dance into the room wearing Nesquik bunny bikinis. They dance for Seth and Bob for a few moments.


Bob asks, "Do you guys want to go play Wii?"


They walk into the living room and Venus and Serena start to play Wii tennis.


"It's on!" Kiki announces.

"Girl, I move like Venus Williams."


Seth and Bob sit on the couch and enjoy watching the girls play.

They turn to each other and simultaneously announce, "Wii!"

The girls continue to play and taunt each other.

Seth stands up.


"I'm thirsty."


He walks out of the room, leaving Bob to watch the game by himself on the couch.

The game ends.


"Can I play?"


The girls turn and lean down towards Bob.


"Uhuh little man! This is best of nine."

"Yeah."


Bob gets up and walks out of the room looking very sad.

Bob walks into the kitchen with a sad look on his face. Seth, a man in his late 20's, sits at a kitchen table stirring up a glass of Nesquik chocolate milk.


"What's wrong?"

"I'm sad."


The Bob sits down. Seth slides the glass...



It never ends.

So? What's the big deal? And isn't that a minute anyway? Where are the savings?

This is something new and interesting that will get people talking, and various news outlets will most likely mention the ad, and or play it for free, especially if you buy some ridiculous airtime during the Super Bowl, say a two minute block of time so that you can show the commercials back to back to back to back. That is a lot of backs. The key to this whole thing is buying large chunks of time up front, and then weening down, so that eventually you are just showing the thirty second spots by themselves, but by the time you are showing them standing alone, enough people have seen them together that they are indelibly linked in the consumer's mind. When they see one, they think of the other and vice versa.

I am sure that you can come up with about a half a dozen other justifications and facts to support this idea when you are trying to sell some clients on it. I have several in the back of my mind that I don't want to bore people with.

P.S. Click here to subscribe to Ideas By Chuck before The Rapture.

P.P.S. If you are interested in producing my "Very QuikWii" spot on spec., let me know, as there may be several interested parties. I love parties.

P.P.P.S. For anyone that may doubt me, just remember Spuds McKenzie.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Sundae Bar


Most of you, my millions of readers, would probably be surprised to find out that I have worked for no less than four ice cream franchises in varying capacities. Yes, I have a lot of ice cream experience under my belt.

I worked for Marble Slab as a "scoopstar," painted murals for Petrucci's Ice Cream and Cold Stone Creamery, and worked in marketing/advertising for a small but corrupt ice cream franchise that shall go unnamed. Ice cream is in my blood, and if it's not in my blood, then it is in my fat.

Besides the ice cream industry, I have also worked at several bars and clubs. As with ice cream, my experiences have been varied. From a dive called the Nowhere Bar in Athens, GA to one of the largest clubs in the world, Webster Hall in New York, NY, I have seen it all.

What am I trying to get at?

If there are two things that I know about from hands on, personal experience, they are ice cream and alcohol.

Here is the idea. The combining of alcohol and ice has been severely under explored. If you were to open a bar that served ice cream and alcohol and specialized in the combination of the two, you would have a cash cow on your hands, or all over your hands. Sticky.

Why?

People love ice cream. People love alcohol. People love gimmicks. People really love gimmicks when ice cream or alcohol is involved. Just look at Pinkberry and Coldstone or Coyote Ugly and Hooters.

I would call the place either Sundae Bar, The Ice Cream Bar, or Frozen Not Stirred.


Here are a couple of recipes for drinks you can use in your new bar.

The Adriatic - Vodka, Kahlua, Milk, and Vanilla Ice Cream.

WWWonderful - Vodka, Sprite, Cranberry Juice, Sherbet, and Three Cherries.


P.S. I have been working. Sometimes when I work, I am not able to post ideas as regularly as you or I might like. Subscribing to Ideas By Chuck is the best way to make sure you don't miss out on all my thinking. I am actually on the clock right now helping my friend Denny promote his documentary, The Wrecking Crew. Luckily, I can help him and post a blog at the same time. But, what if I couldn't? You really should subscribe to Ideas By Chuck.