Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant, came up with this billboard to promote their drink in northern Indiana. Shortly later, it was taken down because of all the complaints. Any idea why? Here is the billboard. Think about it.



The billboard looks fine to me. The idea behind it was how people belong to clubs and teams. The company wanted to develop a cult following like-minded people. The problem with the billboard is that it refers to the 1978 Jonestown cult massacre where 900 people died from drinking cyanide-laced grape punch. Obviously, the billboard was a major offense to the people of the town. The billboard was a complete accident. Whoever came up with the idea didn't know about the massacre. I found that kind of funny but at the same time, it's serious. How many people will go to Hacienda now? They are either offended or scared to do so. This is a good example of how in the advertising world, everything you say has an impact, either good or bad, and people will always remember it.

Info found here

The top 50 list

I was recently reading Fast Company and came across the world's 50 most innovative companies. Apple was no doubt #1 for “dominating the business landscape, in 101 ways”. Here are the 101 ways:



Twitter came in at #2 for “five years of explosive growth that has redefined communication”. Facebook was #3 for “600 million users, despite Hollywood”. Nissan came in #4 for “creating the Leaf, the first mass-market all-electric car”. This surprised me because it was up there on the list mixed in with the social networking and technology companies (Groupon, Google, Netflix, and Zynga are next in line). Also, as the all-electric car sounds cool, I didn't really think it was popular. I haven't heard much about it. Like I said, many of the social networking companies are on the list. LinkedIn and Foursquare are among them along with Wieden + Kennedy coming in at #25 for “dominating the airwaves and the Internet with its Old Spice campaign”. Here is the “true tale” of how they came up with the idea, in comic book form.

View here

Anyway, the point I'm making with this blog post is that the social media companies take over the first half of the top 50 list. This means that advertising is changing. There are so many options out there now. There's more than just Facebook so we need to think outside the box of what can be done on the Internet.

Going viral

We've been working on a project where we have to come up with a viral video and I think a lot of us had trouble with staying away from commercials. At least I did. I felt like I had to mention the brand in there somewhere but that's not what viral videos are all about. It's just meant to be cool. Whatever you're doing in the viral video doesn't have to relate to the brand. I think this is a good example of that.



What they are doing is blowing out and re-lighting these candles with a cannon. And what's the brand? Erbert & Gerbert's subs. This brand has nothing to do with cannons or candles except for the fact they were celebrating their 20th anniversary. However, it does show how fun the brand is without directly saying that. Anyway, the thing that's going to help us with our viral videos is maybe stepping out of our branding boxes. We all watch youtube everyday so we know what's out there and what people on the web find funny. All we have to do is think of something new.

Video found on YOUTUBE

2011 Super Bowl

I didn't think the 2011 Super Bowl commercials were as great as previous years but there were some really creative ones. My favorite was this one, done for VW.



Many of the Super Bowl ads were in your face humorous, such as the Doritos and Pepsi ones. The thing I liked about the VW one was it's simplicity and subtle humor. There's no conversation going on at all, just different scenes. Even though the kid has his face covered, you still can feel emotion through his body language. The part I liked the most was when his mom slides the sandwich over to him. You see that "Oh, mom..." emotion that we all recognize. I also think the brand did a good job of hitting their target audience, being families. Whenever I think of targeting families I feel limited in what can be done so this ad really inspires me on how a family oriented commercial can also be hilarious.

Video found on YOUTUBE