Monkey Business

CAREERBUILDER.COM

Click the image to go to the Careerbuilder.com Monkey email site.

CLIENT: CareerBuilder.com, a Web concern jointly owned by Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy.

AGENCY: Cramer-Krasselt

CONTENT: Consumers were able to construct a humorous video email featuring a chimp, and craft a customized message by recording a voice greeting via the telephone, which the chimp would repeat to the person the email was sent to. The emails were meant to drum up pre-game hype for two Super Bowl TV ads CareerBuilder was running featuring chimpanzees managing a corporation.

FEEDBACK: Eleven months later, the monkey emails are still circulating. So far, CareerBuilder says, more than 80 million monkey emails have been played. The site's traffic rose 34% this year, due in part to the email campaign. CareerBuilder says one of the most important results of its Super Bowl viral push was that it held the interest of consumers, most of whom spent six to nine minutes playing with the make-your-own monkey emails.

TiVo Buster

KFC

Watch the KFC ad aimed at consumers with digital video recorders.

CLIENT: Yum Brands Inc.'s KFC

AGENCY: Interpublic Group's Foote Cone & Belding

CONTENT: KFC carefully designed a TV ad to circumvent Madison Avenue's latest nemesis: digital video recorders. One frame in the ad contained a secret code word -- "Buffalo" -- which viewers can use to redeem a coupon for a free KFC "Buffalo Snacker" chicken sandwich. Only viewers who used their DVR, or an analog video cassette recorder, to slow the ad and watch it frame by frame could see the code. To get people to participate, KFC ran newspaper ads with details of when the ad would run.

FEEDBACK: With ad-skipping devices threatening Madison Avenue's age old way of doing business, KFC and FCB were among the first to experiment with ways around the pesky devices. Roughly 103,000 people claimed "Buffalo Snacker" coupons after entering the hidden code on KFC's Web site. Furthermore, the publicity prompted an increase in the number of people visiting KFC's Web site. In the weeks the ad ran, the site drew 3 million page views, 40% more than the amount of traffic it usually gets over a similar period of time. The chicken purveyors also managed to land 852 mentions in the media, KFC estimates, including from some TV stations that ran the commercial free as part of a news report.

An Edgy Shave

PHILIPS NORELCO

Click the image to go to the Norelco Bodygroom site.

CLIENT: Philips Electronics NV's Philips Norelco

AGENCY: Omnicom Group Inc.'s Tribal DDB

CONTENT: Philips knew it couldn't hawk its unique "Bodygroom" shaver -- designed to help a man shave hair on his back, chest and intimate body areas -- on a mass medium like TV. The product wasn't for everyone, and might even be seen as offensive. So the company's ad agency, Tribal DDB, went the lighthearted route -- creating a Web site starring a man wearing a bathrobe chatting about what the shaver could do. To get the word out, the agency alerted friends of employees. Publicis Groupe SA public-relations firm Manning Selvage & Lee also helped drive traffic to the site by getting the product mentioned on Howard Stern's program on Sirius Satellite Radio.

FEEDBACK: Marketers are fast learning that they can address their promotional messages to specific audiences, rather than shouting something out to the whole world. Philips's Web ad uses various fruits and vegetables to refer to parts of the male anatomy -- a tactic that might prove shocking on TV, but is palatable to the smaller audience that flocked to the Web site because of its frat-boy jokes. Philips says sales of the product were way above its original projections and says the site drew 1.8 million unique visitors as of Dec. 12th.

Apple's Bite

APPLE COMPUTER

Watch two of Apple's Mac-PC ads, "Better Results" and "Counselor."

CLIENT: Apple Computer Inc.

AGENCY: Omnicom Group's TBWAChiatDay

CONTENT: A series of ads that played out on TV and the Web show the Apple Mac, represented by a hip-looking young man, debating its features with the PC, represented by a paunchy, nerdy-looking fellow. The Mac-man -- played by actor Justin Long, star of the film "Accepted," is clever, fun and handy -- he can communicate with all sorts of different people, and knows how to come up with pictures and music. The PC, played by another actor known to the youth crowd, "Daily Show" commentator John Hodgman, is decidedly less hip, and is always amazed, humbled or befuddled by Mac's never-ending range of abilities.

FEEDBACK: Pepsi pokes fun at Coke, and Miller Brewing has smacked Anheuser-Busch, but this is razzing of a more sophisticated, and sustained, kind. Apple's knife cuts deep, but by the time rivals feel it, they have already started to bleed.

Hurts So Good

SPRINT NEXTEL

Watch Sprint-Nextel's locker room "crime deterrent" ad.

CLIENT: Sprint Nextel Corp.

AGENCY: Omnicom Group's TBWAChiatDay

CONTENT: Two men are in a locker room and begin to compare cellphones, in an effort to see who has the most sophisticated gadget. One of the men says "I can watch live TV." His friend responds: "My Sprint phone has TV and downloads music." In response, the first man says his phone has a "crime deterrent" feature, which he demonstrates by throwing the phone at the other guy's head.

FEEDBACK: In a crowded category, where telecommunication giants are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to woo customers, this ad got attention. Not only did it leave people laughing out loud but within 30 seconds a message about what the cellphone offers comes through loud and clear. The company received emails from consumers applauding the spot and Don Imus mentioned it during his morning radio program after it initially ran during the Super Bowl.

LINK

ad:                          Rosiehere).

ad:               Light It Up           

client:      The Coca-Cola Company

agency:    Foote Cone & Belding New York

for more details:

Lighting it up at the Coca-Cola Company (here).

ads:                    The LeBrons

client:              Nike

agency:           Weiden + Kennedy

for more details:

The LeBrons (here).

ad(s):                  All the Geico spots running in 2006

client:                 Geico.com

agency:              The Martin Agency

for more details:

Craig Ferguson (brand exemplar?) (here).

ad:                    Working Wealth

client:            Smith Barney

agency:         Hill Holliday, New York

for more details:

Parsing the symbolic language of the Smith Barney ad (here).

ad:                    Where the bloody hell are you?

client:            Australia

agency:         M&C Saatchi, Sydney

for more details:

Marketing Nations: Good News From Australia (here).

ad:                     Intel chips inside

client:            Apple

agency:         TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles

for more details:

Branding Brilliance from Apple (here).

ad:                      Peyton Manning as a fan

client:              Mastercard

agency:           McCann-Erickson New York

for more details:

Peyton Manning: The man and the brand (here).

ad:                   My Life, My Card: M. Night Shyamalan

client:           AmEx

agency:        Ogilvy         

for more details:

Branding, Cocreation and Amex Theater (here).

Oscar advertising (here).



ad:                        Chevy Cocreation website

client:                Chevrolet/General Motors

agency:             Campbell Ewald

LINK