With the rising popularity of social media and consumer generated media it’s not surprising that even advertisers are getting in on the fun.  A new campaign by life insurance giant New York Life has consumers writing their own ads.  The Blue Box Challenge encourages customers to go online and enter three short words that express their messages of love to their families (it’s supposed to be expressing what impact life insurance has has one their life).  If chosen, your ad will appear on newyorklife.com and you’ll win $100 for the charity of your choice. 

I really like the trend of involving consumers in marketing campaigns.  It’s an interesting way to forge an even stronger connection between a consumer and a brand.  It will be fun to watch this trend grown in the future - it makes me wonder whether at some point we’ll be able to define our own preferences and be served ads that talk to us the way we want to be talked to.  That would be stellar. 

What do you think? And what did your ad say? Via Adfreak.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com  

Check out this recent work by Leo Burnett Chicago for McDonalds. It’s a billboard shaped like an egg that opens gradually from 6:30am to 10:30am announcing that McDonalds serves “Fresh Eggs Daily” during that time period. When breakfast is over, the egg closes right back up.

It was put up just outside of a McDonalds location near Wrigley Field to invite hungry customers in for breakfast. My guess is that it met its advertising objective, which was to make people notice that McDonalds serves fresh eggs for Breakfast, but I wonder what the return on investment was? It looks like the ad may have been placed on their property, so they probably saved ad space dollars, but I wonder what the production costs were? Even still, this HAD to be more effective than a traditional billboard…

I think McDonalds needs to install these at every location just to remind me that breakfast ends at 10:30.  Better yet, how about a McDonalds that serves breakfast foods all day long?  Now that would be something…

Via Agency Spy.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com/

Adfreak (Adweek) alerted me to some pretty cool work that I hadn’t yet seen, and I think it’s worth passing along. Each has to do with climate change and the effect we’re having on the environment, and attempts to resonate with the emotions of the person interacting with the displays.

Here’s a cool promotion from the World Wildlife Fund encouraging people to save paper, and in doing so, save the planet:

And here’s some work from the National Resources Defense Council - These are all really interesting ways to make people take notice that things are changing and unless we do something about it, the planet is going to be in big trouble

Color changing coffee cup:

Water cooler jug graphics:

And a bus shelter that collects rain water (click for full size & to read headline):

Stunning work, and really innovative.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Thank goodness for social media. Today I was catching up on reading some blogs using my Google Reader, one of which was Adweek’s Adfreak blog. I always enjoy reading this blog because it’s got lots of juicy bits on the world of advertising, which is where I cut my teeth in the creative world. If you’re not reading it and you’re in the marketing and advertising industry, you probably should be.

Today Adfreak pointed me to a site that I cannot believe I didn’t know about. It’s called Ads of the World, and it contains an archive (and blog) of the best and most interesting creative work of all time. And they truly do have ads from all over the world–including Baltimore and Washington DC! Oh yeah, I think their blog would be a worthwhile add to your Google reader as well!

Here are a couple of my cool finds from this morning (as always, click to expand them):

And my favorite:

Garret Ohm
Orange Element
Baltimore, Maryland

I wanted to pass along a campaign that I thought was actually pretty cool from this week’s Mediapost Out to Launch column, which is written and published each week by Amy Corr. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you go check it out here.

The campaign I like was done by one of the hottest advertising agencies in the world right now, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), for their client Burger King in the UK. The premise of the campaign is that there’s this big movement called “People for the Proper” that are pushing a proper breakfast. The ads feature the improper and proper way to do simple things like give a handshake and wear pants and then give a coupon for a “proper breakfast.”

My favorite part of the campaign was a fake publication that Burger King published called “Improper Magazine” that was published and inserted into another magazine. The magazine was actually a really clever ad for Burger King, and showed a bunch of paparazzi type photos of people indulging in improper breakfast practices. The publication also gave tips on how to how to enjoy a proper breakfast–mainly by enjoying a warm, delicious flame grilled bacon and egg butty (which I’m guessing in the UK means sandwich???).

Good stuff, CP+B. As usual, you’ve created advertising that breaks the traditional mold.

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

The big game is over. It was a really amazing game, so congratulations to all you Giants fans out there. This morning is a time to sit back and reflect over the good, the bad and the pointless ads of the Super Bowl.

First, let’s start with the prize for the worst ad. Hands down, I give it to the Salesgenie ads. Ok, it was a series of ads, but they were really terrible. Not only were they poorly done, I got a creepy racist vibe from them. They really over-emphasized the accents of the characters, and made them sound asinine. I wouldn’t touch Salesgenie with a ten foot pole. I’m not even hooking them up with a hyperlink.

My favorite ad of the night had to be the first Etrade ad. The baby was hysterical. The ad was not only really well written and painfully funny, but it also delivered a clear message–that anyone can use Etrade to trade stock. Kudos. Here’s the ad:

Other ads I really liked throughout the night included pretty much all of Bud Light’s ads. I especially liked “Ability to fly no longer available with Bud Light.” As much as I am a Coke man, I also really enjoyed the “Every sip” ad from Pepsi with Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg. Really funny.

Also impressing me was Under Armour. This was one of the most talked about ads around here because Under Armour is a local Baltimore business that took a lot of heat for dumping a few million dollars on the ad. I think it paid off big for them. The production value of the spot was amazing, and at the end of the ad (I had to put my consumer hat on), I really wanted a pair of the shoes. That’s not to say that they couldn’t have saved some money producing the spot and just shown the product…Those shoes look awesome. I need some. Here’s the spot:

What do you think?

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com