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Skittles Campaign Review

Skittles have done it again! They are back with a new campaign, that consists of an ‘infectious’ new TV advert, where they don’t only ask you to ‘taste the rainbow’ but now to ‘contract the rainbow’ as well!

Their new advert depicts two teenagers meeting together just outside of what we presume is a high school to apparently discuss something important. As it turns out, one of the characters has been infected with ‘Skittlepox’ and it just may be contagious…

Here at apt, we have mixed opinions on this advert and it has most definitely been a topic of discussion within the office. However, overall our verdict is that it is a fun, bizarre and mildly disturbing advert that will certainly attract attention. Worth over £38 million, Skittles has grown by 10% over the course of the last two years and this new campaign that includes not only the TV ad, but the integration of Facebook and Twitter also, will definitely enable it to achieve its aims of boosting sales and encouraging growth. This recent advert has been part of a big year for Skittles and here at apt this got us thinking about all of its other past campaigns.

 

Even as far back as the 80’s Skittles has always had a slogan, and whilst it has been altered slightly throughout the years, the main message is still the same. In 1947, the slogan was ‘Taste the rainbow of fruit colours’ and the essence of this has been carried through every single Skittles campaign since, although now it has been shortened to just ‘Taste the rainbow’. Over the years, Skittles have come up with an array of quirky and zany advertisement ideas that consist of concepts such as the ‘Skittles hourglass’ and the ‘Piñata man’ and all of these adverts have succeeded in making us confused yet tantalised about the prospect of having a bag of skittles. Furthermore, skittles have relatively recently come out with a variety of different spin-off products with new flavours such as ‘Wild Berry’ and ‘Tropical’ in order to attract even more attention to their fast expanding brand.

However all in all, we at apt believe that this campaign precedes a long line of very successful, if not far-fetched, adverts and no matter how weird we find them, we always know that they will be very successful!

Three UK campaign review: When stuff sucks #makeitright

Three UK is known for its quirky, fun and memorable campaigns, so it was of no great surprise to us here at apt when the mobile and broadband giant decided to solicit the help of Jackson the Muppet their ‘fluffy purple ambassador’ and East 17 to create this oddly empowering TV advert.

The advert opens with a rather melancholy scene where Jackson the Muppet is making his way around a city, with a stream of bad luck constantly coming his way. He feels down, dispirited and depressed because everything in the world seems to ‘just suck’.  Halfway through the clip he seems to have an epiphany of sorts, where he realises that whatever is bad in the world should and can be made right! This is the pivotal point in the advert where the rain stops and the enthusiastic dance number starts along to the East 17 anthem ‘It’s Alright’ which as I’m sure you will agree, can put a positive spin on almost anything.

This new campaign aims to target all the complaints that people have with networking whilst giving a voice to all Three customers. CEO of the company Dave Dyson stated that “we want to entertain people with this advert, but also want to introduce a more serious message with the #makeitright campaign. Jackson might be a loveable puppet – but he was once downtrodden and treated unfairly – just like many mobile customers. At Three our purpose is to change that. We’re taking a stand to #makeitright […]”

 

This campaign is similar to Three’s previous campaigns such as 2013’s ‘The Pony’ and 2014’s ‘#SingItKitty’ that both featured cheesy pop songs and talking animals/characters. Whilst this advert is a cheerful and entertaining advert, the pledge and message behind it is still very prominent and here at apt we believe that this campaign will definitely promote change and that it is most certainly a step forward for the industry... if they deliver!

World Social Media Day 2015

Today marks the 5^th annual social media day! Launched by Mashable in 2010 as a way to recognise social media’s impact of global communication, the national day sees Facebook and Twitter users all over the globe celebrate.

We all know that social media has revolutionised the way that people, businesses and organisations communicate with the whole world. The days of waiting for a breaking news story to go to print are over; Twitter can help a news story be shared with the world instantly to thousands of followers. Finding old and new friends can all be done from your Smartphone or laptop without having to leave the house, thanks to Facebook. Apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Vine can now allow us to see what our friends had for dinner, you know just in case you couldn’t wait. People no longer have to worry about updating their actual CV when they have their LinkedIn profile to add skills to and Skype allows you to speak to anyone in the world... providing they have Wi-Fi of course.

Here at apt, we love social media and are always interested in the current trends. As a business, we understand that it is important to establish your ‘voice’ before participating in social media. Whether it’s strictly corporate or professional with a pop of personality, ensuring that your ‘voice’ is relevant to your potential customers and is different from your competitors is the first step. It might seem like a lot to manage but once you’ve established the ‘voice’ it can easily be applied to relevant content.

We thought it would useful to share some of our expertise of what we think is great to post as a business on the huge array of social media platforms:

1. 1.    Relevant Industry News – Posting relevant industry news is a great way to keep up to date. Not only will you show you are informed of what’s happening within your industry but you will be able to convey the information across to your followers.
2. 2.    Promotional Offers – Although many people may not be interested in any promotional offers for one reason or another, others will be. So, don’t be put off, promotions, offers and even competitions can be posted with the potential of boosting your business through social media. Don’t devalue your brand with constant offers though – there is a fine line between rewarding loyal customers and making your brand seem overpriced.
3. 3.    Office / Business News – It’s nice to share content showing your followers that you’re a strong team, understandably it is dependent on the business’s voice but posting a tweet with an image at a business networking event or showing that you’ve had cakes brought into the office is always great!
4. 4.    Relevant Days & Local Events – Researching relevant National ‘days’ and their hashtags is a good way to create content to share and get involved. Also local and national events can be researched. Blogs, statuses and tweets can all be prepared in advance ready to be shared for anything relevant that is coming up. If your business is attending a related event, it’s great to post images while there and creating a follow up blog is even better.
5. 5.    Testimonials – Posting snippets of client testimonials is an excellent way to not only show off your business but also to thank those who left the kind words about your business. These are great to post onto LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook.

There you have it, some top tips on what to post onto social media all while maintaining your business voice. If you’re struggling to find your business voice or you don’t have the time to build your social media presence, why not give us a call? We’d love to sit with you and discuss what we can do to help, contact our friendly team on 01242 250692 or drop us a line at [email protected]

 

 

The apt Annual April Fools Ceremony 2015!

Here at apt, we look forward to Aprils Fools just as much as the pranksters do; we even like to celebrate with an Annual April Fools Ceremony and review our favourites that caught us out during the day! Following on from our other top 5 business April Fools pranks from 2013 and 2014, we are delighted to give you the top five of 2015!

5. Costa and Kip

Costa fooled people into believing that they were trialling a ‘Costa & Kip’ service between 3pm and 4pm that allowed people to have a 15 minute nap before awakening to a mug of their favourite blend. It wasn’t long before people did wake up and smell the coffee to this April Fools trick.

4. Pizza Hut – ‘Scratch and Sniff Menu’

Pizza Hut got involved this year by announcing that the restaurant would be incorporating scratch and sniff technology into their menus. The menu; consisting of no images or words to describe menu, was said to invite customers to ‘succumb to their senses’ whilst being able to tell the differences between food easily.

 

3. Domino’s - Driverless Delivery Vehicle

The ‘Domi-no Driver’ had people from all over very excited! The ‘Domi-no Driver’ claimed to use GPS to track customers’ location at home or on the go and the H.U.N.G.A.R system (Hunger Detection and Ranging) will detect real-time obstacles, ensuring maximum road safety. Its unique selling point was that the ‘Domi-no Driver’ can carry 400% more pizza with 100% less driver!

 

 

2. Tesco announced ‘bouncy aisles’

Tesco released that they were going to introduce ‘bouncy aisles’ into their stores to help their shorter customers reach the top shelves without having to ask. Lucy Mecklenburgh, ex-TOWIE favourite and star of the BBC's Tumble, supposedly helped develop the bouncy aisles. We can imagine many people sat reading it must have been thinking ‘How on earth will health and safety allow that?’

 

1.    Rosetta Stone – Learn to speak ‘woof’

Rosetta Stone released a video on Youtube offering a course to users to learn how to speak dog. The advert humorously translated dog’s barks with subtitles indicating what they were ‘actually’ saying. One subtitle translated ‘I hid the remote. Deal with it.’

 

And there you have it; we hope you enjoyed reading our top five business April Fool’s Pranks of 2015! We wonder what they will come up with next year, but for now we want to know what your favourite was? Let us know in the comments below!

Success for Tena Men Leakage Ad...

Tena Men have created a new marketing campaign consisting of two ads, set to be released on Sky TV channels in three weeks time. The humorous campaign, which has already been released online, introduces a confident and smooth spokesman to sell the Tena Men USP in the style of Old Spice Isaiah Mustafa.

If you haven’t already figured out what the USP is, keep reading... Stirling Gravitas plays the confident spokesman in both ads; his character similar to not only Isaiah Mustafa but also Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy, means its set to make this ad a viral hit across the globe.

The first ad shows Gravitas being in control of every aspect of his life including some normal and slightly eccentric aspects. Playing pool, gambling, lion taming, karate, knife throwing, stunt driving and walking on water are all aspect he is in control of even though he has entered into an age in which Tena Men has become an essential part of life too – Yes, these ads are about Urine Leakage!

The second ad consists of Gravitas offering tips on how to live a healthy lifestyle which can also stem urine leakage. The advert shows Gravitas smacking a packet of cigarettes out of man’s hand to removing burgers from a friends reach to exercising regularly. Both of the adverts end with a shot of a small water fountain detailed with a bronze boy ‘weeing’ until the Tena Men pack comes on screen followed by text saying ‘Keep Control’.

We love the humour of this ad; especially as it isn’t really something that people, particularly men want to talk about. Engaging male viewers with a ‘manly’ character as someone they can relate to is always a great way to increase not only sales but awareness of the overall issue in a less serious approach.

 

 

 

 

 

Who needs plates when you have a slab of rock?

You’ve booked a table at your favourite restaurant in hope of a good night out with a delicious meal. You place your order and shortly after your eyes widen and mouth salivates at the sight of your waiter approaching with your food. However, the last thing you would expect is your food to be served in... a farmer’s hat?!

Recently, the girls in the apt office were snooping around the Twittersphere and came across an interesting account going by the handle @WeWantPlates. It seems that users can submit their own pictures of all the weird and wonderful ways their food has been served. These have ranged from a miniature shopping trolley to a slab of rock, from a piece of tree bark to just on the table itself!

As much as we would love the experience of having afternoon tea being served to us on a miniature picnic bench; some people think too outside of the box and the ideas can seem a bit odd, especially if you share your food on the actual table...

A YouTube Ad that you won’t skip...

Now, we’re all guilty of clicking the ‘Skip Ad’ button soon after sitting through the unavoidable five seconds whilst waiting to watch a video on YouTube - more than likely to watch a video of dancing dogs but that’s not our point. A huge 94% of all YouTube advertisements are skipped after the first mandatory five seconds have elapsed to reveal the saviour button, barely giving companies a chance to express their USP.

However a clever American Insurance Firm, Geico has created a new YouTube advertising campaign where the first five seconds are key to getting their brand across. It even continues into something that you were probably on YouTube to watch in the first place...

The ad named, Family: Unskippable opens to show a family sitting down to dinner, after five seconds a voiceover says “You can’t skip this Geico ad, it’s already over.” After that you will more than likely watch the rest anyway... the Geico logo remains permanently on the screen and the family can still be seen in the background as if they are frozen in time; but what happens next is really quite amusing for a YouTube ad...

A big and rather fluffy dog comes into view from the left hand side and continues towards the table. The dog proceeds to eat from Dad’s floating fork dangling with a generous helping of Spaghetti Bolognese. After polishing off Dad’s dinner, the dog catapults itself onto the table and turns dinner time into dinner rampage, eating the children’s meal, spilling over glasses of milk and quite amusingly avoiding the salad until the dog finally comes to Mum and the remaining Spag Bol jackpot!

The family; all of who are still frozen can be seen looking at each other just by the movement of their eyes. Mum’s look is especially funny as it is directed towards Dad and you can imagine her thoughts are “I thought I told you to put the dog out for dinner!”

Well played Geico... we really love the creativity of this ad and you’ve earned your place in the 6% of YouTube adverts that don’t get skipped!

  

Dave darling, you’re so Moneysupermaket! #EpicStrut

Whilst it may not be new, in the office today we’re talking Moneysupermarket’s advert, which sees businessman ‘Dave’ nonchalantly twerking his way to work – yup, you heard that right.

 It starts off with Dave getting out of a car and walking down the street on what seems to be a normal commute to work. With that look in his eye and Pussycat Dolls “Don’t cha” playing in the background, you know everything isn’t quite what it seems. The general public stare, looking confused, and the camera pans down to showcase Dave’s short shorts and 6-ich high heels! He struts his stuff down the streets joined by a gang of dancers, shaking his hips towards guest star Sharon Osbourne who declares “Dave darling, you’re so Moneysupermarket.”

The advert made its debut during ITV1’s revamped show Stars in their Eyes, and social media users can track the latest twerking shenanigans using the hashtag #EpicStrut

This is definitely a memorable advert, and whilst not necessarily directing our brains back to the thought of insurance, the image of Dave’s twerking behind will certainly stick.

 

Irn-Bru receives PR Boost after claims it helped in the Ebola recovery.

The Scottish nurse who contracted the deadly Ebola virus and recovered has praised London’s Royal Free Hospital and interestingly the bright orange fizzy drink Irn-Bru. The only thing we thought it cured was a Scottish hangover?

The 39 year old volunteer who caught the disease in Sierra Leone was sent to a hospital in London where experimental anti-viral treatments were successfully administered. During her recovery she said that music was a massive help and lots of Irn-Bru which was originally produced as Strachan’s Brew in 1901, helped her get her through the illness.

After the announcement, Irn-Bru creator AG Barr received a huge amount of positive PR and several publications questioned the power of the soft drink with a 108 year old secret recipe known by only three people! Although it seems unlikely the nurse benefited from the two food colourings in the drink, headlines included The Telegraph “Can Irn-Bru really cure Ebola?” and The Daily Mail “I beat Ebola with high-tech drugs and Irn-Bru.” 

It’s that time of year - time for the Super bowl 2015! Or should we say endless advertisements?!

The United States has been in full swing celebrating the National Football League Superbowl and with the championships being one of the most watched sporting events in the world; people in the UK will wait until the wee hours of the morning to make sure they don’t miss a game... but we all know that with the Superbowl comes a battle of the ads.

Many Superbowl advertisements have gone down in history and it’s not because they interrupt the sporting entertainment. In 2013, over 50% of the Superbowl viewers just tuned in to watch the slightly creatively crazed ads. However to advertise to the global viewers comes at a huge price...a 30 second slot will cost you around $4 million and for a 60 second slot you’d be looking at paying a jaw dropping $8 million!

Newcastle Brown Ale couldn’t afford to produce a multi-million dollar advertisement for the 2015 Superbowl; they could however, afford to produce an action packed storyboard! The ad, which can be found on their ‘IfWeMadeIt’ website, details typically unrealistic scenarios that can all be solved with a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. The scene is set with a desert beach island in the middle of the ocean, a man washed up on the beach and a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale that washes up too. The cap is popped and immediately thousands of bikini clad women are before him, a little like the Lynx advert that aired a few years back. The storyboard continues with a handful of surreal scenarios including a wild beach party complete with dancing sharks, deadly deep sea robots, fuming football gorillas and cool skate boarding cats all whilst throwing life saving bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale! It certainly would have been a Superbowl ad that would have kept a significant amount of viewers entertained, especially if they could’ve afforded to make it!

 

Fast Food giant McDonald’s could obviously afford to have a slot in the Superbowl ads but it’s not the ‘Give Lovin Get Lovin’ ad that is making the news. Brands have been trending nationally on Twitter due to the pre-game and in-game advertisements and McDonalds has been very clever retweeting thousands of other marketing spots and competitions; the best bit is that McDonalds have been adding ‘lovin’ into each one. McDonalds may just be doing better with their social media this year than their actual Big Game TV spot!

Jeep chose to enter the Superbowl battle of the ads to show off their new off-road-lite model Renegade, the ad consists of various environmental shots from around the world with shots introducing the newly modelled vehicle. It is shot with soft camera movements and the transitions are clean cut with background track of folk music titled This Land is Your Land. It could be slightly embarrassing for Jeep because late last year North Face created a very similar advertisement, in fact almost exactly the same; even the same background track was used! The only differences between the two are the different logos and unique selling points; someone must’ve really liked the North Face ad at Jeep and decided to use the idea...

 

Of course, over the years, many Superbowl ads have been shocking and been stereotypical towards genders and this year’s example has to be the parody advert from Totino’s Pizza Rolls. The advert opens to a room full of men and a woman serving the branded pizza rolls, she then retires back to the kitchen and speaks to the audience saying how bored she used to be whilst waiting for the next batch of snacks to be ready; she then introduces the Super Bowl Activity Pack For Women with small puzzles and toys to keep women entertained whilst serving the ‘boys’.

 

This year’s Superbowl has seen many big brand companies such as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Doritos and Toyota all take part in the battle of the ads but some of the favourites this year have been ‘The Brady Bunch’ by Snickers sticking to the ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ campaign with an appearance from the highly tattooed and slightly scary looking Danny Trejo, as Marcia Brady.  Another is The ‘Lost Dog’ ad from Budweiser; obviously the story follows a lost puppy that is rescued by a group of horses from the jaws of a wolf – how heart warming.

So once again the battle of the ads are over for 2015 as NFL Superbowl comes to an end, they’ll be back next year with crazy and shocking ads, many companies may have even started storyboarding already... if not they’ll certainly need to start budgeting for their spot...