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Before I get to decking halls and praising trees, I find reflecting on favorite Christmas commercials of yore is a wonderful way to jump start the magic and embrace the ads which have become synonymous to the season. This is a completely unscientifically generated list of what I classify as the best Christmas commercials based on personal humour, recall of childhood memories and an upbringing that brands me the iconic Christmas mush. Its the Scarlet letter that I bear…one which is decorated with candy canes and small, shiny lights.

Update: I couldn’t let Nadia get away with posting this without me putting my two cents in, so I did. I am bringing a well balanced non-gushy slightly cynical viewpoint to the table. Now you can enjoy:)

5. Hershey Kiss

Nadia:

This is a little one to start us off slowly in what I would call a Christmas safe bet. It really exemplifies what the Hershey Kiss brand really is- non offensive, and vaguely memorable. For me, its Christmas clockwork simply based on the release of their commercials which gently nudge me mail cards and bake something. The commercial is released just in time to be wedged between the delightful and disgusting festive mess of advertising that many of you cynics deplore.

Jenn:

I’m not too sure how this made it on our best list. It’s cute sure, it’s in the spirit in the holidays, and it doesn’t make me want to run from the room screaming and waiting in anticipation for the New Year to hit so that I don’t have to watch yet another horrifying example of Christmas advertising, but the best…meh.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eg2qVPqUGkI]

4. Coke Polar Bears

Nadia:

Alright Coke. You win. As much as people love the high fructose cornsyrup train rolling into town for Christmas with Type II diabetes, I’ve got to say our pals up North- before they became known as the face of global warming and “HappyFeet”- show us how to bring in the season.
Jenn:

OMG, I love this series of commercials. If this were my list, it would be a strong #2. What’s not to love: cute baby polar bear – check, cute baby penguin – check, cute baby penguin shares with cute baby polar bear – check. Now that I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, I’m going to go and watch this one again while drinking a nice cold glass of Coke.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=9NM6mpINduM&feature=related]
3. Peter comes home for Christmas (Folgers)

Nadia:

Number one for Christmas sucks like myself. Are you kidding me with this? If the sister had a lisp, or maybe Tiny Tim’s crutch, it would be like taking the Christmas season, wrapping it in a manger, and dipping it in elf dust. This ad has all of the makings of a Christmas miniseries starring Jimmy Stewart. Peter comes home from, college?, early Christmas morning with an armful of gifts for the family. His darling sister wakes up and they make coffee together to rise the family for what I can only imagine to be the most magical Norman Rockwell Christmas morning in history. It has managed to completely embrace and exploit all of the Christmas emotions born in Bethlehem and middle America. I love it.
Jenn:

Are you kidding me with this one Nadia? I don’t even know where to start with this one. Beyond it making saccharine seem bitter, the cheese factor in this commercial is off the charts and not in a good cheesetastic kinda way like our #1 entry. This commercial maybe OK if it was only played once on Christmas day, but this commercial and others like it inundate our TV’s as soon as American Thanksgiving ends – let’s all be thankful this Christmas season for streaming commercial free TV on the Internet. Also, adding to my disdain for this commercial is that it has spawned a decade of commercials from Folgers along the same vein – no one should do something this horrible to something as good as coffee, mmm coffee.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=DW1V1tFRcA0]

2. RubberBand Man Santa’s Helper (Office Max)

Nadia:

Not to be confused with the lyrical stylings of T.I., rap GENIUS, the Rubberband man is a track that I would absolutely download and slowjam to, even after the snow has melted. This video features a beloved Christmas Blaxpotation-esque do-gooder delivering solutions to all of your holidays problems: a step stool, so a shorter man can get a kiss under the mistletoe; a paper cutter for the holiday ham; a power strip for the outdoor lights; and a glue stick to keep Santa’s beard in place. It’s hard not to love the stop-motion animation, directed by Chel White of Bent Image Lab in the style of the 1960s Rankin-Bass specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You can also check out the “making of” video here.
Jenn:

Again, I’m not really with you on this one Nadia. The commercial does evoke a certain nostalgic Christmas feeling in the pit of my stomach (and not in the good kinda way) from my childhood via the classic Rudolf the Rednose Reindeer movie, but beyond this, the commercial does nothing for me. If this were on TV, I’d have changed the channel about 5 seconds into the commercial and not have known that the drivel I was watching was a commercial for OfficeMax – which in the overall picture would probably help me not have a small hate on for OfficeMax.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N-Gm4SGUYE]

1. Chrismahanukwanzakah (Virgin Mobile)

Nadia:

This is by far my favorite, and you can bet your pretty Christmas bells that I’ll be celebrating on December 13th. The commercial and the holiday itself is somewhat of a satirization of the effect of political correctness on the holiday season, which often is now seen as a secular series of celebrations rather than the formerly overt religious connotations of Christmas; as the song in the ad proclaims, “what matters most is camera phones for $20 less.”

If you are in the market for a new religion to call home, Virgin Mobile has continued its trend of inventing cultural memes in the marketing campaigns with an entire religion called “Paygoism“, which only has one tenet: restrictive cell phone contracts are a sin. This is a faith that I’d proselytize with pride.

Jenn:

I agree with Nadia on this one, what’s not to love about a commercial that throws all of the political correctness that has inundated our lives out the window all for a good laugh. And they actually made the caveman funny unlike the Geiko commercials that make me cringe every time I see them (by the way, who thought that it would be a good idea to make the caveman commercial into a TV series – really that person should now be in a unemployment line somewhere). I am now making Chrismahanukwanzakah my new favorite holiday – sorry FSM Holiday but you’ve been replaced, it was good while it lasted though.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hzFEy6KfHw&feature=related]

Check out the new video featuring our holy man of the hour- St.Nick. Will a bidding war ensue come mid-December? I’m not too sure how this unbranded gorilla marketing stunt is going to work for our friends at eBay who have kidnapped Santa in some twisted holiday feature, but I can promise you this- I’ll definitely meet the reserve.

For a daily broadcast of what Santa is up to, take a look at here.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=JPZu3LnfRO4]

Well, if its reasonable. I’m more of a Kwanzaa girl myself.

Superpages.com has announced today that their video advertising program has been removed from beta and will now be available nation wide to advertisers. The video advertising is being promoted as a full service and turn key solution for advertisers. The video ads will be priced on a performance based bidding model, a first of its kind in the industry.

Superpages.com will be charging advertisers a one-time $990 production fee to have a video produced. This fee will provide the advertiser a video professional who will, in conjunction with the advertiser, create a 30 to 60 second video. There will also be a small monthly recurring fee to have a video icon associated with their listings.

According to comScore, a video matrix ranking showed that Americans watched more than 9 billion online video streams during July 2007. A study by the Online Publishers Association found that after watching a video advertisement, 52 percent of viewers took an action such as visiting a Web site or making a purchase.

]]> http://blog.memelabs.com/superpagescom-releases-video-advertising-from-beta/feed/ 0 http://blog.memelabs.com/sony-bravia-releases-third-commercial/ http://blog.memelabs.com/sony-bravia-releases-third-commercial/#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:26:17 +0000 nadia http://www.memelabs.com/about/sony-bravia-releases-third-commercial.html Posted by Jenn Lowther

Sony has come out with their third installment in their series of Bravia commercials. This ad shows claymation bunnies taking over New York. This commercial falls slightly short of their original bouncing ball commercial that kicked off the series, but is a great ad to watch.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUAbkRUvVQ&eurl=http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/2007/10/sony-bravia-4.html]

On a side note, there seems to be a bit of controversy brewing surrounding the ad. It seems that Passion Pictures, the company that created the ad, contacted Kozyndan to see samples of their work. This commercial bears more than a slight resemblance to the work that they submitted. Click here to see the original artists work and judge for yourself.

UPDATE:

Sony has issued a response to the controversy that has cropped up since their commercials release:

‘There is suggestion that there is a similarity between an illustration by Kozyndan and the new Sony BRAVIA ‘Play-Doh’ advert. Sony would like to stress that the advert conception, creative and final animation is not based on any pre-existing artwork.

Sony Europe, its agency Fallon, production company Gorgeous, and animation company Passion Pictures, assert that the wave, whale and bunnies were arrived at without reference to these artists. In the original script, the rabbits were one of many creatures to cavort around a cityscape. In fact, the location was only finalised shortly before the shoot. The final creative, led by Juan Cabral at Fallon and director Frank Budgen at Gorgeous, was chosen to champion the brand and best reflect ‘colour.like.no.other’. Sony enjoys working with experienced and talented creatives and all involvement in a campaign is always credited.’

I’m still find it extremely difficult to believe, given the striking similarities between the two pieces of work, that there was absolutely no influence from the original panorama to the final Sony Bravia commercial. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Sony to take the high road and credit Kozyndan with the initial inspiration. Sony – Give credit where credit is due, one would have hoped that you’d have learned your lesson when your less than sincere apology for the All I Want For Christmas is a PSP fiasco bombed and was panned across the internet.

Following up to the post I wrote about the 5 Worst Executed Viral Marketing Campaigns, I thought that I’d put together a post of the 5 Best. Enjoy.

5. LOLcats

Over the past year the LOLcat has sprung up all over the internet, now I know that this is technically an internet meme not a viral marketing campaign, but how could I resist including this on the list – its cute pictures of little kitty cats. Mix cute pictures of cats with funny poor – but phonetically correct – grammar and you have a LOLcat. They have become so popular and ubiquitous, that they even have their own facebook application. Bask in the following LOLcat cuteness.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYypEW94GyU]

Here are a couple of links to websites that are devoted to LOLcats, the last one lets you create your own LOLcat (warning: going to these websites will seriously reduce you productivity at work – don’t say you weren’t warned)
I Can Haz Cheezburger

LOLcats

LOLcat Generator

4. Mentos/Diet Coke – Geyser Video Contest

This actually started off as an internet meme and not a marketing contest by either Coke or Mentos. It all came about as a science demonstration when someone dropped several Mentos into a two liter of Diet Coke and filmed the subsequent reaction. This video made its way around the internet and tons of imitation videos began to pop up. In reaction to the wild success these videos were having on the internet – Mentos decided to cash in on this success and set up the Mentos Geyser Video Contest. The contest hosted on YouTube in conjunction with a contest microsite. The contest received 126 entries and had almost 2000 members. The contest was an unqualified success.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsDfLndlKU]

3. Smirnoff – Tea Partay

After the LOLcats, this is by my favorite entry on this list. In order to promote their two new tea coolers, Smirnoff created a series of videos that parodies stereotypical rich white kids and plays on the East Coast- West Coast rap rivalry that existed in the 90′s. The result is two of the funniest videos that I’ve watched in a while. I’ve watched each of these videos at least half a dozen times each, and passed them on to countless friends, and each time I am as thoroughly amused as the first time I watched it.

Smirnoff has set up a campaign microsite that allows you to watch the videos and has included links associated contests and information about the two new products. The videos, which have been uploaded to YouTube, have both received over 3 million views.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0]
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWzNiUXTh7E]

2. Dove – Evolution Video

The Dove Evolution video is part of the companies larger Campaign for Real Beauty. The video is a time lapse of what it takes to create the images of women that we see in magazines everyday. Dove uploaded the video to YouTube and to date it has received over more than 4 ½ million views. After they uploaded the video, and it started making its way around the internet, their campaign website received triple the traffic that they received after their Super Bowl commercial the previous year.

The video became such a large internet phenomenon, that it crossed over to main stream media and was featured on the Ellen Show and The View. At one point, according to Technorati, it was amongst the top 15 most linked to videos.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U]

1. Blendtec – Will it Blend?

The entire premise behind the Blendtec Will it Blend video series is ingenious. I can just imagine the brainstorming session that the company had when they came up with this idea. I’d imagine that it went something like this:

K, we have a really powerful blender and need to sell it, but we don’t have any money available for advertising. Hey I’ve got an idea lets put things that no one in their right mind would blend, film it, and upload it to YouTube. Brilliant idea lets do it.

Now at most companies this idea would have been tossed out immediately, but the marketing people at Blendtec are not your average in-house marketing team. This is why they have been able to become on of the most popular video channels on YouTube, have tons of subscribers, and have had millions of people view their video – all for almost zero cost. Below is a selection of some of my favorite Blendtec videos. Sit back and enjoy (oh yeah and don’t try any of them at home).

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI]
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs]
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4QgK_xEfE]
As if the campaign videos were not funny enough, after they blended an electronic item, the guys at Blendtec decide to try and return the item – and they video taped the attempt.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSuE6XLRpr0]