JWT-Sri Lanka Blog

The issue of violence against women is phenominal. When we worked on this campaign the statistics shocked me. Domestic violence prevails in 60% of homes. In Auradhapura alone 40% of pregnant women are abused. Most people don’t realize that violence is not confined to physical abuse but it also includes emotional, financial and sexual violation. Nor do they know that catcalling and wolfwhistling are punishable under the law.

More than grappling with a miniscule budget, our challenge was to produce a campaign that made an impact in the short span of 16 days. Our client tells us that the phone is inundated with calls for help and guidance. For a problem of this magnitude that’s not even the tip the iceberg. The 16 tvcs with 16 men from different disciplines and ethnic backgrounds speaking out on this subject end today. The calls musn’t.

Jayantha Dhanapala, Diplomat

Nuwan de Alwis, Voice of a Student

4718585 is a must have number on everyone’s phone book. Man or woman.

What a night it turned out to be! The Reggies 2007.. We went with one thought in mind, to have a blast and a half.. and man did we rock..! That’s the thing about us JWTers.. win or lose we always make sure we go back home with a huge  smile.

Our booty for the evening included Overall Winner for Best use of Photography for Zippo, 1st runner up - Best Cinemotography for Asian Paints, 1st runner up - Best in Art Direction – TV for Dialog, 1st runer up – Best use of Illustration for the novel “The Fairy Dance”, 1st runner up – Best use of Photography for Zippo, 1st runner up – Best TV Concept for Dialog, 2nd runner up – Best use of Photography for Zippo Wind Proof, 2nd runner up – Best in Art Direction for Ceat, Merit award - Best in Copywriting for Hameedia, Merit award – Best use of Logo for Taj,  Merit award – Best use of Photography for Ceat, Merit award – Best Art Direction in TV for Asian Paints.. The highlight of the night, which added to the exuberant mood, was that we took home the biggest award of the night – Best in Art Direction for Zippo.  

So that was how the night ended for us lot.. We partied afterwards till the cows came home..

There’s a book I highly recommend to anyone in advertising, but it could get you labeled as subversive. It’s not exactly new (published in 2005) by an ex-JWT guy called Joseph Jaffe, called “Life after the 30-second spot.”

But the reason I bring this up is because someone in the UK sent me a link to a YouTube video that makes fun at the government health department, the NIH.

It’s a classic example of how, no matter how powerful your official communication is, user-generated content has more viral potential to get people talking, and acting on the information; it often trumps all the media clout you could cobble together on a limited budget.

Not that the NHS`is doing a particularly bad job of communicating. Their web site has videos on major diseases, different calculators etc.

Even if the 30-second spot isn’t exactly dead, Life after the :30 means anyone can and will produce commercial-quality information. We have all seen how the Diet Coke and Mentos un-commercial (viewed some four million times, to date) made Coca-Cola realize, somewhat late, that this was what consumers were excited about.

I love micro-sites. Have been getting quite tired of slick corporate web sites lately, that’s why. They seem so …templatized (is that a word?) You probably know what I’m talking about: the fancy-schmancy, flash-enabled home page that leads to a series of pages that are duly labeled “about Us,’ ‘Products,’ ‘Case Studies,’ ‘Testimonials,’ Contact Us’ etc… (Oops, this site is actually flash enabled!)

Nothing wrong with that architecture if all it was supposed to do was give a little more vertical and horizontal depth than the brochure and PowerPoint deck.

But times have changed, and we don’t go to a company site just to download stuff, to ogle at their products page and fall prostate before those beauty shots of the board of directors resting in plush leather furniture, with their chins poised over their wrists…

No sir, this whole interactive space is all about us: We time-strapped, over-communicated consumers, subscribers, searchers, brand prospects, passionate citizens, angry voters, Facebook junkies and yes, Bloggers.

As studies after studies have revealed, organizations are –cliche alert here– “not in control.” People are interested in what it all means to them, not your shareholders. We all know in the few seconds we land on a site whether it deserves our time. If not, boom, we’re out of there.

That’s where micro-sites grab me. The best ones are big on audience input from simple things such as the ability to vote on issues, and move things around (the ability to customize the layout and contents of the site) to uploading videos, leaving comments, joining a panel, mashing up a video, having a live chat with other members etc.

If you wont to know what I’m talking about, check these out. These are campaign-related sites, linked not just to advertising, but to the legitimate client request that we know what the ROI of this exercise is all about. That’s return on involvement as far as I am concerned.

• The Campaign for Real Beauty (Dove Soap)
• Will You Join Us (Chevron)
• WindingRoad (BMW)
• The Art of the Cookie (Pepperidge Farms)
• It’s Red Again (Starbucks)

If you’re on Facebook , you’ve probably heard that it just began a targeted advertising feature that’s been hailed as the best thing since sliced social networks, and also a creepy trend since it is capable of tracking users’ social preferences and habits.

On the plus side, ‘social ads’ are nothing more than the equivalent of Google’s Ad words. Which is to say, it is only using cookie-based tracking (used by Amazon and almost every eTailer) that has existed for a long time and no one gives a hoot about, since it helps serve up relevant results.

Facebook Beacon, as the program is called, is an interesting beast if your client is sick and tired of the shotgun approach. (Yes, this monstrosity exists online as well!) But narrow marketing, often referred to as contextual advertising has its trade offs –often the stuff of privacy.

Do you mind if FB “knows’ (and shares with others) what you do online, the books you read, the music you’ve downloaded, the widgets you festoon on your page, and the other groups you joined? At Facebook says, it believes “people should have control over how they share their information and who can see it.” But it also means you have to opt out. Meaning you are automatically opted in, and could automatically lose privacy, unless you take some cumbersome steps.

I am working on an article about privacy, and would love to hear your thoughts. Especially if you are a heavy Facebook user.

Let me know, by emailing me at angelo (at) hoipolloireport (dot) com.

I used to be a huge advocate of brands. No, I’m not exactly a brand dissident, but I’ve seen too much happen in media and consumer behavior that made me have to revise how I think about brands, and marketing communication.

In my old stomping grounds some of you who knew me may recall I was big on consistency, synergy, creating cult brands, and the Lovemarks theory. That was then, this is now.

Marketing, PR, reputation management and citizen journalism are butting up against the idealism of ‘brand stewardship’ as we all know. Access to knowledge, and granular information about brands has changed the game. Meaning, what a brand communicates to its target audience is not half as effective as what the audience talks about the brand. Word of mouth, Google juice, and consumer activism (against industries, and brands) and viral distribution is outpacing pure advertising. Intimidating? Yes. Exhilarating? Definitely!

I say this because I love the business we are in, and see the new media, new tools and new consumer behavior as trends that give brands and brand communicators a lot more validity and respect. If brand management has left the building (notice I didn’t say ‘brand management is dead’), it’s because the whole business of brand management was far too important to be contained in one space.

It’s not just the job of the account manager, the Strat Planner, the media director, and the client-side brand manager to decide on who’s doing what in which media, at what time, for what cost. We’ve got to get more creative than that if we want to connect with our media-savvy consumers. In fact our Creatives need to be more creative than thinking in the linear fashion.

David Armano at Digitas, an agency I respect a lot, has this definition of an “information architect” who is essentially someone not defined by the old titles of ‘brand manager,’ designer,’ ‘copywriter’ etc. It makes me believe that brand management is more about information -or experience- management, and less about communicating value propositions, benefit statements, USPs and all those things that mattered in the old brand world.

It’s worth a read for another reason. It’s a post on another influential JWTer, a blog called , Influential Marketing. Enjoy!

Here we are at the end of the 46th week of this year… Yes it’s the weekend again, that time of the week that is most sacred to us, so sacred that we would burn the insides of anyone who tried to take it away from us. Well maybe not burn them, but stab them at least…

Anyway, you know us JWTiers were born a mile away from “angoda” right? So basically we wrote the book on insane behavior and that’s what we get on our weekends… INSANE! So if you want to “accidentally” run into us and join us in our search for sanity (while getting drunk) this weekend then here are a few places you’d be able to find us at.

Some of us will be cheering our you-know-whats out at the Rugby 7s at CR & FC, beginning this afternoon. If you’re in the mood to cheer our team ‘The Bazookas’ with us, then come on over and grab a pom-pom!

Others will be playing pool and doing shots at R & B tonight. Wanna play? Come join us.

More of us will be seen heating things up at H2O tomorrow night at YES FM’s Club One Season – House Night!!! The Rave is happening and we’re there as always, wanna dance? You know what to do.

You can also find JWTiers over the weekend at places like Hijra, Hotel de Pilawoos and Hot Shots at MC. It’s very easy to spot one of us.

We will be the ones bouncing off the walls or bullying the bartenders, we will either be wearing black or yellow, depending on the time of day and if people are screaming and running in the oppostite direction, that would be away from us.

*giggle*

Have a great weekend you guys!!!

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