When a good idea is pushed too far

A great ad can do a lot for a brand, but the over-flogging of that great ad can also do a lot of damage.

The famous Australian “Rabbits” TVC which was created by the agency BWM a few years ago for BigPond, a part of Australian telco giant Telstra, is a good example.


The ad was a hit, BigPond’s brand grew and grew as a result, and the ad is regarded as one of the best and most successful to come out of Australia in recent years.

The two characters were very well received by Australian viewers – the young son, cute and innocent, and the father who is cheeky but endearing. The quote that the Great Wall of China was built by “Emperor Nasi Goreng'' to “keep the rabbits out'” has become a part of Aussie culture, a claim that few ads can make. And the father and son characters have since popped up in numerous ads for Telstra BigPond over the years, like this one

this one

and this one

BigPond did deviate briefly with this one-off effort featuring notorious American rocker Tommy Lee.

But few of the ads since “Rabbits” featuring the characters have managed to replicate its massive success. The latest one, titled “Australian Day”, was another continuation and was launched with much hype, but failed to reach the heights of “Rabbits”.

Now this early this week I was dismayed to hear that the characters from “Rabbits” were apparently to be turned into a feature film. It was revealed earlier this year at Cannes by BigPond group MD Justin Milne that Telstra was considering turning the ad into a TV sitcom.
For whatever reason this hasn’t happened, but now BWM has apparently started work on developing a script for a film based on the “Rabbits” characters.

According to the report “conversations are underway with some of Australia’s most prominent script writers to work on a screenplay”, and BWM has “been approaching writers from Australian classics such as Strictly Ballroom, The Castle and The Dish to garner interest in the project, though some of these have already declined”.

Surprise surprise that those writers have declined. Common sense dictates that they would be flogging a dead horse.

Telstra BigPond and BWM had a great ad with “Rabbits”. It was a huge hit, it’s still very popular and won a swag of awards. But they have to move on it from it now. If they did want to make a film based on the ad, they’d want to be very, very careful to make sure the film is entertaining. The damage a film flop would do to the brand would be immense.

Later this week Telstra backtracked big time and came out publicly flatly denying the film would be made. A Telstra spokesperson told industry magazine AdNews that reports it plans to create a film based from characters from the ad were a BWM “PR stunt”.

For me, that’s good news and a smart play by Telstra.

There’s a very fine line between having a great ad which remains being held in high esteem for years, both by the public and the industry, to many great ads which become far too exposed and over-flogged so that consumers literally switch off when they appear.

Viewers appreciate and enjoy a great 30-second ad, but I don’t know many cinema-goers who get excited or would pay to watch a two-hour commercial.

A groovy kind of road

Yes you enjoy music, you hum to the tunes, and you’ve seen “plastic plants” dance to the beat. But have you seen or rather heard of a singing road?

Let's rock & roll!!

It all started in Japan when a dude named Shizuo Shinoda drove his bulldozer over unlevel roads. Road engineers eventually developed a musical road surface turning cars into ‘tuning forks’ when they travel over grooves cut at specific internals which produce different tones depending on the width between the grooves.

This same technology was used in a little stretch of road about an hour from Toyko, built at a couple of hundred thousand yen as a municipal town’s way of creating novelty to encourage people to visit their home town as it was extremely deserted.

But this ain’t something too new, apparently, it was been done at Disney World many years ago with the intro to "When You Wish Upon a Star" playing as one drove down the road towards the Magic Kingdom entrance; Zip-a-dee-do-da was tried too. According to a blogger at a directory website, the sound was freaking some drivers out hence it was discontinued.

Zip-a-dee-do-da from 'Song of the South'

The ad agency for Torrance-based American Honda, RPA of Santa Monica, decided to incorporate the peculiar music-making method into a Civic commercial that will air nationally in late September.

Perhaps the Americans didn’t think much about the repercussions except for its novelty, Lancaster Town in Virginia had a Civic Road with similarity carved track lines which ‘drove’ to the sound of ‘The William Tell Overture’ at 55 mph, the posted speed limit. It lasted for around 18 days when it was forcefully discontinued as it was “creating too much noise”, residents complained.

This hyper-sensitive little town with its graying population complained to the authorities that it was too loud and they could not stomach the ad campaign for Honda Civic.

To date, these roads have been built in cities like Japan, South Korea and Holland. I suppose I wouldn’t complain if they did anything like such is Singapore. Imagine the roads along Esplanade playing ‘Singapore Town’ [… take a little trip around Singapore town In Singapore city bus…] or along the Padang playing [Majulah Singapura]. Think of all the ad jingles!!

It makes me even more motivated to get my driving license!!

However if you think fuel charges are too high and having music while cruising drives you up the wall. You can always opt for something less noisy, and something that you do everyday and most of the time more than once – one of Hasbros’ most popular product in recent years - ‘The only toothbrush that puts music in your mouth” - Tooth Tunes!!

Make me laugh

When it comes to delivering a social message, government bodies and affiliates are often faced with two options, a) do it through a hard hitting shock tactic type execution, or b) through humor. Which one works best?

The reason I ask is, today Grey sent me a series of TVCs its Melbourne office did for WorkSafe which highlight, in a pretty gruesome manner, the dangers that young people face in the workplace. It's pretty effective in getting the message across, have a look at the one where the kid gets boiled by scalding water.



Stark contrast to last year's well known 'pinky' ads the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) New South Wales did for anti-speeding which we blogged about here. Closer to home, Singapore has also adopted a less gory approach to road safety. This year's Road Safety Outreach Campaign is a complete u-turn to most of the road safety stuff i saw last year in Singapore (especially from the ones shown in the cinema with the creepy and annoying voice overs).

For me, personally, I prefer the humorous ads but shock-ads, done well , definitely leave a lasting impression.

Politics: The great creative inspiration

What is it about politics, especially American politics, that inspires such an outpouring of creativity?

When ever its election time in the US there seems to be a mad scrambling together of all sorts of creative types, who come up with great content aimed at the voting public. In this instance, ad agency Droga5 has worked with comedian Sarah Silverman to make this pro-Obama message.

There’s also been a ton of stuff directed at Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. As you can see, Saturday Night Live has a field day with several skits about Palin. But so has many other groups from writers, actors, comedians and just the public in general. Here’s one, and here’s another.

There’s also been some interesting ads to get Americans to register to vote. Here’s one with Jessica Alba in a Hannibal Lecter-style mask. Other notable efforts include this TVC, which was done during the Democratic nominations and designed to separate Obama from Hilary Clinton.

The other side of this coin is some of the terrible advertising that gets produced during elections. Like this ad (yes, it’s a real ad) for Republican nominee Mike Huckabee and this TVC for Mike Romney.

And there’s also the attack ads, which have become a big part of elections, especially American elections, and are the other side of this issue. Why does politics inspire the best, and often the worst, in the creative community? And is this lacking in Asia and in Asian politics?

Give us your thoughts.

You know something's wrong when....

Mainland Chinese stop splurging! The Hong Kong Tourism Board yesterday announced that visitor arrivals from Mainland China during this year’s National Day Golden Week holidays reached 481,987, a 9.5% jump on the same period last year. Good numbers for sure, but what's got the retail market in Hong Kong worried is that retail sales were worse than expected. It's long been touted that mainland Chinese would be the saving grace for Hong Kong's retail market in this period of financial uncertainty, particularly in the luxury goods market. But apparently not.
The South China Morning Post is reporting that while individual mainland travellers jumped 14%, sales surged less than 5% compared to the same period last year with expectations from store owners significantly down.
"We're a bit disappointed because this is lower than the 10 per cent target," Lau Hak-bun, sales director at Chow Sang Sang Jewellery, said.
The SCMP also says that Oriental Watch store saw its revenue over the Golden Week dropped by about 20% to 30% for its Central shop, although our Tsim Sha Tsui and Jordan shops did better. Maybe it wasn't a Golden Week after all.