It’s all good news for you on this week’s blog.
Well the first bit is just good news for us really, but I hope you’ll take some vicarious pleasure from it.
This is our second win out of eight so far, so we’ve arguably got decent chance of winning the Tight Briefs special category at the Chip Shop Awards. Which is awfully exciting, I’m sure you agree.
We also don’t want to be accused of ‘blowing our own’ - none of us are flexible enough for starters... But we’ve gone and ‘done a win’ again you see, in The Drum’s Tight Briefs competition.
This is our second win out of eight so far, so we’ve arguably got decent chance of winning the Tight Briefs special category at the Chip Shop Awards. Which is awfully exciting, I’m sure you agree.
In case you’ve forgotten, for our last win - the brief was to come up with a new currency for Scotland, cue the McNugget;
This month the brief was to advertise a budget airline, and I don’t think you need to be an Airplane! fan to enjoy this little gem of a win number two…
In other news, I love these ads for HBO Go from SS + K. To those of you that aren’t aware, HBO Go allows you to watch TV shows on your computer machine, be it your laptop, iPad, PlayStation etc. It’s a little like the BBC IPlayer app, or even SkyGo…in fact its exactly like SkyGo now that I think about it, they’ve even nicked half the name!
First of all, these ads certainly manage to ‘do a funny’ which is always a good start with any advertisement, since on average you’re exposed to 1000 marketing messages per day, perhaps the biggest challenge is to be memorable.
First of all, these ads certainly manage to ‘do a funny’ which is always a good start with any advertisement, since on average you’re exposed to 1000 marketing messages per day, perhaps the biggest challenge is to be memorable.
Secondly, there’s a lot of truth and insight here. Because the sort of telly that HBO makes, involves an abundance of swearing, fighting and above all; ’sexing'. But it’s also great T.V in terms of production values and storytelling, and naturally your parents want to watch it too. The only problem is that it’s so bloody awkward watching it together.
And I speak from experience here.
Watching HBO’s ‘Rome’ with my parents a few years ago still ranks as one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. If you didn’t catch Rome, it was about Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, and the fact they couldn’t stop tearing each other’s togas off. Great telly. But not one to watch with old Mum and Dad.
If any racy scene came on, I just used to sit completely still for some reason. Once, while I was doing just that - my Mum turned to me, pointed at the screen and said ‘Gosh, she does a lot of panting!’ I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
I then tried to text my sister about how awkward it was and accidently sent the text to Mum, the whole evening was a disaster.
Similarly I once watched an episode of ‘The Tudors’ with my Grandpa. Now, watching a sex scene with one’s Grandpa is a lot like watching one with your Dad, only your Dad is a lot older, I hope you can get your head around that. Anyway, as Anne Boleyn was enjoying a trip on the 'Royal Barge', Grandpa decided to break the silence and with his Lancashire burrs said, ‘Ollie, there’s an awful lot of rumpy-pumpy in this programme…’
All horrible you understand.
Which is why I like these HBO ads so much, they simply raise a problem that most young people have, solve it with their new product, and do it in a fun and memorable way.