Why using Olympic athletes in campaigns is risky

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

A series of ads using successful and popular Olympic athletes shows the the risks of using a sporting star in your ads. The importance of great casting cannot be underestimated to make an idea work and writing an ad to meet the limitations and strengths of that individual is of paramount importance. 

Dame Kelly Holmes, won two Gold medals at the Sydney Olympics for the UK and became a bit of a hero. She holds a soft spot in the heart of the UK population. 

So using her to endorse the importance of eating breakfast (a social message to say everyone performs better if they eat breakfast), and then saying Kellogg's cereals are great must have seemed like a good idea. 

I am sure she must have been a costly sign-up. But a great athlete is a great athlete. They are not automatically a great performer and actor. So, in my view and many others based on comments, is that her acting is cardboard and uncomfortable. It distracts from the message, as you focus on the acting. It is less compelling. 

It just goes to show how important casting is to make an idea work and credible. Or, if you really want to use a great Olympian to endorse your product understand them and their acting constraints and write to their strengths and weaknesses. 

Dame Kelly Holmes: Skip breakfast and you may miss out on fuel for your brain 



Take these more recent examples of using an Olympian athlete:

Tom Daley: UK Olympian diver
Nestle: Get set Go Free Activities using UK Diver Tom Daley 


Tom is cheeky and friendly. But this ad again distracts as they have him trying to perform a highly complex acting and interactive move. Something even experienced actors would struggle with. You focus on his actions, not the message.

Adidas Tom Daley: Take the stage 
However, Adidas (who probably understand sportsmen better and their strengths and weaknesses) created an ad for London 2012 which uses his life story, which is well known on how he lost his Dad and dedicates his sport to his memory, and focuses on the diving without acting and a voice over. It works so much better as the acting does not distract from any message. 


Gillette also understood better how to use their Olympian: Sir Chris Hoy Sir Chris Hoy endorses Gillette. He is Scottish with an accent, and is a charming but fairly serious guy when you safe him in media. So they show him competing and using the product, and gave him a voice over to record. This gives more flexibility and opportunity to play to his strengths. You don't focus on his performance as an actor - but the message more. 

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/32358.asp

Nike Plans Real-Time Olympics Ads on Twitter

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

Nike is not an official sponsor of the 2012 Summer Olympics, but it is seeking to capitalize on the Games indirectly.

When the Team USA men’s basketball team is playing, the Jordan brand will include spontaneous real-time comments about the game in its promoted tweets. These Twitter ads will also contain pre-planned brand content and links.

The Twitter effort, orchestrated by digital agency 140 Proof, is part of Jordan’s inspirational #riseabove marketing campaign. During the Olympic competition, the brand’s promoted tweets will be updated within seconds with timely comments that Nike first posts to its regular Twitter following.

The promoted tweets are aimed at a broad audience of sport enthusiasts far beyond Nike’s pool of Twitter followers. By tapping into real-time action, Jordan hopes to prompt non-followers caught up in Olympic fever to retweet and share its promoted tweets, thus amplifying the buzz around Jordan’s #riseabove campaign. “When people who are simultaneously watching sports and tweeting, see a promoted tweet about the real-time game or score, then it’s not an ad anymore, but an information tool,” says John Moonigian III, 140 Proof co-founder and CTO.

As a lead-up to the live-action Olympics Twitter ads, on July 3 Jordan began a series of promoted tweets that tout the brand’s #riseabove short film series and introduce an Instagram crowdsourced #riseabove photo contest.

The Twitter ads appear on the Twitter feeds of people who follow basketball and Olympics-related accounts. “To identify our target, we focus on what accounts people follow on Twitter, rather than what they post,” says Moonigian. “That’s because a lot more people read content on Twitter than post content.” In addition to the Twitter site itself, the agency is placing the promoted tweets on the leading online and mobile apps that people use to access their Twitter feeds, such as TweetCaster and Echofon.

Campaign metrics include the number of retweets, replies, and sharing as well as the volume of positive sentiment. “Simple affirmations like ‘LOL’ are not counted as being as valuable as people adding photos or their own thoughts” to the brand-sponsored tweets, Moonigian says.

140 Proof has also targeted and delivered social ads tied to live sports events for ESPN and GM. ESPN ran timely social media ads during the Summer X games in June and GM’s Chevrolet ran social ads during the 2012 Super Bowl. The Chevy campaign resulted in more than 52 million social impressions and drove more than 120,000 downloads of the “Chevy Game Time” app, per the agency.

But does monitoring Twitter and other social media distract people from the actual televised game? Research says no. A recent study by Time Warner Research Council reports that interacting with social media on a second screen gets people more involved with TV programming than if they were watching it without social media. NBC Sports’ editorial teams are working with Facebook to produce social media segments that will bebroadcast throughout the Olympic games on the NBC network.

When it comes to social advertising during live televised sports, Moonigian says Twitter has the edge over Facebook. Twitter is faster, shorter and more public. The best social ads have a brief timely message with a clear, simple request for a public answer or picture, which is what Twitter is good at, he says.

But the advertiser has to accept a certain amount of volatility. “When you plan Twitter ads tied to big sporting events, you don’t know who is going to win, or what people are going to say. But you do know that the event is going to be discussed,” and the advertiser can be part of that, he says.

Qantas launches Minority Report style outdoor ads featuring faces of passers-by

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com


Zenith Comment: Similar idea to what was suggested in the Social AW12 inspirations deck - allowing users to personalise advertising to become 'The Captain'

Qantas has launched a digital billboard at Sydney’s Town Hall railway station which senses when a consumer is nearby and features their image in the ad.

The execution relies on the user having downloaded the Qantas app and having it open on their phone.

The project is part of the Qantas “You’re the reason we fly” brand refresh unveiled last month. Other personalisation has included allowing consumers to choose to see personalised online ads targeted at them and putting customer names on the side of planes.

Source: http://mumbrella.com.au/qantas-launches-minority-report-style-outdoor-ads-featuring-faces-of-passers-by-104209

Retail & E-commerce - Cannes Lions 2012 Winner

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com


This campaign site developed by Uncle Grey in Denmark is for the launch of Only Jeans Spring / Summer 2012 collection.


http://onlybecausewecan.com/

An online interactive film experience for girls aged 16-25. A fashion catalogue, movie, game, music video, and the world’s first on demand, online, video, retail environment. With a simple click any time, the film freezes, turning into an interactive catalogue and from here you can: browse, like, pin, tweet and buy. You also interact with the story. Amongst other things, steal jeans, that, if you’re lucky, are sent to you for real and free. Finally your personal experience is summed up in a bespoke catalogue, so you can revisit the clothes you looked at, shop, share, download music and wallpapers.

adidas: Ready to Run Experiential Campaign

PumaPulse Curated By ZenithOptimedia, The ROI Agency Find out more at http://puma-pulse.blogspot.com

With the insight that the younger audience hated running they needed a new way to create hype for the re launch of the Climacools – pure running shoes.

adidas wanted to give teens a reason to run so they launched this experiential campaign “Ready to run.” The concept begins with each teen that tries on a pair of Climacools anywhere in France, has their chance to be chosen to carry out a mission which involves racing across the city. The chosen teen gets kidnaped from within the store, taken into a van, given earphones and instructions before they are left to run their mission. They are filmed as they carry out their hour long operation. adidas involved key stars in the campaign such as athlete Teddy Riner’s (world judo champion) who gave the teens their instructions remotely. What a great way to create some hype around this running shoe! 

Source: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/adidas-ready-to-run-experiential-campaign/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DigitalBuzzBlog+%28Digital+Buzz+Blog%29