Ok, for any Australian you should probably know this television program. it's on the ABC at 9:00PM on Wednesday.
It's called the Gruen Transfer and it's about advertising. It's very funny with some interesting points and topics including:
How do you sell?
The Pitch
Add of the Week
and one that changes weekly depending on how they feel/time left.
Some of the videos I'm going to show are from the segment called 'The Pitch'. It's where Gruen asks two top ad agencies in Australia to sell the unsellable with some interesting topics.
To some, these topics are going to be pretty confronting. There has only been 8 shows so far so there is only 16 videos to watch, but there is some absolutely brilliant ones!
The list of topics:
Week one:
Selling Whale Meat to Australians
Week two:
Making Baghdad as the ideal holiday location
Week three:
Making celibacy sexy
Week four:
Make the Australian Democrats electable (for those that don't follow Australian politics, this is the worst party EVER. They are so bad that they received a total of 0 votes this year and closed t he party a few weeks back).
Week five:
Make the plastic bag fashionable again
Week six:
Supporting child labour
Week seven:
Convinces us to invade New Zealand
Week eight:
Support global warming and climate change (when I posted the link, this video hadn't been added yet - though it will be soon).
Please: Explore some of the site, it really is a truly fantastic show that is quite popular. Have a lot of laughs with it as it's very clever humour as the adds are taken seriously. Some can be very confronting (posted later).
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/poll/vote/past.htm
Some other interesting stuff. Here are a few REAL adverts that have gone to air. You have to ask yourself when advertising crosses the line.
There was one, it was add of the week. They had to give warnings to the audience about it before playing it. If you have a slight disposition, don't click on the link:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/episodes/2008_ad_inde x_Wednesday25June2008.htm
Due to the coding of the website, you have to scroll down to the video called "I am Elena" and click it to play it. It's quite scary.
Here is what was said about it on the website:
Rated M for violence.
Here's one that sucked the oxygen out of the studio when we played it. You could hear people not breathing. In fact, there were a handful of people crying as it finished. That's how powerful the content of this ad is.
We found it last year in the early stages of preparation for The Gruen Transfer, and knew right away that we wanted to put this to air. In the UK, where it comes from, it was shown in a very limited cinema run and then online. It's a bit much for TV - that only made us want to show it more.
The ad was the brainchild of Thompson and Dr Michael Korzinski, a director of the Helen Bamber Foundation, which works with survivors of torture and cruelty. Elena is a real person - a patient of Dr Korzinski, and a former sex slave from Moldova. All the dialogue in the ad is actually real, words and ideas taken from the mouths of Dr Korzinski's clients. The ad was made at Thompson's house - written in two hours and shot in three with the help of an ad team
The visual effects used in the ad are worth examining. It's framed so that you see Thompson's face close-up, creating a 'suffocating' effect. It is shot from above, giving the viewer the uncomfortable perspective of the perpetrator. The editing echoes horror movies. The script is a simple and stunning idea, with Thompson's words, "Help me!", resonating most deeply.
It's an impressive piece of film making. But advertising must be effective as well as creative. And interestingly, the panel was divided about whether it's a good ad. Russel Howcroft called it "advertising at its absolute best". However, Todd Sampson said the level of shock employed by the ad went too far, with him feeling paralysed, not knowing what to do after seeing it. There's no call-to-action, no hotline to donate money or get involved.
The aim of the communication, our panel proposed, was to raise the awareness of the issue in the minds of politicians, to move it up a few notches in terms of public consciousness. If that's the case, then Thompson's celebrity factor and the power of the emotion would almost certainly have done that.
At Gruen, we've had to watch it quite a few times. It never gets any easier. We hear what the panel says about call-to-action, but we think it's one of the most unforgettable ads we've ever seen.
It really is quite a scary add and the entire audience was poleaxed..
There are more in the add critiques section of pretty in your face adds, these are all the adds that are displayed in the 'How do you sell" area and 'Add of the Week'.
What's your thoughts on these videos/show.