Picture
Commercials, viral videos, and all other forms of advertising have been criticized for their "exaggerations" "scams", and even "lies". When someone bring up this option with me personally one specific image comes to mind, Fast Food Commercials.

Ahhh Yes! the lovely and deceiving McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King etc. commercials that reveal images of deliciously glorious looking burgers. Well its one thing on TV and something completely different, even incomparable in real life.

Recently McDonald's had realized the innumerable objections to what customers were seeing on TV and the product they were actually getting. Additionally, McDonald's ran numerous social media efforts that had been meant to illustrate personal experiences with McDonald's. This effort backfired and consumers Tweeted about their horror stories and unhappiness with the food and its' appearance.

In response the corporation created it's own viral campaign revealing the type of photo editing that went into creating a commercial. The end result is the video "Our Food. Your Questions," which debuted at No. 2 on the Viral Video Chart, with 5 million views.In detail, the video spends extra time illustrating how a food stylist painstakingly browns the burger's edges and places each piece of cheese, pickle and onion before strategically injecting the sandwich with ketchup and mustard. Compared with the Big Mac you are served in minutes at your local store, this process takes hours and seems to explain why the burger looks so much better in advertisements. In all, the video, seems like an effort by McDonald's to take control of its brand image online, to expose the inner workings of the company instead of letting someone else do it which has gotten a positive response from their audience.

See the video for yourself.

(source.)

 
Picture
Recently I had come across a rather interesting marketing initiative run in Australia. It is relatively old but, I had just stumbled upon it and found it ingenious.

Stealing artwork is the theme. And for the reckless rebel in all of us this campaign is a god sent one (I once heard that it is every guys dream to be part of a heist). So, with that in mind, everyone is also familiar with famous graffiti artist Banksy. His work appears all over the world and is desired and admired my many. Well hotel chain, Art Series Hotel decided to capitalize on his success. They hid Banksy pieces in one of their hotels for patrons to steal! The master piece was worth $15,000.

The hotel turned the heist over to their patrons, wanting to see if they can steal the Banksy. They stated the guidelines for the competition:

Find the art and try and steal it. If you don't get caught it's yours to keep. If you do get caught then back up on the wall it goes.

No Ball Games will hang from 15 December. Book to stay at Art Series Hotels between 15 Dec and 15 Jan, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for hints on its whereabouts, and let the games begin.

You know what happens next; influx of hotel reservations, flights and tourists to Australia. Purely innovative success.

(source.)