The Doritos Commercials

One of the best commercial making brands, I believe, is Doritos. They always bring a funny idea or story to the table and this is very effective in the ad industry. Every year during the Superbowl, Doritos usually releases their newest commercial. Typically each commercial is more funny than the last. When I watch the Superbowl, I typically look forward to the Doritos commercial the most. One of their more recent commercials is my favorite. It shows a mother and a father getting an ultrasound done. The father begins eating Doritos and we see the baby start reaching for the chips on the ultrasound image. He moves the chips around and the baby still follows the chip on screen. The ending of the commercial makes the commercial the best. Watch it to find out what happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYLoknty4pI

These commercials are great at creating the valuable virality that ad agencies are going for. All of the commercials are easily recognizable and memorable for the audience. Everyone that I talk to knows these commercials and they are a fan favorite. The creators of these ads are very smart and they know what they are doing. I look forward to seeing more of these Doritos ads in the years to come. If you are interested in watching more of their ads, I will post some links to a few of my favorites below. I think that you will find them all funny and memorable. Try to keep in mind what viral virality is and how it helps an ad when watching these videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObXL0hbOZFU

The Problem with Freedom and @2020fight

In January of this year a problem broke out with a misleading Twitter account. A twitter account posted a video that went viral. This video showed the political and religious tension happening in our country at an anti abortion rally. A Native American man named Nathan Phillips stepped into a group of Catholic boys wearing “MAGA” hats to pray over them. The boys were apparently disrespectful. The virality lead to the Catholic school the boys attend to look into expulsion. Many people ended up being hateful to them on social mediums. When you read one of the articles below, you can see that Phillips and the students actually both seemed to have “good intentions” and were not very upset with each other. Social media took off with this video and made it their own. Thousands of people had signed an online petition started by a graduate of the school to remove its principal!

The virality of this video is chilling. Yes, we love to share videos that turn us to “awe” but we also love to share controversial videos. Rob McDonagh is a social media analyzer who explains why this account is probably not the most honest. The handle @2020fight is the one who shared the video. This account has over 40,000 followers but was not verified. The account was also saturated in political posts, posting over 130 tweets daily. These sort of numbers, and the amount of shady followers says something about the accounts credibility. The account also has a fake profile picture of a Brazilian man. CNN pointed out this weird behavior of this account and Twitter suspended the account. Twitter took a while to take this down, MdDonaugh says that it is because this traffic and virality makes Twitter better and they are not looking out for the good of society.

There are a couple problems here.

1. There is not a lot of regulation on Twitter where things like this can be prevented. They only are addressed once the damage is done.

2. The freedom to share videos, comment with hate, or create accounts with ill intent – hurt our unity but somehow unify Twitter’s popularity and profits.

This being said, there is a disconnect here with the outcomes of virality. Some things are blown out of proportion, sometimes virality can bring justice to circumstances. Do we have too much freedom of speech, sharing, and creating?

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/23/687619696/suspended-twitter-account-plays-a-role-in-misleading-viral-video

Canon Predicts Digital Camera Demand To Decrease

Camera companies continue to improve their products like the DSLR camera, but the market for consumer digital cameras is falling. Canon President Fujio Matarai says that the volume of camera sales has been decreasing constantly for the past couple of years and in the next two years it is expected to fall from 10 million units sold a year to almost half that.

Most people today are not buying digital cameras anymore because they already have one in their pocket. Smart phones make it easy for everyday people to photograph their lives. The improvements in phone camera quality are often comparable to a DSLR. Amateur photographers and average people no longer need professional equipment.

The convenience factor of a phone camera is a pivotal element in the choice consumers make in buying a better phone or a better camera. People can shoot photos and videos, edit, and upload to social media, all from one device and still have decent quality. If that is good enough for people, they have no reason to buy one piece of gear for the same price they can have a whole set. This shift also hurts the stock photo and footage market. People do not pay to use photos and videos someone else shot if they are able to shoot it themselves.

If Canon wants to stay ahead of their seemingly inevitable decline, they need to market their cameras to everyday consumers. By seeing what makes a smartphone camera more desirable to people today, they can implement those features in their own products.

THE Gum Commercial

One of my all-time favorite commercials is a commercial for EXTRA gum. This commercial follows a high school relationship that becomes something much more. This commercial tugged on the heartstrings of viewers everywhere. The commercial features the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” playing in the background. It opens with the couple first seeing each other in front of the school building and developing some obvious attraction for one another. It then depicts the two students building a relationship, going on dates, and eventually getting married. In every one of their interactions, a stick of EXTRA gum is either traded, being chewed, or used after the scene for the grand finally. At the end of the commercial, we find that the man has been drawing a picture of each one of their interactions on the inside of a new gum wrapper. The final scene shows the woman being given a book filled with all of these drawings. She recognizes each of them except for one: a picture of a man proposing to a woman. She turns around to find the man on one knee with a ring. The commercial fades and we see the text “Give Extra, Get Extra.” I think that this commercial might be one of the best of all time. It captivates the audience with a story and appeals to the emotions of the viewers. Everytime I hear the song “Can’t help Falling In Love”, I think about the EXTRA gum commercial. I know that the creators of this commercial achieved their goal of valuable virality. I was seeing articles about this commercial for weeks after it aired. I saw it several times after the initial airing and each time someone knew made a remark about it. The people at EXTRA knew what they were doing. If you haven’t seen this commercial yet, here it is. fair warning, you might cry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exQESGDQspI

Make it #relatable

Disruptive Advertising posted an article a couple months ago called “8 Viral Video Marketing Examples and What We Can Learn From Them”

I decided to piggy back off Abbey Lee’s prior blog post on assessing and expressing the benefits and advantages when marketing with video. Ana Gotter decided to show some examples of viral videos and analyze the strategies used for each in how it’s “viralness” was achieved.

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Here are a couple examples of what was included…

The first video she talks about is a “Dollar Shave Club” commercial which focused on humor and entertainment to grab attention. Dollar Shave actually gained 12,000 new orders within 48 hours from their video marketing. The second video is a Budweiser commercial sharing a “heartbreaking message about not drinking and driving” showing the perspective of a dog being left alone during the night after his owner decided to not drink and drive. This powerful message pulls on people’s ethos and compassion to not only be responsible with alcohol, but buy a responsible represented brand. The third video ranked is to advertise how GoPro’s incredible high quality fish eye software captured a fireman saving a kitten from a fire. This moving story turns heads and shows the power GoPro video has in durability, quality, and accessibility.

As I watched and read, all the videos use some sort of “connecting” emotion to bring traffic and exposure to whatever product their marketing. People listen when they seem known or when there is meaning. The top ranked viral videos all had some sort of relating factor. Whether compassion, justice, humor, or testimony – it’s universal. Which means universally, everyone can relate. And when you relate, you buy.

The article’s conclusion is that these videos all have something in common: none of the videos were controversial. None of the videos included were outrageous, they were relatable average emotions that make people feel familiar and comfortable.

Nickelodeon Uses VR to Give Interviewers a New Experience

Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab created a virtual reality experience to promote the reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle prequel. They set up a booth at Comic-Con where the interviewer was able to put on the VR headset and become a part of the cartoon’s world. Once there, they could talk with characters Donatello and Michelangelo in real time. The production took many weeks of finding the technology that could make this experience possible and weaving it all together into a comprehensive, well thought out system.

The creators used a variety of tech including Adobe Character Animator, a TriCaster system, MIDI controllers, Unreal Engine and NewTek products to pull it all together. The project put gaming, film, broadcast, and animation together simultaneously to produce the interviews while they were happening.

The Ninja Turtle’s show environment was put into a video game engine and the interviewer was keyed into the world with green screen. They used live-action cameras to film and combined that with gaming footage to create a mixed reality video. Since the whole video was being broadcasted and edited at the moment it was happening, the team was able to hand the interviewer a flash-drive with the footage, ready to publish, as soon as they were finished.

As for the future of film, VR is predicted to play a large part in it. Gaming and film are becoming more intertwined as movies use video game engines to create special effects. Chris Young, Senior Vice President of the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, said “The days of QuickTime and 2D video will fall away. I think the idea of immersing yourself into your entertainment is an idea that’s coming at us like a runaway train. That’s why we’re trying to understand that world with so much energy and effort.” Using this Comic-Con experience was a great way to promote Nickelodeon’s new series and also push the front of what can be done in virtual reality.

Societal Perspectives

I decided to take a shot at explaining and analyzing one of my most favorite YouTube Channels called “Jubilee”. Jubilee is an incredible channel that takes hot topic issues and brings people together to talk about a spectrum of opinions. Really, their channel exists to create spaces for people to listen and learn. So many videos have been posted from “Vegans Vs. Meat Eaters, Trumps Wall Vs. No Wall, Abstinence Vs. Premarital, Black Lives Matter Vs. Blue Lives Matter, Marriage Vs. Open Relationships. I think in a society where individualization is the focus of all matters, this channel does a great job in not taking a stance, but hearing stances for the sake of compassion, respect, and being more open minded. They have no agenda and only curiosity. They take an objective third party approach to issues.

Jubilee’s most recent video is “Do All Women Think the Same?” where 6 women had to answer questions varying with answers from Completely Agree to Completely disagree. The questions had a-lot to do with values and beliefs of feminists and non feminists. But some questions had to do with abilities, like how to change a tire. This video is incredible for three reasons.

I think any video on a social platform that shows diversity in opinion is good for our generation.
Videos with visual aids allows stereotypes of all kinds of women to be broken down through a physical creative picture showing differences on a spectrum. Visual faces and names personified in values and beliefs also helps us become more compassionate towards people!

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3. When a social media platform chooses to only publish content that they agree with or are bias towards, we lose the goal our “culture” talks about – where every opinion matters, is seen, and respected.

This kind of video proves that people are different, stereotypes do exist and can be broken, and that we can celebrate spectrums. We forget to create the spaces to do so.

This video gave a voice to those who are overlooked in the feminist movement. In a time where women are looking to be freed from certain assumptions, we have then been enslaved to others to a new majority. I applaud Jubilee in expressing all the exceptions to rules! For minorities on the opinions on women, it probably made them feel less alone, seeing each women was on a certain line in each video.

Pixar’s New Short Film Promotes Disney+ and Talks Workplace Diversity

Pixar released a new short film called Purl in order to promote their new streaming service Disney+. The short follows a ball of yarn named Purl that begins a new job in an all-male office. The other characters have stereotypical white male personalities. They are aggressive, do not include Purl in their conversations and look down on her, they all look the similar, and get excited about going out for drinks and wings. Purl changes herself to fit in, realizing that she gave up who she was when another ball of yarn starts working there and reminds her of who she was. The film ends with Purl going back to her old self and the men working together with many more balls of yarn. The message of the video was to bring up the diversity, expectations, and challenges working women face. It takes a look at “Bro culture” with the company Purl works for even being named “B.R.O. Capital”.

This film reminded me of the Gillette ad we discussed recently by the way the men are portrayed and the stories Gillette and Pixar are trying to tell. They both are recognizing the behaviors that society has accepted and challenging them. Purl seems to be getting more praise so far for their take on the issue than Gillette has. Many women have resonated with the story and have commented saying that it described their career experiences accurately.

Videos have the power to convey messages in ways that sometimes words can not. Dove does this in their Evolution campaign which was a huge success and widely praised. Creating this short film was a good way to call attention to issues in society and the Disney/Pixar brand. It brings people into a conversation and spreads their name.

https://nofilmschool.com/New-Pixar-Short-Purl

SING SONG 2019 LIVE FEED: GOOD OR BAD?

Facebook is an incredible connecter and social medium that many older generations use. Abilene Christian University decided to take advantage of this medium for Sing Song this year by using facebook’s creative idea of a live stream.

Because of this live stream, as a competitor backstage, I got to watch the show! I could also be informed on where the show stood chronologically while waiting, but how each act did before I went on. This made waiting backstage way more exciting and the competition way more intense!

Currently, the live feed shows that 85,000 people have watched the feed, and 950 people watched during the actual live stream. There are 1,200 comments of current students and alumni along with 237 shares! This was an exciting idea for ACU to take part in that I think allowed those far away to tune in to a long standing tradition at ACU.

Some girls apart of the Oxford study abroad group in my club stayed up till 5am and got to be apart of the celebration in winning in the overall results Sunday night. Needless to say, the live feed connected people. But what does this mean for future shows?

The Optimist reported last year that the alumni and families who stay in Abilene for Sing Song weekend brought $400,000 of profit to the city (link included below). This means the actual attendance of an audience in Moody, and not online, matters. The power of connecting that facebook and many other social mediums have to offer gives opportunity for those who cannot be present to feel as if they are. We see this now even with the new commercial about Google Portal.

There is no denying that part of the fun for ACU alumni is coming back to be reunited with their friends. That will never go away. But I think there is a possibility that the streaming of the show may take away from attendance in the near future. It is easier, louder, more efficient, and available to you at any time. This means it can also take away from Abilene’s profit in the community – just by the possibility of a click of a button. There is power in connecting and there is power in sharing. But with technology today there is always a question of consequence too.

https://acuoptimist.com/2017/02/visitors-bureau-sing-song-brings-400k-profit-city/