Coke Vs Pepsi over the most powerfull rhetorical weapon!

When the Greek philosopher Aristotle described modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos, as devices in rhetoric that classify the speaker's appeal to the audience, didn't have in mind that 2357 years later he will be the reason for a logo war...

If you are confused, I'm talking about the Cola logo war that was escalated after the the latest Pepsi commercials. More specifically, Coka Cola and Pepsi are fighting over what Aristotle called pathos - the use of emotional appeals to alter the audience's judgment.

We are familiar with the Coca Cola campaign titled "the coke side of life" (Wieden & Kennedy) which is based on love, happiness, and giving that they trigger emotion, but lately we have a new campaign from BBDO Worldwide, NY, which is tagged as "more happy" and attempts to give life to Pepsi's logo!
In one of the new commercials, Pepsi's logo takes the form of a huge beach ball that with the help of people start a bouncing journey around the world! It starts from a Brazilian beach, then to Central Park, at a point it is ready to fall in the ocean and the game to over but a whale punches it back and the game continues with the slogan "more happy."

The second commercial shows a guy that just opened a Pepsi and suddenly gets on a giant Pepsi pinball on the streets of San Fransisco with the same ending line..."more happy."

As I have mentioned before in this blog I believe that advertising industry should rediscover its most powerful rhetoric weapon, pathos, trigger emotions in combination with clear - targeted messages and let customers answer the rhetoric question...

"Let us march against Philip"

"The Father of Advertising" David Ogilvy in his book "Ogilvy on Advertising" says that he doesn't consider advertising as entertainment or a form of art, but as a medium of information! More specifically he quotes "When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative, I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product."
When Greek statesman Aeschines spoke to his people urging them to unite and defend independence against Philip II of Macedon, they said "How well he speaks." But it was Demosthenes' speech that made people say..."Let us march against Philip."

homesick...

I'm world famous for my stubborn character (some people will laugh reading this...) but I have to admit that I miss Greece, family and friends! Better days are coming...after all the journey counts more than the destination...
Cheers!!!

War of the Worlds between Microsoft and Apple!

The anticipated launch of iphone from Apple and its entry in the cellular market have made all the cellphone companies to feel a little bit uncomfortable...! The latest rumors from CrunchGear.com suggests that Microsoft in working on its own phone! According to these rumors Microsoft is targeting Apple by developing Zune Phone which will be able to sync with the Xbox 360 and stream video from the system to the phone via a wireless data connection.
Microsoft has to worry not only about the development of Zune Phone on a specific timescale, but also to come up with a smart and creative release strategy, since Apple iphone is right at the corner...(June 2007)

And the winner of the Super Bowl is...

Violence and talking animals...not a lot of sex this year (only godaddy.com ad and Snickers ad - where two car mechanics have a brokeback mountain moment..) Most of this year's Super Bowl Commercials were catchy, smart with funny lines and effective messages-absolutely relevant to each product's pitch.

The biggest disappointment were consumer generated ads! Doritos "crash" commercial was nothing close to the hype creative youtube commercial that everyone expected and Chevy's "car wash" where a bunch of people jumping around the car wasn't entertaining or smart in any way! The only consumer generated ad that stand along was NFL's commercial about the end of football season which was smart and emotional.

On the other hand, Coca Cola (Wieden+Kennedy) came with very creative, colorful, happy and highly-produced commercials as it was expected, Bud Light ads catch every one's eyes and make us laugh with the "rock, paper, scissors", and "silly slapping", commercials (DDB Chicago). In addition, I really enjoyed the career builder commercials (Cramer-Krasselt) especially the "promotion pit"...but I think it's because I'm relate to the situation...lol.
Last but not least, my favorite Super Bowl XLI commercials were...the hilarious Blockbuster "mouse-click" (Doner)and Bud's Light "classroom" ad (LatinWorks)!

How can you vote for the best Super Bowl commercial??? Visit http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads and vote for your favorite one! Up to now we have the following results:

Blockbuster: Mouse (Doner) --> 46%
Bud Light: Gorillas (Mortar) --> 33%
Bud Light: Hitchhiker (DDB Chicago) --> 33%
Budweiser: Dalmatian (DDB Chicago) -->32%

Super Bowl weekend!

The Super Bowl weekend is here and is more than a game! Super Bowl for advertising is what Oscars are for film industry. Hundreds of advertisers fighting and negotiating over 30 sec of exposure before, during and after the big game!

CBS Network announced that the cost for 30sec air time during this year's Super Bowl is $2.5 millions, which is a new high price record, and the question rising...Is a Super Bowl commercial worth the money?

Procter & Gamble and Unilever, decided that the answer is no, believing that their message will resonate much better during the Academy Awards!

On the other hand, Cadillac choose to be advertised only after the game! The reason to make this decision is their prediction that viewers brand-engagement is low during the game but increases in post-game coverage, which is about winners and celebrations themes that fits better with a luxury-car brand!

What about all the other advertisers? What's going to be on the game?

Secrecy...secrecy...secrecy...only few people know and most of them are not willing to reveal the smallest detail!

Which doesn't make sense to me...I don't want to play smart, but when you spend $2.5 millions for 30 second, it sounds crazy not to leverage it by getting all the advanced publicity and post-game publicity that you possibly can!

Some of the marketers have pre-publicized details of their commercials in order to take the benefit of this publicity, such as Nationwide Insurance that revealed that Kevin Federline (ex-Mr. Britney Spears) will be in their commercial playing a fast food employee, while Triple Double L.A. announced that in NFL commercials we will see David Beckham, Martha Steward, Jimmy Fallon and LL Cool J.

The newest trend in Super Bowl commercials will be the consumer generated ads! Ads produced theoretically not by advertising agencies but from ordinary people like us who upload videos to youtube.com! Doritos, Chevy and NFL will follow this trend, so keep an eye on their ads! Maybe your idea is the next Super Bowl commercial...

http://adage.com/SuperBowlBuyers/

decisions...decisions...

As a new member of blog community I have to admit that I'm overwhelmed with the blogging concept. The model of an interactive user-generated website where the authors have the freedom to write their ideas, comments and thoughts on any subject, from news and politics to food, art and the existence of aliens seems captivating. Hundreds of people from different cultures and social groups meet everyday on my laptop screen with one goal to present their ideas.

This is a pretty romantic angle to see blogging...but when presentation becomes promotion?
Yesterday I was introduced to AdSense and Google Analytics, two very useful tools where you can count your website visitors, check the numbers of clicks and register for online ads!
Two days ago I was writing my first post about advertising that attracts our emotions and not our eyes and hours later I caught myself adding bad taste flashing ads to my blog!

This morning I woke up, typed ad2date.blogspot.com and BAM! a flashing ad about The Soul mate Calculator...
Woooow wait...something is wrong here!

What's up Philip? Where is the party that will start the revolution? Is it over so soon?
No friends!
The party is here!
After all, every party has one bad song...and "the soul mate calculator" was the bad song of this party!


p.s: the flashing ads were removed and a google search engine for adweek, adage and youtube was added this morning! enjoy...