Ad Week have compiled the top 59 winners from this years Press Lions at Cannes featuring print ads from all over the world by companies such as Apple, Land Rover, Duracell and fake ads cleverly pushing for better literacy rates in France (below).
These print ads have been running basically since the iPad Mini was launched last November but I’m reminded of how good they are every time I see them.
Not only do they give readers an idea of the actual size of the device but they also frame the iPad Mini as a substitute for physical content ironically promoting the redundancy of the medium they are advertising on.
“Hey you, you like reading Wired, right? Well stop reading it in a magazine like an idiot. Buy an iPad Mini and read it on that”
Wall Street places a huge amount of importance on the strength of a brand with regards to a company’s value. John Gerzema delves deeper into the consequences of this ideology as consumer trust in brands continues to decline. The value placed on the brand has risen by 80% over the last 30 years, but with a rise in the popularity of ‘Clean Slate Branding’, Trend Hunter discusses how brand heritage can now be more of a burden than an asset.
This great QR code job posting ad from a tattoo studio in Turkey faces budding applicants with the task of proving they are good enough by filling in the QR code on the ad in order to scan it properly to receive the actual job application form by email. After seeing the ad last week, it struck me how rare good examples of effective QR codes in a marketing capacity actually are.
Sure, QR codes can be effective in a functional sense, as tickets for events or letting users easily access important product information for example, but they are rarely used in an inspiring or creative way to make an impact. Here are a few more examples that buck the trend.
This Guinness ‘product-activated QR code’ from last year is only scanable when the pint is full and let’s drinkers download coupons, tweet about their pint and check-in with Foursquare.
This example from Calvin Klein might have less of an impact today, but back in 2010 when QR codes first started popping up, it was a bit of a bold idea. For one week only, they replaced several of their billboards in New York and LA with a giant QR code allowing users to view exclusive material on their phones which they could then share with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Regardless of the fact that most users back in 2010 didn’t have smartphones, the giant QR codes were a striking sight and succeeded at generating a buzz and getting people talking about the brand.
In an consumer interaction context, Michael Hemsworth advises companies who want to enhance a QR code campaign to give users a reason to scan, redirect to mobile friendly content and keep them scanning. This use of QR codes by Tesco’s brand of supermarkets in South Korea has actually proven effective at increasing sales by letting users order groceries on their smartphone while they wait for their train home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJVoYsBym88
This beauty from Owens DDB, designed to highlight the resale value of Volkswagen cars, was the big winner at last night’s National Newspaper of Ireland awards at the Mansion House, Dublin. The cut-out style newspaper ad won the Press Ad of the Year 2012 award as well as prizes for Best Art Direction and Best Consumer Durables Ad.
“This is a purely newspaper ad that wouldn’t work in any other medium,” said judges Mark Lewis and Matt Fitch of BBH London. “It’s really simple but it works on multiple levels. At the end of the day it’s a joke, but it succeeds in getting across a very serious point about the re-sale value of your car”.
Digital news outlets may be taking over from print journalism for many people but that doesn’t mean that print can’t still be a viable medium for creative and impactful advertising.
I’m a Digital Strategist passionate about the intersection between technology and creative marketing. Last year I moved to London after 11 years living in Dubai.
