If you think this great ad for Activia was made unauthorized by an amateur creative, trying to build up a portfolio; you are very right! The ad was made by Anna Komarek – or rather, advertising agency Pink and Poodle, that conceived Anna. The ADCN (the Dutch art director’s club) asked Pink and Poodle to promote the new ADCN website, on which the ADCN members can from now on integrate their portfolio and social media pages. Anna – sexy and ambitious at the same time – infiltrated the ad creatives’ social networks in search of a job. She promoted herself on Facebook and Twitter, using YouTube video’s and a very ‘promising’ Flickr portfolio. And although most of Anna’s followers knew she was a hoax (“too staged”, as someone commented), her job hunt made pretty interesting content. And this of course immediately proofed the value of the improved ADCN site. Wonderful strategy, brilliant execution. Pretty lamp (= ADCN award) worthy!
Proof of the pudding is that just 7 out of the hundreds ADCN members integrated their social network pages into their ADCN profiles………..wonderful strategy, brilliant execution but shouldn’t any campaign cause action???
You have a point there, Pedro. Seven is not many (although, maybe its succes needs a little more time). So the question is, can a strategy be ‘wonderful’ (and execution brilliant), if the advertising is not effective? We think it can. What we liked (and still like) about Anna strategically, is that she engaged the target and made it experience what it’s like to interact with each other within a community. Theoratically the target should become so enthusiastic about it, that it immediately ‘runs’ to the ADCN site to build up a similar community. But if that doesn’t happen, there could also be something wrong with the product. For example, maybe the (old school) ADCN creatives aren’t interested in the functionality the new website offers. There can be many reasons why only seven creatives enriched their profile, but we like the idea behind the Pink and Poodle campaign anyway.
I witnessed a few ADCN members as they “discovered” Linkedin, about 9 months ago. Like kids in a candy store, they where overwhelmed, could not believe their eyes. Their is a wide, and growing, gap between the average advertising creative’s online knowledge and skills, and the connected and interlinking community in the big bad world out there. He who, at any moment, thought this project was for real, should be out of job tomorrow. He who learned new things by this campaign, too.
Horrible.