Volvo created this video to show off the toughness of it’s new truck. In the video a four year old is given the controls (by remote) to a full-size Volvo dump truck, and allowed to drive it on a closed course. It’s amazing.
Tag: Video
Jane St.
This is a generic brand video
This is (ironically?) produced by a stock footage company, partly to illustrate the quality of their footage that you can use in your own generic brand video.
When Outrageous Was Possible
This video reminds me of how many designers work. All style – no function.
How Facebook Makes it Difficult to Reach your Audience
This is an interesting look at the ingrained problems that advertisers have with reaching their audience on Facebook. Essentially if you pay to promote your page on Facebook, you’re going to end up with a largely diluted audience of disengaged followers. You’ll then need to pay Facebook again to promote your post in order to reach your real audience.
How did this come about?
Sometimes I see ads and I wonder what the pitch meeting looked like. This ad for Volvo is pretty fantastic, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It’s such an odd collection of elements, especially when you consider the likely audience for the ad:
- Gold Volvo Trucks
- Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits
- Enya
- An aircraft runway in the desert, at sunset
I’m not sure what the audience for these Volvo trucks is like, but I can only imagine that the client demanded an ad designed to go viral. Still, I enjoy the ad. It’s got a certain grace to it.
On the Power of Positioning
A nice little story about positioning from Office Depot.
Steve Jobs Branding Lecture from 1997
The thing that stuck in my head about his explanation of branding is the notion that the audience has so little room in their memory for your brand, that you had better distill your core values – things that your brand believes and will never stop believing – into a concise message that you apply consistently.
Some of the other rules of advertising he lays out, Apple would go on to break in the next 15 years (or so). The famous “I’m a Mac” campaign was devoted entirely to talking about Apple’s rival, Windows.
Apple’s Advertising Folly
While it’s easy to pick on a company that gets so much right, Fast Company did a great job pointing out the problem with Apple’s ad shown above. The ad opens with the words:
“This is it. This is what matters. The experience of a product.”
The problem is that the ad should open with:
“This is it. This is what matters. The experience of a person.”
Apple should be showing how their products enrich the lives of their users by complimenting their lives. Instead the products are shown as the end, instead of the means.
Why can’t all commercials be this rewarding?
What else can be said?