Bud Ice Penguins

Anheuser-Busch packaged Bud Ice in long-necked bottles made to look like, in my opinion, a penguin. The beer company selected the San Francisco-based ad agency Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners, which in turn developed the ads above. "The Oh, and Beware of the Penguins" campaign first aired during the 1996 Super Bowl. The first commercial that aired got such a positive reception that the campaign continued to for the next two years.

The stars of the campaign are sinister penguins whose objective is to scare people and take their Bud Ice. These penguins would go to the extremes to steal people’s Bud Ice. These spots apparently succeeded with target audience of young affluent adults between the ages of 21 to 34, and Bud Ice sales increased by 21 percent in 1996.

Those evil penguins scared people in their homes, in their cars, and other places which is what made them funny in my opinion. What do you guys think of the penguins? Do you remember them from the mid nineties? Leave comments below.

Some information was taken from Marketing Campaigns Case Studies Blog.

Best,
-A.B.

Sprint's Present to Twitter

The spot above created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners must have been Sprint’s gift to Twitter. What other reason could they have for giving them free product placement in their television spot that I believe is airing nationally. The spot gives a shout out to several Web 2.0 product and services such as YouTube and Google. The question is why are they doing this in a nationally aired spot? Are these other Internet companies helping pay for the spot?

I read a few blogs that claim the mobile phone network provider wanted to show that their network and can be used for more then just making phone calls on the go. Almost everybody now has a device that that makes calls, browses the net, sends email, and connects to social networks. But the question still remains, why give those other companies free advertising? The title of this post is “Sprint's Present to Twitter” and that’s because they get a name mention and their stupid birds flying all over the screen. No offense to Twitter, of course.

Usually when products and services other then the one being promoted are mentioned, they are a direct competitor and they aren’t usually mentioned in a positive light. Also, the other social networks mentioned in the spot are mentioned quickly unlike Twitter and its blue birds.

Anyway, if anyone can find solid reasoning for all these product placements in this ad please comment and I’ll thank you and link to your site on my blog if you have a site.

Best,
A.B.

Go Humans Go

Go humans go is the main theme for the new campaign by Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo. The campaign is intended to provide you with a lift. I am guessing they mean a boost in energy? The campaign will appear in three different media vehicles which include: television, print, online, outdoor, promotions, and events. Supposedly using Quaker Oats products will make you feel good about yourself. Apparently, we need advertising's help in feeling good about ourselves in these poor economic times.

Here is what I want to know, since when does Quaker Oats qualify as a replacement for good, old-fashioned ice cream? When someone is dumped by their significant other or feeling down about anything they go for pint of Ben & Jerry's not Quaker Oats.

But again, this is just my opinion.

This Quaker campaign is worth over $100 million dollars and is being handled by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. OMD, is handling the media part of the campaign, both of these agencies belong to the Omnicom Group of agencies.

PS: My source for this post was the following NY Times article.

Best,
A.B.