Posts Tagged ‘channel 4’
Channel 4, E.ON and the slow crawl to alternative truth
June 20th, 2011
You want to know the slow crawl to alternative-truth? By nature, brands leech. It’s natural; they have no intrinsic life of their own. We build and sustain them. They’d die without us.
Here’s the pitch (thanks to Nick Booth : “Channel 4 is looking new ideas for using technology to save electricity, for a new programme being made in association with E.ON.
“They want you to go to their website and submit your product ideas/surrender your business secrets (depending on whether you’ve taken out a patent) for a new five part series that seeks to ‘revolutionise’ the way we use energy.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s for work or play, as long as your ‘next-generation technology’ will change the way we live.
“We really want to find new and original products,” says series executive producer Dan Adamson of programme makers TwoFour. ”The series is a great opportunity to give budding entrepreneurs a national audience for their creations.”
The programme makers expect people to have patented their ideas. It costs at least £50K to protect an idea in the UK alone. Investors in a really good idea expect spend up to £500K to protect their property in the courts worldwide. It’s a painfully expensive and time-consuming process.
But, at base, do you instinctively trust the E.ON brand? Me neither. There are so many things that I dislike about this marketing shtick but at it’s heart it is without an essential truth.
Maybe that has something to do with the brand’s affection for pushing up prices year on year, way beyond what’s right and reasonable. And their lack of care for their consumers, balanced against their desperate need to appease their shareholders. Guess who wins.
As for “changing the way we live”, we’ve been there, suffered and won’t get fooled again. Maybe
Against all that dark stuff, here’s truth and beauty:
Credit crunch: it is time for celebrities to use their PR influence for the greater good?
July 9th, 2008
I’m a big fan of Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp, the presenters of C4’s Location, Location, Location, and was impressed to hear a few weeks back that they were going to be lobbying the Government to make changes to Stamp Duty. As Kirstie said, “I’ve been advising the Conservatives on some policies but this is bigger than party politics… it’s people’s lives.”
Good on ‘em I thought…about time someone in the public eye stepped up to use their influence in a meaningful way. But what’s happened since? Very little as far as I can tell. The lobbying campaign is still in planning phase it seems, while the property crisis contines to worsen.
I realise that many celebrities do a lot of work for charity, both and home and overseas, but at a time when the country is facing recession, should celebrities active in relevant sectors make better use of their thought leadership status? It always helps to have a recognisable name when you want to get your views heard on a matter.
The hugely successful Jamie Oliver ‘School Dinners’ campaign always comes to mind in conversations of this sort, but few others jump out at me.
I’d be keen to hear of UK-specific examples where celebrities are using their PR voice to lobby on matters of national concern, as it’s a subject that I’m interested in investigating further.
Phil and Kirstie, if you fancy responding, you’d make my day!
Honda’s leap of faith challenges TV advertising
May 30th, 2008
For those of you who missed it, last night at 8:10pm Honda and Channel 4 staged the ‘first’ ever live advert on British television. Whether it really was a first is debatable - I’ve heard reports to the contrary - but nevertheless it was a brave attempt to turn TV advertising on its head by promoting relevance and engagement, and was very successful.
The commercial, which is part of Honda’s ‘Difficult is worth doing’ campaign, featured 19 skydivers who had three minutes and 20 seconds to spell out the word H.o.n.d.a during freefall, before deploying their chutes. A replay can be watched here (suprisingly it has not yet been uploaded to the Honda YouTube channel).
The stunt was a teaser to Honda’s Accord new multi-million pound ad campaign, which airs on 1 June - the production of which has been documented on the ‘Difficult is worth doing’ blog, designed by Collective.
Overall, the ad seems to have been very well received. A Tweet Scan reveals a very positive reaction, with words such as “awesome”, “incredible” and “cool” cropping up a lot.
I was suprised by the limited amount of Honda branding - I’ve seen several reports questioning why there was so little, and I have to admit had I not read about it on the MediaGuardian website in the morning, I might have been a bit confused until the end.
However, setting minor criticism aside, the campaign is a big step towards TV and online ad campaigns being better integrated. With the fast-paced, time-shift culture that we live in today, TV advertisers are going to have to work harder to keep audiences engaged. Could live TV advertising be the answer? It’s not the only solution, and obviously demands big budgets…bit it will be interesting to see the conversion rates this Honda campaign produces.
