Last year it was portraits of then President-elect Obama that have been on display everywhere across the show, this year it is the King of Pop: Michael Jackson. Jackson is probably the most portrayed individual of this years art fair in South Beach. Artists from David La Chapelle, Marc Brandenburg, Jonathan Monk and many more have work about Michael Jackson on display, but the most prominent piece can be seen at the booth of Deitch Projects, a New York based gallery.
Kehinde Wiley, 2009 (detail, Deitch Projects, New York USA)
Kehinde Wiley’s monumental commissioned portrait of Michael Jackson was unveiled this week in Miami Beach. The 32-year-old US painter was contacted by Jackson in 2008 after the performer saw the artist’s work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. “I was receiving messages saying Michael Jackson wants to reach you…and I ignored them because quite honestly I thought it was a prank,” said Wiley in an interview with The Art Newspaper.
Marc Brandenburg (Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin Germany)
Michael Jackson is obviously one of the few personalities that have influenced artists around the world, or is he just a vehicle to generate attention? Is the brand Michael Jackson a way to generate more sales? The jury is still out.
On the streets of Africa, from Cape Town to Kinshasa, from Lagos to Mombasa, the true measure of fame is having a haircut named after you on a barbershop sign. The streets are full of ‘The Obama’, ‘The Oprah’ and ‘The Denzel.’
This ubiquitous barbershop signage is an African art form or African graphic art with its naïve renderings and pragmatic use of wood, metal and any material that is close at hand.
To celebrate the Confederation’s Cup being played for the first time on African soil, adidas commissioned a series of ‘barbershop’ artworks that honour their galaxy of stars like Gerrard, Messi, Kaka and Pienaar. A ‘cut’ was created for each player according to their skill. So, ‘The Kaka’ is all about dribbling skills while ‘The Gerrard’ is about powerful strikes.
Essentially, we africanised international players.
The word Kopanya is a South African word for ‘together’, which effectively makes this artwork an African interpretation of adidas’ global advertising position of “together I am strong.” Kopanya is also the name of the official adidas ball, that will be used at the Confederations Cup.
If you have any suggestions or comments please email Gavin Heron.
Images can take a campaign international, but it’s the strength of ideas that will really unlock its potential. Just ask the US president Barack Obama (Want to PART ONE first?)
PART TWO – International coordination within the agency is no less fraught with sensitivities. It should not lead to a loss of local initiative, a lack of local competitiveness, or the de-motivation of local staff. It could lead to a single interface for all regions, cost efficiencies, the input of many creative talents and a coherent execution of an idea across several media. What it must achieve, however, is control of the client’s most valuable asset: its brand image around the world.
As you all know, a fairly effort-free manner of handling global communications is to focus purely on the visual. Thus copy disappears from print advertising to make way for stunning visuals and big logos. Dialogue vanishes from TV spots, resolving the problem of local adaptation. I’m not knocking this method, which we’ve deployed as often as our fellow agencies. As Doctor Rolf Kunisch, former CEO of Beiersdorf, has said: “Images travel, words don’t.”
But what if radio turns out to be the right solution, for instance? Or if you want to develop relationships with each market’s leading bloggers? Or simply create local websites, for that matter? Suddenly, words become crucially important. And so does size: a large network has access to talent in all these fields. That’s what we mean at TBWA when we say we’re specialists in Media Arts. It’s about juggling ideas and distributing them across media in a way that entertains and engages. Read more…
Images can take a campaign international, but it’s the strength of ideas that will really unlock its potential. Just ask the US president Barack Obama.
PART ONE – You don’t need me to tell you how successful Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was. And you certainly don’t need me to analyze the communications strategy behind it. Even before the dust had settled, that job had been done many times.
But what struck me as I travelled around my territory during the US election race was the ease with which the Obama brand crossed borders. In cities from Amsterdam to Zurich, I saw T-shirts bearing Obama’s image, along with the now familiar messages: “Hope”, “Change” and “Yes we can”. Not that I wish to disparage the president’s international supporters, but I’m sure many of the people wearing those T-shirts had only a cursory knowledge of his policies. Obama was no longer a mere politician. He had become an idea.
I found this highly relevant, because in our business we’re constantly grappling with the global management of ideas. Ironically, despite the fact that it’s now almost 45 years since Marshall McLuhan first wrote of “the global village”, that task has become increasingly difficult.
In the early days of TBWA, our main concern was that our network was too diffuse. We were worried that we had gaps here and there; that the disparate agencies were not working closely enough together. Today, I think, most people agree that our network is highly cohesive. But wrangling those ideas has not become any easier. Digital media and empowered consumers have seen to that.
So how on earth can we ensure that our ideas cross borders with the agility of Barack Obama, without becoming distorted along the way? For a start, I’m utterly convinced by what my friend Jean-Marie Dru described in Cannes as “the beauty of big”. Other may disagree, but I personally feel that, in order to manage ideas on a global basis, you need a big, seamless network.
After that, the approach depends on each specific client. As most readers will be aware, there’s no cookie cutter solution. You need the answers to several questions. What is the strategic direction of the client’s company? Is it national, regional or global? What is its attitude regarding the standardization of products and marketing programs? If the client wants to change its positioning, does it envisage a gradual change or a revolution? Or does it want both, depending on the market?
And is the decision-making process centralized or decentralized? One interesting exercise is to put these questions to the HQ and the local markets. The answers are always revealing – and most often different.
In tomorrows part, I’ll be looking at examples how successful brands like adidas, Apple or Absolut have tackled the problem.
Perry Valkenburg is President Europe and COO International at TBWA. In this series of two posts, he explains why big disruptive ideas are the right way to tackle the global challenges for brands. If you have any comments or suggestions please email Perry Valkenburg.
Barack Obama, as we know, is a man who understands the concept of change. Indeed, he surfed to victory on a wave of optimism created by that single powerful word (as well as an insanely effective online campaign that changed the rules of electoral marketing). But the problem with promising change is that you have to deliver.
Yesterday, during his speech in Cairo, Obama made good on one of his promises. He changed the rhetoric of the United States in its attitude to the Muslim world. Drawing on his own roots, the President reached out to Muslims in an historic overture that perhaps offers a new hope of peace in the Middle East.
We’ll leave you to browse the details of the speech in the countless newspaper articles and clips that have captured it. But we liked German newspaper Die Tageszeitung’s front cover, which came up with a new formula for universal love. So good, it makes us want to text it to all our friends. Come to think of it, maybe it would make a good t-shirt?
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Ulrich Proeschel
AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR There’s no such thing as a captive audience. Gone are the days of neat and discrete moments in time where advertisers talked to target audiences. Today’s is a culture in constant motion. And the dizzying array of platforms, constant connectivity and ever-increasing speed of information has left the ad industry out of sync with its audience. People don’t live in quarterly campaigns, nor do they distinguish communication channels. They expect faster and constant communication with their brands across more media platforms and conversations. Every month, week, day, on the hour. It’s now about how fast brands can move, how relevant they can be and what they can offer in the here and now. There is a always need for “slow” and carefully crafted brand strategies and stories. But, with culture in constant motion there is also a need for marketers to be quick and nimble, so they can find opportunities where their brands can tap into cultural conversations that are part of people’s lives.
BRAND BEHAVIOR Colleen DeCourcy, Chief Digital Officer for TBWA\Worldwide, challenges marketers to “advertise at the speed of culture”— making the case for designing constant communications at the intersections of product, culture, news and events. It’s a fleet of micro-initiatives as ongoing communication programs with your audience in response to culture 365 days a year. It’s about being opportunistic and leveraging key moments with brand relevance. It’s about owning the current conversation to generate faster and more frequent communication points. It’s a new form of CRM using a mix of planned, anticipative and reactive micro initiatives.
PLANNED initiatives are created around identified cultural moments relevant to your brand. By asking “Who do you think is refreshing music?” Pepsi leveraged the cultural conversation around this year’s Coachella Music Fest with their RefreshMusic Twitter feed featuring Thievery Corporation’s Rob Myers as a guest tweeter. By putting a unique spin on the concert for music lovers, Pepsi is not only letting tweeters experience the festival in new ways, but is also bringing the brand idea “refresh everything” to life.
ANTICIPATED is scenario based planning that requires marketers to be smart enough to see the cultural conversation and be ready to act upon it. Visa’s seemingly “real-time” ad, celebrating Michael Phelps’s Olympic record eight gold medals, proved the brand recognized the Game’s most talked about story. The TV spot had footage of Phelps’s previous wins literally moments after his record-breaking performance, helping Visa go beyond being a sponsor and become a part of the conversation surrounding the Games.
REACTIVE is being nimble enough to surprise and delight your audience by your brand tapping into the zeitgeist. In President Obama’s acceptance speech he declared the family’s intention of getting a dog. The next day, Pedigree began crafting a response. A day later an ad in USA Today urged the President to adopt: “We’d love to help you fulfill your first campaign promise.” Pedigree’s quick actions helped place them in the cultural conversation regarding the President’s pet decision.
Jenny Naish continues her exploration of love affairs and what they can teach marketers. In this concluding part, meet Nicole.
“All stories are love stories” – Robert McLiam Wilson
In a good love story, to keep the journey alive there should always be a sense that something has not yet been accomplished. Something yet to be done, found or explained – a villain to vanquish or an obstacle to overcome.
Renault launched the Clio in 1991, a year of economic downturn, when new car sales in the UK declined by 21%. In such a market, how did the Clio beat sales targets by 32% in the first year alone, and go on to become the best-selling imported car?
The first Clio ad introduced the public to a charming French girl called Nicole, sneaking away from her “Papa” and using the Renault Clio for a secret meeting with her boyfriend. The following ads, which are all detailed here, continue to follow these characters, offering brief insights into their affectionate, chic and sexy lifestyles. In each ad, something is left unexplained, or unseen – a small twist. Read more…
Jenny Naish explores the tricky process of preventing a love story with a brand from reaching a premature conclusion.
“Love is man unfinished”- Samuel Beckett
Whatever the situation, it is society’s nature to make heroes, villains and victims out of the players involved. They are the stock characters in any love story, whether their names are Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella and Prince Charming, or David and Victoria Beckham.
Love stories however, are not the same as love, in that by their very nature they must have an ending, be it happy or sad. The characters always face a series of peaks and troughs before the situation is resolved. Often, it is the revelation of love itself that signals the end. A classic love story tells us that the troubles are over and it is all plain sailing from here.
But love can only truly have an ending through its loss. Romeo and Juliet could illustrate this perfectly. Read more…
On the streets of Africa, from Cape Town to Kinshasa, from Lagos to Mombasa, the true measure of fame is having a haircut named after you on a barbershop sign. The streets are full of ‘The Obama’, ‘The Oprah’ and ‘The Denzel.’
