When nothing works, outdoor ads do

The other day I was watching ‘Taboo’ on National Geographic Channel last night and was sick of the numerous ads being telecasted on the channel. Trust me it is really annoying when you are watching a show you like the most and ads pop-up, more than Internet Explorer pop-ups! It is true that people do watch interesting advertisements, but why bombard the audience with so many ads? It surely kills the mood.

An ad for no ads:

You must have noticed a few broadcasting channels announce, ‘Watch this movie ad free’ or ‘One break movie’. All this sounds so ‘mainstream’. How about making an advertisement say this? Interesting right? ZDF, a broadcasting company of Germany had come out with one such remarkable outdoor advertisement.

The advertisement involved three hoardings placed close to each other. Make a note – they are close, but not adjacent. There were gaps in between these hoardings. Now, what’s on these hoardings? There was a picture of a model lying; nude!

You think the ad should’ve been censored? Well, there was no need for that. The gaps I talked about earlier were the places where the model’s intimate parts would’ve come. So technically, no nudity was shown. And the banner read ‘Watch erotic movies without interruption’, with the channel’s logo below. Now, that is some interesting advertisement. And it is further appealing to note that despite being a TV broadcaster, the channel preferred an outdoor ad over a TV ad. Kolle Rebbe agency in Hamburg is to be credited for coming up with such an ad; brilliant in every sense possible.

Can it get faster?

We have transited from the age of the conventional analog cameras to DSLRs. And, to add to the world of instant photographs, we have the traditional Polaroid cameras; the ones which print instant pictures, within seconds after you click the picture. To advertise an analog camera at a time when digital cameras rule the roost is challenging. The Polaroid cameras have had some of the best ads, in fact ad campaigns altogether. One such was the outdoor ad campaign of Polaroid 300. The aim of the campaign was to reach out to maximum people and hence taxis were chosen as medium for the ad.

As part of the campaign, the doors of the taxis had picture of the Polaroid 300. There is more; the windows were outlined to look like frame of a portrait. Now, if any person outside the taxi looks at it, it seems like the person sitting in the taxi is in the frame of the camera. Brilliant! Not yet. When a person opens or closes the window, it appears like the shutter of the camera is capturing a portrait of the traveller. The Polaroid 300 printed on the taxi door has a caption reading, ‘Let’s see a digital camera clicks pictures that fast’. Now that is interesting. The campaign was so successful that the Polaroid 300 became one of its most bought Polaroid cameras. And that’s how you advertise analog devices in the digital age; by being creative. The ad stands a true example to who feel that anything traditional cannot be advertised well. This ad campaign of Polaroid 300 stands true to David Ogilvy’s words- “If it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative”.

Tushar Kalawatia