Commercials: AdAge's Best. My Best.

This week, Adweek published its list of the top ten commercials of 2011.  There were many that I had never seen before, and I really enjoyed this one, for Snickers Peanut Butter Squared:



Thinking about excellent commercials, I have been inspired to post some of my commercials on my Purple Husky YouTube page.  I thrive on the process of developing creative for advertising, and have worked with many talented people to create great commercials.  With dozens of ads under my belt, my favorite is still this commercial for the Spectracolor drawing pad, an activity toy that was a little ahead of its time.  The commercial achieved its objective and sold a lot of toys.

Dog Directed TV Advertising

With dozens of toy commercials under my belt, I've learned a lot about kid-directed TV advertising.  The idea of advertising products directly to kids, who then nag their parents to buy them, has been around almost as long as TV itself.

Now I've seen something completely different.  Nestlé's Purina brand has aired a commercial for its Beneful dog food that's they believe is the first TV commercial designed especially for dogs.

The commercial aired this year in Germany and Austria.  According to Nestlé, the commercial uses a different sounds to capture the attention of dogs.

The first is a 'squeak' which is similar to the sound dog's toys make.  Both dogs and people can hear this.  The next sound is a high frequency tone, similar to a dog whistle, which humans can barely hear.  And the third sound is a soft, high-pitched 'ping' which can be heard by dogs and people. 

From a marketing point of view, Nestlé is doing a great job reinforcing the position of the Purina Beneful brand as one which understands the unique relationship between owners and their dogs.

In Kids' TV, I'm a "Whole Foods Gardener"

Josh Selig's "Planet Preschool" blog in Kidscreen Magazine provides an interesting look at the types of people working in kids' media and provides an entertaining and enlightening quiz to let us figure out how we fit into the picture. He looks at the conflicts between achievement of creative excellence and commercial success through L&M (Licensing & Merchandising).

Using gardening analogies, Josh identifies three types of people: the principled "Community Gardener", the balanced "Whole Foods Gardener", and the "Scorched Earth Gardener", who he describes as an excellent business person who is unburdened by conscience.

While Josh is reluctant to state where he fits into the picture, I'm happy to say that, as I expected, I am a "Whole Foods Gardener." Despite the tensions he highlights, I've found that an approach that recognizes creative excellence and still has the ability to exploit commercial opportunities is plausible and desirable. As a licensor and as a licensee, I've always welcomed the challenge of staying true to the characters and storyline on which I'm working while still figuring out how to make money.

Franklin, Barbie, and Calliou - LIVE!

Live entertainment for kids' brands is often a key component of a solid marketing strategy. For leading brands, live shows in theaters and malls are a great source of revenue. For other brands, live shows can heighten awareness and appeal among kids and their parents.

By coincidence, I have worked closely on all the brands featured in ad in this weekend's Toronto Star for Toronto's Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. I started my career in the toy industry working on Barbie branded products. Franklin the Turtle was every kids' best friend when I worked at Nelvana for four years, and it was like he became my friend too. It appears that the Franklin live show is similar (identical?) to the "Franklin and the Green Knight" program that I worked on at Nelvana. Finally, I got to know Caillou as master toy licensee when I was Marketing Director at Irwin Toy.

It's nice to see how these classic brands continue to entertain kids and gratifying to know that I played a part.

Toy Tuesday: Fill in the Spot with Lego

This cute video from Lego uses clever visual devices to show how you can build anything from Lego.

Build Anything from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.

Marketing Monday: Regulation or Responsible Parenting?

The US government is to be commended for trying to improve the lives of its citizens, but with all the things they could do to make the country a better place, it hardly seems that regulating advertising on sugary cereals ought to be a high priority.

This weekend, the New York Times reported that the US government is stalled in its push to limit food ads aimed at children.

Government regulation shouldn't be the way to promote responsible choices by parents and kids.