TVC: Foot Locker –All is right

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By: BBDO New York

The American footwear and sportswear retailer celebrates a ‘Week of Greatness’ every year, when it releases its most premium shoes. It involves many big personalities from American sport in promoting it. This year, to communicate that the premium shoes help make ‘all things right’, the brand introduced a sportsman every day of the week in a new film/promo doing various activities showing benevolence. The main film featured boxer Mike Tyson returning Evander Holyfield his ear besides basketball player Kyle Irving, ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman, NFL quarterback Brett Favre and sportscaster Craig Sager.

Why we like

High-fives all around bros, over a year after celebrating some quirk-tastic usage of a Hollywood celebrity in the Sky Broadband ‘Bruce Willis’ spot (September 2012), we have an entrant to match up its greatness through not one but a host of big personalities. The cause is utterly disconnected but that’s only until you watch this one minute of hilarity.

The Foot Locker chain, famous for its employees’ uniforms that resemble those of referees, has a strong presence in malls across the US plus it has operations in 19 other countries. The marketing move hereis a smart gimmick–to release ‘seven premium’ shoe designs in seven days (because releasing them one by one is too mainstream?) but more importantly, position them as the most aspirational purchases ever. Yes, we’re talking of a shoe retailer attempting to create iPhone esque levels of frenzy, aided bountifully by the average American IQ levels and the brand’s long history.

The X-factor here, just as Bruce Willis wearing a bathrobe, is boxer Mike Tyson, infamous for biting off opponent Evander Holyfield’s ear in a 1997 bout that went on to define his image. Both Mr Tyson and Holyfield (who we’re sure have other things to do in their retired lives) play themselves – the former being quite entertaining with his part and give a memorable character to this film and initiative. It’s a coup of sorts, worthy to be recalled after years as ‘that ad’ in which Tyson returned Holyfield’s ear.. worth every penny spent on them to agree for this.

The other characters aren’t as known worldwide, but it’s sure a heady mix of personalities from sports, which is more evolved and taken more seriously in the USA than here. To put an Indian parallel, imagine a mix of Ravi Shastri, Kohli, Kapil, Milkha Singh and Mary Kom! And to make them do self-deprecating humour (again, not our style) is again a classy stroke.

So our obligatory gyan to huge budget ad-walas for inspiration – think multiple celebs + popular references to make a memorable film. Let’s hope SRK Salman get together to do something like this by 2020.

To watch this film, feed this link into your browser: goo.gl/BpLXAu

SOCIAL NEWSFEED

Welcome to Twitter Mr Sibal, now @**!*&#!

Today’s top header is inspired from the book Welcome to Advertising, Now Get Out! – as that’s what we thought after Union Minister for Communications and IT Kapil Sibal joined Twitter last Thursday. It seems like he was taken aback from the raucous reception he got from fans, trolls.. and well, more trolls but there are definitely some positives we see from his behaviour in the first few days . Firstly, it’s him, not an automated, measured machinery tweeting for him so that’s always welcome. Secondly, our man is an articulate lawyer (yes we do forget that at times), has an opinion for many sarkari happenings and most importantly, it signals the right time for our big netas to get one-on-one equations with us. Interestingly, Mr Sibal’s handlewas tweeted by @PMOIndia himself, recommending his followers to follow Sibal as well.

Priya Duttlikes this

.. and er, welcome to the internet, Mr Mulayam Singh

And to um, nullify the positivity we’ve just told you of in the above snippet, we must also break the news that Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party now has a website that’s going viral (yes those things happen too). Now we assume this is a makeover that’s making news but neta jee, it’s for the wrong reasons we fear. Samajwadi Party’s website has a picture of Mulayam Singh with the punchline ‘Man se hai Mulayam aur irade loha hai’. Next, a loud, tacky ‘official song’ of the party hits you enough to search for the mute button and then there are various sections listing the history and well, geography of the party. Son Akhilesh Yadav and current CM of course doesn’t feature too prominently (someone didn’t tell them that websites are more frequented by Akhilesh’s generation) and its official Facebook page is littered with positive news and announcements. Beware.

Akhilesh Yadav like this

How Micromax cracked social for Turbo launch

It may have one of the worst tag lines in history but it surely has some good lines to use on social media. Micromax, India’s phenomenal mobile brand had made news when it signed Hollywood star Hugh Jackman to launch its new phone; so it shouldn’t be shocking that it put in everything to oil the launch on social media too. From a case study we read on the site Social Samosa, Micromax did generate and sustain much interest during and after the launch. The teaser video garnered over six lakh views, the three FB posts drove 18,600 conversations and Tweeters contributed with over 10,700 tweets in the launch phase. Add to this press coverage and buzz about the brand ambassador.. and this would complete a well integrated marketing plan. Guess which phone this writer’s going for next?