With all the many tools communicators have at their disposal now to share a message with the audience, I still find that a perfectly-executed video spot (commercial) carries the maximum potential to move people. The combination of video, words, sound… when done perfectly can communicate everything about a brand.

Sometimes these communication elements in a commercial are combined with creativity in a way that just nails it. These two commercials I saw this week certainly did, in very different ways:

1) Geico Piggy

The pinwheels!

This short commercial already has nearly 2.5 million YouTube views, which brings up another point: a perfect commercial that nails it can employ all the other communication tools in the digital marketing world… a perfect commercial can take off through social and traditional marketing.

2) ornge medical transport… Propelling Life

Goosebumps… besides peeing your pants like in the first video, goosebumps are the most amazing reaction you can get when a message is nailed.

This commercial is brilliant because it transforms the high drama of a helicopter medical rescue into something peaceful… the commercial just sort of floats. The powerful wind of the helicopter propellers is conveyed as a gentle life-giving breeze that effortlessly blows away the sadness of trauma. The noise of the helicopter and the flurry of human activity in a rescue are stripped away.

And then the tagline captures the build-up of changing the propellers from things of power to things of angelic beauty.

Propelling Life

Andrew as you’ve never seen him before. Actually, to be honest, I’ve never seen myself like this before either… but what a fun experience to act as a model for an evening!

One of the items on my “stuff I’d always like to do” list (young man’s bucket list? Maybe my attempt at living “The Buried Life??”) has been to do a fashion model photo shoot.

Check!

Through the magical networking power of Twitter, I connected with Erin Lang of Transitions Photography in New Hamburg. Erin is a talented photographer starting up her new studio. She was building a website and portfolio, and needed a model for studio fashion-type photos. I jumped on my chance to do something I’ve always wanted.

So now I can say I’ve been a model for a fashion shoot. Cool!

Had the time of my life in the studio, and can’t believe the results. Thanks so much Erin!

view the rest of the photos from the photo session

• check out Transitions Photography website to see Erin’s talent
• Follow Transitions Photography on Facebook or Twitter

I think my next goal from my “stuff I’d always like to do” will be to act in a cheesy corporate training video.

Never have a war of words with anyone who buys ink in barrels

This is one of my all-time favourite quotes from the public relations world.

Despite the fact that social media and public journalism are ever more important in our world, the media has a lot of influence… and I believe that no matter how far down the path of self-reporting we go, we’ll always value the opinion of media.

That’s why you never, ever attack the media. No matter what, they wield power. That’s why you work with them, help them and give them information to do their jobs. Because they’re still a conduit of information to your public. Your public will listen to them no matter what reputation you have. You can’t presume that if your public likes you that they’ll ignore what media has to say about you… so you can’t blame the media for reporting negatively about you.

*****

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs and Apple have slipped afoul of this cardinal rule in their press conference today about the iphone4 signal strength issue. Read this awful quote… it makes me cringe:

Jobs also lashed out at the media for making a big deal of the reception issue, which some have dubbed “Antenna-gate.”

He said that since Apple has been around for 34 years, “haven’t we earned the credibility and the trust of the press? I think we have that from our users. I didn’t see it exhibited by some of the press as this was blown so far out of proportion.”

“Maybe it’s human nature — when you’re doing well, people want to tear you down. I see it happening with Google, people trying to tear them down,” he said.

“And I don’t understand it … what would you prefer? That we were a Korean company, that we were here in America leading the world with these products … maybe it’s just that people want to get eyeballs on their sites.” (via CBC News… read the full article)

This is arrogant to the extreme, to presume that media will ignore things you’ve done wrong just because “you’re awesome and media should be nice to you.”

Apple has a major risk here, and I don’t believe they’re playing it well. They’re taking their public good will for granted and squandering it. Instead of using their adoration as an opportunity to show their customers the full extent of their care (i.e. even growing their loyalty by taking full ownership of their product error, which I’m sure everyone would applaud them for); Apple is betting that their goodwill means that customers will forgive them. Why would you even want to play that bet when the potential of increasing the goodwill is so huge?

*****

But, at least upset consumers can now get a free iphone case (at least Consumer Reports confirms the case fixes reception issues). <sarcasm>That should sweep everything under the rug… </sarcasm>