The French female magazine “l’Officiel” set up a luxury marketing operation.
3 readers will have the joy of discovering, in the December 08 number, a 1 carat diamond valued 2600 euros (total value: 78000 euros).
It is the first time in press history that such a luxurious gift is to be found at the kiosk.
You will be able to find indices here.
A man approaches you in the street. He asks you to take a picture of him and his wife with his Laïkonic camera, to immortalize a loving moment. You do it. While thanking you, the man briefly eulogizes his wonderful camera with a few technical characteristics. Doesn’t seem very strange! But what if this couple were not a real one? What if these people were paid for approaching you in the street because your profile fits to the Laïkonic target? You could have been “undercover marketed”!
Nowadays, there are so many ads, everywhere, for everything and nothing (on average a person undergoes 2000 to 3000 commercial messages a day) and restrictive regulation makes the communication somtimes ineffective, so that it is strategically clever for companies to hide their commercial aim and sometimes their own identity when they communicate.
This is what “undercover” marketing was born for.
At this time, undercover marketing seems to be fashionable in the marketing world.
What is undercover marketing?
Undercover marketing can be defined as a set of techniques used to approach the customer without informing him/her of the commercial aim.
You will sleep better now you know that your friends are not the only ones to betray and lie to you. Even people who you do not know can manipulate you! So from now on, when you will read comments on a forum praising a product, keep your critical mind and don’t forget that this message can be from the company!
Candia is selling artesianal production milk in several hypermarkets.
Candia has succeed in a launch choosing proximity and local agriculture protection to argue itscampaign. Candia emphasises quality and healthy living. Candia uses nature to say “YES”! Like Yes you can drink the mountain milk, it’s good for you, for the farmers, and you’re respecting nature at the same time.
And the design backs the messaging very well!
A few days ago TF1, the French private TV channel, set up its new publicity jingles. They are all very merry and dynamic.
You can see them on the web:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDJozb4P2Q
Each year at springtime we endure ads to lose weight by drinking miraculous potions to get the ultra power and the perfect six pack – without any effort, of course . Ads also show that we can also get golden, smooth skin without the least little bit of hair.
The hairs don’t escape this rule. In Europe many women don’t shave their legs, instead using an epilation machine either at a beauty institute, or at home. Ouch ! The procedure can be painful. The proof is here.
On French TV we saw a sweetened version of the epilation machine , but the message is clear. The Philips Satinelle epilation machine is so functional that a man can also use it. This ad is glamorous as well as humorous as we think of the Stephen Elliot movie, with a wink, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Philips makes a real departure from the usual rules of epilation, and womens beauty code in general, for this campaign. The main character of this movie is played by Karis a famous transvestite dancer in Los Angeles. They may be taking a risk but at the same time they’re aming for a new audience: creative, open minded and “bobo”, a French nick name for “bourgeois bohème”, meaning very trendy urban people. The ads are also the reflection of the evolution of our society and a space of personal dreams and creativity. Do the times change? Women have played by men’s rules for a long time, through dress codes, etc., and now women and men can share the beauty tools just as we share a cup of coffee. Why not?
Can today’s readers be entertained entirely by adverts? Two magazines in the Grenoble area are testing the water, and so far so good.
For about a year Grenoble has been the recipient of two free magazines, one published monthly and one every quarter. The content of these magazines is entirely made of sponsored ‘advertorial’. The monthly “PiliPilli” is a brightly designed glossy magazine that allows the user to cut out the adverts and present them to the featured shops and restaurnats in exchange for reductions in price or freebies. The quarterly “Captiv en Gresivaudien” is an upmarket survey of the new opportunites to spend your money in the Grenoble area. This magazine focuses mostly on interviews with enterprise owners.
This new model seems to be working as it’s been over a year since the two magazines were laucnhed. Apart from the natural summer break both have continued to display fresh advertisers and new content. It’s easier to look at than the phonebook.
A contemporary creative vision of food & sensuality
Philippe Di Méo a part time designer and fulltime restaurant manager, joined with some prestigious creative chefs and some legendary luxury tableware brands such as Baccarat, Christofle… or the orfevrerie silversmith’s trade of Anjou & Goyard. In the aim to offer to the public a collection of some little rituals of tasting, some short moments of pure pleasure, of discovery and shared games. Sabine Pigalle has created some tactful, reserved and elegante movies about the journey from the art of the table to… the bedsheets maybe.
But beyond the artistic and creative performance, this project is a perfect illustration to show how the association between artists and manufacturers can be profitable. In fact some very traditional brand names are often perceived as a little old fashioned, and all of them trade on their tradition and reputation (more than 200 year for Christofle and Baccara, for example) and an idea of luxury as our grandma would choose, and this exhibit gives them new exposure, of a trendy and contemporary vision, to a new audience.
“Souper Fin” de Philippe Di Meo, a French way of life ?
For the launch of the it’s new phone (7610), Nokia created a TV campaign with 3 videos where we can share the very active life of 3 young persons (Anna, Jade and Luca) who are addicted to their phones.
The main idea in this is “It’s not just a phone”. These 3 persons are using their phone for various purposes all day long.
The campaign also includes a website where you can see all the content of their phones: contact lists, photos, videos, SMS,…).
You can also register and you will receive messages from them like if you were one of their friends.
For example:
Hey everyone,
So…I have a huge decision to make. Lennon’s offered me the chance to study in Paris. It’s a great opportunity but I feel like I’m just starting to make a go of things here in London… plus there’s a really cute clown who I’d like to stick around and see more of 
For the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m going to call my Dad tomorrow morning at 11am and get some advice. He’ll know what to do. My Dad = the guru. Always strangely helpful in times of crisis even if he comes out with some wacky stuff!
Wish me luck!
Anna
X x x
Sharing storage space on the internet for free was recently introduced to the public by Wuala: wua.la
This allows distributed storage for your own files, making them available any time via the Web, even if you are nowhere near your PC or if your PC is switched off!
Although the principle seems simple, the great challenge is to minimize the number of copies of the same file. This can be done with the complex Mathematical trick known as the Reed-Solomon error correction (currently used to interpret data on DVDs).
Most commercial online-storage services use centralised servers, that are generally reliable, but as we know they do sometimes fail. Though some may feel hesitant about their data protection Wuala is built to handle concerns about the illegal distribution of copyrighted or “inappropriate” content.
For the last few weeks the USA has been under the spotlight and we in Europe are in constant touch with American events, people, or culture. In the Typo Berlin 2008 event we saw a new design for the famous “I love NY” from Milton Glaser created in 1977.
This summer’s big format posters by Yoplait (dairy product company) could be seen on buses and tramway shelters. At a first glance, it seemed like an ordinary Yop bottle (yoghurt based drink), with the drink splashing out. But on further invstigation, the splash was not only yoghurt but a mosaic with different characters, a teenager on a skateboard, a dog, a teddy bear, a hairdryer etc. I thought this campaign was interesting since it managed to create an interactivity with the viewer, the more you watched the poster the more objects appeared. The design was witty and clever, using a large format to play with the optical effect.
When the entire world was watching the USA campaigns and election, the new President-Elect inspired the world’s graphic designers.
Below are examples.
We easily recognize Robert Indiana with this “HOPE”, author of the famous “LOVE” sculpture. Lance Wyman, the designer of the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games logo does a nice job with the type face. There is also Shepard Fairley; Rafael López, well-known for his mural painting in San-Diego; and Lou Stovall with a dreamlike scene painted on silkscreen print.
Different portraits from many artists
There is also the competition from MoveOne, democratic action commitee
There is no political view in this article, our interest only focuses on design.
