Its economy currently sits as the 40th largest in the world with it bringing in $250,246 billion in growth in the year of 2012. Its major exports consist of electrical components, clothes, fruits, petroleum and coconut oil among many others and it enjoys good trading relations with the likes of the USA, Japan, Thailand, Germany, Hong Kong and China.

GDP:
The Philippines is actually a fairly new industrialized country and is still finding its feet, yet it has quickly moved its economy from being based on farming to one that is now heading down the manufacturing and services route.

There is a total workforce of close to 40 billion with close to half of its workforce working in the services sector which brings in 56 percent of the nations GDP. 32% of the remaining workforce are in the agriculture sector which turns in just 14% of the GDP whilst the remaining 14% work in the industrial sector which contributes 30% of the nations GDP.

Whilst the economy at the moment is small, it has been earmarked by both Goldman Sachs and HSBC bank to become one of the world’s top fifteen economies by the year 2050.

Demographics:
As mentioned already the Philippines are the 12th largest populace in the world and have a total of 98 million people. This does not include the 12 million people that live outside of the Philippines in a working capacity, with the country being one that has one of the highest populaces working abroad in the world.

Language:
This is where the Philippines really comes into its own, with the country having 175 native languages. The two most common are both Tagalog (Filipino) and English and are the languages used in the more urban areas of the country such as Manila whilst also being used by the government, schools, media and businesses.

There are too many other languages to list so we will just mention a few of them in Visayan, Maranao, Bicolano and Cebuano.

The Style of Philippine Marketing:
The Philippines has adopted a very westernized (particularly American) attitude on marketing with the nation’s largest exports and brands preferring a loud bang when promoting their goods. They have embraced social media and modern technology too and are fully up to date on how to use such media as a way of promoting their products extremely well. This could be through simple text message advertisements or through using Facebook or any other social media outlet.

They have still not forgotten the more traditional methods of advertising either with flyers and leaflets always being handed out personally at busy locations.

Writing Patterns:
Education authorities strongly urge children to learn English almost as their primary language in the Philippines, with the hope that this will indeed help them to find work easier in a country that is pushing towards using the language far more commonly than it already does.

This has led to a language-ish combination of both English and Tagalog called Taglish that is present in both social and media outlets. The movies, radio stations and even the government will use this cross breed of a language with them actually supporting it as they believe it is educating the populace even more in the secondary language of English.

In terms of marketing, there is a bed of love, heartbreak, comedy and the possibility of future happiness spread through many of the campaigns. We have to remember that the country is still a developing one and one that hopes to realise its dreams one day, these dreams are often portrayed in marketing strategies.

Graphical Styles:
In true Asian style, a lot of the graphical styles are cartoony and animation based with the emphasis being on fun and adventure. They do not take anything too seriously and like to inject a bit of life into anything that they want to sell.

Popular Cultural Themes:
Filipino people are rightly thought of as very friendly, very kind and very welcoming, despite many of the country living through hardship. They also believe very strongly in family, community and neighbours are treated as family almost in most instances.

They are incredibly religious as well as being very superstitious, so any outsider should respect both aspects of their personalities if they want to get off on the right foot.

Business Relationships:
With their economy growing steadily, the people of the Philippines are hungry and determined to push on to greater things. This can lead to them being seemingly too eager in many instances to secure the deal, however if you can calm them down a little you will soon see that they talk very good sense and will do whatever it takes to ensure that your relationship remains a good one.

However its size means that it is not that easy to tame and control. Yet in spite of that statement it is still amenable to strategies that work to its strengths. In our primer we will start with the obvious. Facebook was not designed as a business marketing medium. Its appeal to its members is its banality. What used to be private conversations and intimate sharing have all been hung out as voyeuristic washing for all to see who you are and what you wear, so to speak.

Bearing those thoughts in mind we will see how a business can harness and profit from a Facebook presence. A word of caution; it is easy to get seduced by the sheer number of active members; over 1 billion per month. Except for a miniscule percentage most of those users will never be your customers irrespective of what your product is. However the 1 billion gives us some enticing and exciting numbers to consider in any case. Just 1/10th of 1% of the 1 billion active users is 1 million active users. Could you get excited over promoting your business to 1 million people each month? Even 1/10th of that number is 100,000 users, still a very healthy number of people to reach. So in Business Marketing for Facebook 101 we will not aim to conquer Facebook. We will look at strategies that suit the market that you can properly support and service.

Your strategies are not exclusive to Facebook. They are very similar to the ones that you already employ. In the first place you want customers that give you repeat business. This will only happen if you have a reliable product and, this is crucial, you build a relationship with them. This is where Facebook comes in to its own because building relationships is embedded in the very fabric of Facebook.

A Facebook page allows you to have conversations with potential customers. Once your Facebook customers are satisfied with what you have to offer you now have an exponentially growing number of people who recommend you to their friends because you are now their Facebook friend. This requires a change in traditional marketing thinking. You will need your Facebook marketers available perhaps 24×7 because Facebook is always present. That could be a difficult staffing challenge. This is where a Facebook marketing company that specializes in assisting businesses can give you your entré and an edge. They can provide the personnel that cover your 24×7 presence or other hours that suit your business and budget. They will give you the ability to engage your potential Facebook customer/friends. These people are also your ‘canaries in the mine’. They will become very quickly aware of potential disasters such as bad service, slow delivery, shoddy product etc. Their job at that point is to immediately bring in a suitable rapid response team, determined in advance by consultation, to handle a potential breakdown in equanimity and trust.

What this highlights is that Facebook is a double- edged sword. It can work massively in your favor and just as quickly become a wipeout for your company’s marketing effort. This can happen so quickly that diligence is required. But better yet, it will force you to assess whether your company wants to be in this environment. If you don’t make a commitment to excellent service right at the outset the consequences can be dire. Your reputation, your brand will suffer.

Now that we have addressed this cautionary aspect we can look at what your Facebook page needs to include. The value in what you bring to Facebook is your willingness to communicate with the people who ‘Like’ you. It will not be just about product but also about building your brand.
To build the trust and engagement with your fans you need to commit to providing information of value. You have an opportunity through your articles and blogs to show that you are responsive, clever, socially aware and responsible. These are not easy things to do. The old corporate world jealously guards its turf. It does not easily disclose its secrets or its methods of doing business. However in today’s world the former way of doing marketing is surrendering to the new paradigms of social media. You can provide information that discloses enough to engage your readers. You may only need to go just that little bit further than your competitors are prepared to do. Bear in mind that readers will come to your site to find out what’s in it for them. Everything that is on your site needs to be targeted towards that aim.

That takes expertise. Specialist consultants can develop the plan to mould your message and help you to move into this new and exciting marketing world. However, one thing that you will need is your own in-house champion, someone articulate, accepting and knowledgeable in social media. Your senior management will need your champion and your external consultant’s input.

Marketing companies quickly caught on to the fact that social media and the internet could bring huge results with the right viral marketing campaign. A top quality viral marketing campaign can literally turn smaller brands into well known entities in a matter of days.

For this reason, we are going to talk about which viral marketing campaigns have caught the eye and been the most successful so far in 2013.

Official PlayStation 4 Used Game Instructional Video

Whenever the next generation of consoles are released there is always a tug of war between the two powerhouses in Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, with each usually releasing their technology during the same time period in order to stop the other from gaining an early march in the power struggle.

Sony used this viral marketing campaign to cleverly mock their fierce competitors Microsoft ahead of the upcoming launch of both systems. The new Xbox has come under fire after it has been revealed that Microsoft would be putting restrictions on the players’ ability to share games with their friends.
Though this viral campaign was a huge success and reached almost 14 million people so far in 2013, it could actually backfire as Microsoft has now scrapped its initial plans and will allow users to freely share games as before.

PhotoShop Live

Photoshop wanted to go down the ‘amazement’ route with their very clever viral ad campaign that not only shows the power of what their software can do but also that a little bit of creativity can bring about fantastic results. The ad certainly reached viral heights after hitting around 14 million views in just one week.
Photoshop brought technology and creativity together which resulted in a viral ad that people are still talking about to this day.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

The Dove Real Beauty Sketches has officially become the most viewed and most shared video advertisement of all time, with the ingenious campaign driving home an emotional message that how we see ourselves is not necessarily how we are viewed by others. Though it is an obvious marketing strategy it does hold a true and heart warming message which has to be the reason it has been viewed more than 114 million times.

Transport For London Pub Loo Shocker

Transport For London has often gone down the shock route in order to make people think twice about drinking and driving and they didn’t let up in this viral campaign either. Although the men in this video were played by actors, the message certainly hit home with the video being viewed more than 3.5 million times in 2013 already.

Pepsi Max “Test Drive”

Pepsi are another company that have not been shy to go down the viral marketing route, with this one being their best effort yet. The video involves a hoax against a car salesman in which Nascar driver Jeff Gordon (after disguising himself) takes a Camaro out on a test drive leaving the salesman terrified. Though Pepsi later admitted the stunt was staged, it still managed to attract more than 40 million views and has become one of the most successful viral video ads of the year so far.

That wraps up what have been the most viral of viral ads in 2013 to date, leaving us wondering just what somebody else will come up with next.

Any marketing course that’s worth half its salt preaches the need to match the pitch to the catcher. Selling equipment to a business is about understanding needs. Selling fast foods to customers is a different ballgame. All you have to do is make them want it. This is straightforward in principle. However, you need to capitalize on the difference between Business-2-Business and Business-2-Customer marketing to succeed in practice.

An owner of a pie shop decided to diversify into selling fresh fish and chips as well. He hired an experienced assistant, gave him a budget and told him to get on with it. The cook knew he needed a five-liter oil pan, a robust chip basket and a high-speed element, because these would give him the fresh-cooked tasty texture his customers would come back for. He asked two companies to quote.

‘Michael’ pushed his product hard on the basis that it would produce tasty fish and chips, handed over a catalogue of pictures of plated fried foods, and offered free recipes. ‘Mary’ was smarter. She knew the assistant needed a fryer that was fast, reliable, easy to clean and simple to operate. She also offered to do a demo for the pie shop owner, and to provide free posters of deep fried fish and chips to put up on the walls. She got the business although her price was a little higher. Both salespeople were selling the exact same product.

Michael used the classic B2C approach, which was inappropriate. He focused on the benefits of the deep fat fryer, and hoped to provoke an emotional response. If the pie shop customers had been there, they would probably have voted him in as supplier. He totally missed the point that the cook already knew the recipes, did not need the culinary advice and was planning to serve the product in paper bags.

Mary’s B2B style was what did the trick. She knew the pie shop owner had already decided to sell fish and chips, and just needed a practical device for cooking them. Offering the posters was a great gig because it would help the customer launch their B2C campaign, where tasty pictures are great selling tools. Her clincher was offering the joint demo. Mary sensed there was a decision maker behind the scenes. She just needed a key to open the door.

These distinctions are not unique to the world of deep fryers and fried fish and chips. They apply everywhere where companies are buying stock for resale, or inputs to goods or services they supply. They are often making one-time, big-ticket purchases. Their decision teams need logical reasons they can motivate up the line. Mary understood that selling Business-2-Business is meeting these needs.

Michael should have been a surefire winner had he been the clerk on the pie shop counter. His takeout menu would have dripped with tasty photos, and he would have been at pains to describe the benefits of the different recipes. In a nutshell, that’s the difference between B2B and B2C. In the latter instance, there is less focus on logic. Emotional and sensory experiences are what counts.

There is a world of difference between marketing to businesses, and pitching to individual customers. Commerce is time-bound with little time for chatter when it comes to salespeople. You have one chance to get it right, to show that your product serves their needs or you may as well pack up and go home. Selling to customers is a more convivial matter. They want to be entertained, and to grow to like you before you launch your pitch, and then to learn the benefits. Next time you are in selling mode, take a moment out to recall these principles. Are you in B2B, or B2C mode today? Are you meeting needs or selling benefits?

As a mop-making company you have invested considerable money and effort into making your mops. Wouldn’t it be nice if your customers understood the lengths that you go to just to make good mops for them.

In the past, the best that you could hope for in your mop marketing efforts would be to emphasize the differences between you and your competitors by means of shelf-talkers or tear-off brochures in the few minutes that a customer stood in the shop aisle and made a purchasing decision; “I’ll take the $5 one” leaving your $15 mop on the shelf.

You could run a TV campaign with a cute mop running around like in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice but the cost would be prohibitive. The plain unadorned truth is that yesterday’s marketing medium successes; television, radio, newspapers and magazines are being left behind. Viewers switch of the sound, skip forwards if they are watching previously recorded material or otherwise disengage.

Today’s buyer’s attention is not focused in those areas where the previous generation was engaged and captive. With the ever expanding reach of social media and the 24 hour world-wide presence of the Internet your mop-shopping targets have their own agenda that they work to. Choosing information wherever they want, the only thing that grabs their attention is content that is relevant to them and provides value for them. The days of “whiter than white” advertising has gone down the cultural gurgler.

So the challenge for the corporate marketers is to find out what their potential customers think is relevant and valuable information. That particular challenge is not difficult for someone steeped in the lore and practice of marketing. It is the bread-and-butter practice of Marketing 101.

So what we need now to consider is how we leverage our new marketing strategies. This is where Content Marketing comes into its own. By providing relevant content on their websites and in social media the new Content Marketers take advantage of the latest research in trends. This research shows that 8 out of 10 corporate decision makers prefer to get their product information from web articles, white papers, specialist reviews and even online help manuals. They show little preference for advertising. That is not surprising since advertising is ‘content-lite’ often selling sizzle and not sausage, brand not product. That view is also filtered through the knowledge of what goes into their own advertising and the rationale behind it.

With regard to brand promotion something else has come out of the research. The best content marketers have the best brand recognition simply because they are offering something of value to the potential customer, namely objective information. There is a quid pro quo at work; you tell me what I want to know without the hype and I will give you serious consideration as my preferred vendor.

When undertaking Content Marketing for your company you can choose from one or more strategies. If there are industry blogs covering your technology then consider submitting articles to them. The blogs should be conversational with sufficient technical information that establishes your company as a leading provider. In traditional advertising you would make that claim in the advertising material that you produce. In the blog you get a chance to show how adept your company is in dealing in your technology areas. Short case studies can be a good vehicle for your presentations. Each blog can present a different aspect of how you have provided solutions to client problems, without identifying the client. If there are industry buzzwords in common use, you can show how your technology uses and enhances those buzzword concepts. If you have your own internal buzzwords or acronyms then showcase them. That is what all the giant IT vendors do. It shows that your solutions have caché when you can give them an identity not just a product name.

Join the biggest marketing trend and publish a Facebook page. Establish a relationship with the editors of relevant industry magazines and offer them more than just the standard corporate hype. Build your brand by showcasing your in-house talent. Readers identify with people and the company and products they are responsible for if they see numerous name references. Submit white papers to professional interaction and skill promotion sites like LinkedIn. Set aside part of your website for your human/technical story.

This is such an important activity that you need to give careful consideration to who is going to author your Content Marketing pieces. In-house writing talent should be encouraged particularly from the technology side of your business and resist the temptation to hand the project over to your sales department. They are obviously very good at what they do but they do work to a driven agenda which matches your sales reporting cycle. Content Marketing cannot be easily massaged or manipulated to fit into monthly time cycles. Hiring external marketing experts with a proven Content Marketing track record will always work well for you.

Other things to consider is the selection of topics and the style in which you would see your content best presented. The topics should fit into a plan with delivery that extends over a 6-12 month period. Once again, an outside consultant can explore and help you focus in on what your need and expectations are.

Take a look at a few more of the more memorable and successful classic ad campaigns we think had a massive impact on what we see across all media platforms today.

Coca Cola – “Always Coca Cola”

Coca Cola (Coke) have always been one of the pioneers of advertising campaigns since way back in the early 1930’s when it was first established as a brand. However, through all of those it has to be said that the most ambitious and certainly the most successful of them was the “Always Coca Cola” campaign.

This campaign had 27 different commercials that were all aimed at different audiences all over the world. It was a huge success and helped to further spread the appeal of the brand all across the globe.

Clairol – “Does she…or doesn’t she?”
This ad campaign very nearly did not get off the ground back in 1956 due to it being recognised as perhaps a little bit too suggestive. However, it did make it to the television screens and had a massive impact on the sales of Clairol Hair Dye, so much so that within just six years of this ad campaign more than 70% of all women were using hair dye with Clairol being the number one brand.

Miller Lite – “Tastes great, Less Filling”
Back in the 70’s Miller came up with something that they thought could corner the market in the beer industry. They came up with a low calorie beer that they thought would enable men to drink more of it, simply because it wouldn’t make them fat. Initially it didn’t go down too well as men in general do not care for how many calories they are drinking.
However a new ad campaign that had real masculine sporting hero’s and a few comedians thrown in managed to turn its success around as sales went up from 7 million barrels to a staggering 31 million within less than a year of the campaign starting up.

Marlboro – “The Malboro Man”
During the 1950’s smoking had not yet seen the health concerns that come with the habit and brands were openly advertised on the television regularly. If we were to ignore the health issues and concentrate entirely what the ad campaign Marlboro did for the brand back then, making smoking seem very masculine which appealed to both men and women.
The rugged cowboy “Marlboro Man” turned smoking into something sexy and desirable and improved sales at the brand ten-fold.

That just about wraps it up for our articles on some of the more classic advertising campaigns that were not only a success in terms of sales but a success at always being associated with their respective slogans.
Any new ad campaign will want to be remembered in the same light of any of these in the many years to come. They will want to be the “Jolly Green Giants” and “Tony the Tiger’s” of the future, something that will be remembered through generations as one of the biggest reasons for the success of their company.
Thank you for reading, we are sure that most of you will know at least 50 percent of these commercials already, which just go to show that they did indeed work!

We are going to take a look at why some of the most classic advertising campaigns should be looked to for some inspiration, simply because these campaigns have stood the test of time and have been acknowledged as true pieces of genius.

If you were to think long and hard about some of the most memorable and classic advertising campaigns across time, there will always be something in common with all of them; they will all have a slogan that lodges into your brain never to be forgotten.

Take a look at our first part of a two part article of some classic campaigns that have helped to mould marketing to what it is today.

Volkswagen – “Think Small” (1960’s)

When we think of classic advertising campaigns that shaped marketing into what it has become today, this is the one that many thought it all began. The “Think Small” campaign by Volkswagen was a huge success in the 1960’s and was in fact voted as the best and most successful advertising campaign seen in the twentieth century.

The way this ad was put together even then, is part of the framework for many ads that you see today.

California Milk Processor – “Got Milk” (1993)

This now infamous advertising campaign for the California Milk Processor Board used comedy to bring huge awareness to the importance of milk in our diets and was responsible for a huge increase in sales.

In a poll carried out by a USA Today poll, the advert was voted amongst the top ten of all time in America. The success of this advertising campaign went on for some time with other adverts spawned along the same lines.

Nike – “Just Do It” (1988)

To many of us it would seem unbelievable that this year and in fact this month celebrates 25 years of the Nike “Just Do It” ad campaign. Was it really that long ago? That is probably what makes this advertisement what it is, simply because it was so fresh back then that it would not look out of place on our television screens today.

The campaign proved to be a monumental success that took Nike’s share in the domestic sports shoe industry up to 43% from 18%. The slogan is still used today alongside huge sporting stars such as LeBron James and Wayne Rooney.

Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes – “They’re Grrrreat!”

We often wonder how much Kellogg’s knew about the success that the advertising campaign for Frosted Flakes would bring them. In fact the slogan is still used to promote and advertise the product now more than sixty years later, with “Tony the Tiger” still the main star of the show.

There is no question that the campaign was one of the biggest reasons for the success of not just this particular cereal but for Kellogg’s as a whole. This commercial was one of the earliest signs of what a good marketing campaign can do for your company.

Each of those campaigns is considered as one of the true greats and are now often used as the framework for which many campaigns are built upon today. Make sure you catch part 2 of this article in which we share some more of the classic campaigns that have brought marketing to where it is today.

You will need:

• A verified Facebook account
• A domain with the content you wish to turn into an app hosted on it (content should all be capable of being delivered securely)
• An SSL certificate for that domain

• Go to https://developers.facebook.com/ you will be greeted with a page that looks something like this:

• At the top of the page click on Apps now click on the +Create New App

• A dialog box will appear, were it has App Name type any name you want (it doesn’t have to be unique). Ignore the middle box, but in the App Category  select  Apps For Pages

• Complete the CAPTCHA

• This is the main app page. Change the display name to what you want and update the email if needed, ignore the other top fields for now. Now click Page Tab at the bottom of the list and fill in the following: Page Tab Name – this will be shown under the tab, Page Tab URL – we tend to just put the secure URL in here as Facebook always uses https anyway, Secure Page Tab URL – this is the page address starting with https, for it to work you need a valid SSL certificate installed on your site (make sure that it matches the domain and does not give any warnings)

• Add an image for your page tab by clicking on the + next to Page Tab Image.  The image can be in any JPG, Gif, or PHG, but it’s limited to 111x 74.  Which as you can see form my ugly demo image here is very small.

• One last thing to do before we install the app and that is switch it to live mode so go to SandBox Mode near the top of the form and click on disabled. Then click Save Changes at the very bottom of the form. You will now see the orange sandbox indicator turn to green and once you’ve waited for Facebook’s servers to update you have yourself an app

You then need to format at line that looks like this

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=App Id Number&next= The Page Tab URL

e.g. our tutorial app has an id of 1437667946446088 and is hosted on https://fbpage.we-convince.com/

so the line looks like

https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=1437667946446088&next=https://fbpage.we-convince.com/

• Make sure you are using Facebook as yourself not as a page and enter the line you created in the address box of your browser.
• Facebook will then ask you which page you wish to add your app to.  Select the right page and click Add Page Tab

If successful you’ll be taken to your page.  If this doesn’t come up check the Page Tab URL and the App Id number in your line, and also that you disabled sand box mode and didn’t enable any of the other ways of integrating an app with Facebook (if you want to add others e.g. like gateswe found that it works better just to create separate apps)

Finished Now Test Your App

Go to the page that you installed the tab on and click on the app tab (if you can’t see it then click on the down arrow to expand the tab page, hover over the tab until you see a pencil icon and swap the tab with one on the top line)

If you click on the tab you’ll find that you are now the parent of a new app in all its 810 pixel wide glory.  Well Done!

Tips:  If you include iFrame material in your app for example a YouTube video you will need to use secured https links for it to appear on Facebook under IE.  Also apps and page tabs don’t work well in Facebook’s mobile apps so you might also want to give out the direct link to the page for mobile app users.

For consumer brands it is brand perception that makes brand repositioning so hard, especially so for low end brands seeking to shift up to higher margin or niche positions. Recently some South Korean brands have successfully been able to alter brand perception, through marketing, industrial design, and investment in research.

In marketing, products can sometimes be defined as much by the perception of the brand as by the specification or features of the product.  Apple remains a prime example despite criticism of the small screen and lack of innovation in their products they are still gaining market share in the US. A friend recently asked why Apple survived let alone prospered.  Perhaps the answer can be seen in their recent “Apple – Our Signature” TV commercial

Apple – Our Signature

And this their product design focused video which picked up 1.2 million hits on YouTube

Apple – Designed By Apple – Intention

Let’s have a look at a more direct brand values commercial from Mercedes-Benz:

Mercedes-Benz Brand – Values commercial

Jordan uses a more abstract approach with virtually no words in this inspiring piece:

Jordan Break to Build

For the sake of comparison here are three brand value video pieces that in my opinion are less effective simply because the companies involved have placed less marketing emphasis on who they are.  In the case of HTC, Blackberry, and Audi most of us could talk about the products, but many would struggle to define what the brand means, and how it ties into those products.

HTC

Audi  – Technologies that shape the future

BlackBerry –Love What You Do 2010

If you were ask your potential customers to define your brand what do you this they would say?   If your company was to define itself using a 60 second commercial what would it look like? Does your  company have strong or weak brand values? These are good questions that we all need to ask ourselves.  Perhaps it’s time to spend a little while and consider how we ‘…are seen to be’ and how we can use this value perception as a marketing/sales tool.

When it comes two ending TV commercials with a twist there are two schools of thought. The first is that it’s a bad idea since it reduces the replay value of an ad – once you know the twist you’re no longer surprised by it.  The other view is that adding a little sting to an ad gives it a higher retention value and rewards the viewer for paying attention. Today we’re going to look at some ads that feature twists and you can judge for yourself.

The first two ads are form Europe (France and The Netherlands respectively) and use the technique of a long lead up. What do you feel about their replay value?

By the way I’m not going to talk about the products too much as in many cases this could spoil the ending.

 CANAL+ “The Clowns”

Nationale-Nederlanden “Do re mi”

Addressing the replay value problem here is an American ad inspired by a recent film which combines a strong concept for the product with a twist. Even without the twist the commercial stands on its own.

 “Inner Mustang”

Another technique is seen on these widely praised ads, one by Robinsons and one by Guinness. It’s the use of a touching lead into the twist; Guinness’ “dedication, loyalty, friendship…”, Robinsons scene  setting.  This retains an emotional bond with ad and the brand even after the twist is known.  Rewatching the ad gives us that warm feeling once again – not a bad pay off.

Guinness “Basketball”

Robinsons “Pals”

(for bonus points try watching the Robinsons again and finding the clues)

As a side note adding a twist ending can be used to challenge normal perceptions too, especially regarding sexuality

Sometimes to make a statement:

What R U having? (from Australia)

Sometimes to sell:

2 Minutes Life Change (from Thailand) nsfw

Kindle “Perfect at the Beach” (from the US)

And finally in this much lauded, but never shown ad again by Guinness:

Men and women shouldn’t live together

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed watching these, and they’ve helped you decided if you should add a twist to your next video and if so how.