Favourite Ad Friday! - Awareness Test

Hello and apologies for the sparse updates lately. I was busy sitting exams for University, going to the Edinburgh Fringe and visiting St. Andrews for a long weekend to celebrate my papa's 91st Birthday. 

Fun and games, eh?

So to mark my return to the blogging world, I've decided to make Friday something a little special - Favourite Ad Fridays. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from my creative copywriting stuff on a weekly basis.

I've amassed a sizable list of my favourite ads over the years for two reasons really: They inspire me and I think they're awesome.

Advertising Agency: WCRS & Co
Media: TV, Cinema, Social Media, Viral
Sector: Government, Travel
Client: Transport for London
Year: 2008
Running Time: 1:00
What's it about?:   The purpose of this ad was to raise awareness of cycling safety and also how easy it is for motorists to miss cyclists.

After 2 weeks, the online version of the film received a total of 4.4million views. 

• 1,500 comments video sharing sites;
• circa 34,000 results on Google discussing the ad;
• 4 fan groups on Facebook.
• Page 1 on reddit & digg;
• 6th Most Viewed Youtube film in the uk that month
• 1st most viewed in its category (How to & Style) globally.
• £140k worth of views for £20k, giving us a saving of £120k and an ROI of 600%

Personal Feedback:  I love this ad when I first saw it because it's very clever and because it succeeded in fooling me.  Even though it's several years old now, I can still remember my reactions when I watched it for the first time:

• Mild confidence as I attempted to count all the completed passes
• Smug arrogance when I got the correct answer
• Utter confusion about the moonwalking bear
• Sheer disbelief when sure enough, right in front of my face, a moonwalking bear.
• Complete astonishment as I rewatched the video thinking they just snuck the bear into the replay only to find the bear was there all along.

My brain well and truly left my body that day.  It got blown all over the shop.

Amazon Kindle - Greg the Tree

Once upon a time back in University, I picked up a Creative Copywriting class lectured by Adrian Jeffery who is the owner of the Mightysmall advertising agency in Edinburgh.  Prior to that, Adrian was also a copywriter for the Leith advertising agency in Edinburgh.  The man knows his stuff, is what I'm saying.  Every week, he would assign the class a creative brief for a client and it was up to us to go away, come up with ideas and then pitch them to him where he either swiftly blasted them out the water or gave them a thumbs up.  You can get easily attached to an idea but you quickly learn to let it go if it doesn't get the okay.

Here's the first idea for a digital/social media campaign for the Amazon Kindle digital book reader.  The brief stressed that the idea had to create a "movement" via Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Apps, Blogs and so forth, it had to get people to stand up and be proud ambassadors of a new way to read and it had to use social media as mandatory.

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Client: The Amazon Kindle Digital Book Reader.
Project: Digital/social media campaign.
Video filmed for TV and to be uploaded to YouTube

We open to a black screen.


Voiceover: "Consider Greg..."

Screen fades from black to an image of an oak tree.  Camera slowly begins zooming in towards the tree.


Voiceover: "Greg has a lot to do.  He has an ecosystem to look after, carbon dioxide to convert and a family of Robins just moved in yesterday.  The last thing he wants is to end up like his brother Mike."


Camera quickly cuts to fresh tree stump, as if a tree had once been there but had just recently been chopped down.


Fades to black once again.


Strapline: Think of Greg - Kindle logo.

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The next step in this would be to give Greg the Tree his own personal Facebook page and Twitter account that people could like, follow and comment on.  Eventually, a remembrance page for Mike the Tree could be set up on Facebook.  The premise of this idea is that printing so many copies of books can be seen as a waste of paper.  As the Kindle can hold thousands of books at once, the intention of this piece of copy is to give the viewer an emotional - albeit humorous -  attachment to a personified tree (and ex-tree) called Greg & Mike.

There's a few more pieces of copy I've got for this creative brief so check back shortly

As always, feel free to comment or drop me an email on edward.marlin@hotmail.com

 - Edd

Hello and welcome!

The internet can be a big and scary place so I'm glad you managed to make it here in one piece.

The link to your right cleverly labeled "What is the Surf Shack?" once clicked will whisk you away from here to a page that looks remarkably similar to this one but will in fact tell you all you need to know about this blog.  This is not to be confused with the link "About Edd" which will give you information about me.

You can expect the first proper post containing examples of creative copywriting stuff I've done to appear up here lickety-split and in no time at all, so check back regularly!

If you want to leave a comment, feel free!

You can also send an e-mail to edward.marlin@hotmail.com

See you all soon!

 - Edd