Breaking Up With Advertising
I'm not sure what else to say except get the heck out of your RSS feed and watch this video. Or for your convenience, you can go here, where there is a blog dedicated to "The Break Up" between traditional advertising and the consumer. It's also funny as heck. Please watch, you'll be glad you did.
Interestingly enough, the creator of this video and site works for Microsoft—who incidentally just got a whole lot cooler in my book. :)
But wait—there's more. Apparently this whole thing was inspired by "It's the Conversation Economy Stupid". Even cooler. My favorite quote?
"Let's just hug".
Update: Here's A little more background on the effort behind the video series and blog.
"Together with our ad agency Openhere, I’m currently making a commercial for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. The film is called ‘The Couple’ and makes some statements about the relationship between today’s advertiser and today’s consumer. A quite risky project if you know that the commercial explicitly challenges the advertisers - our clients - to question themselves and the way they communicate with their target groups. In this blog, I will keep you posted about the making of the campaign. I have also given the agency access to this blog, so that they can vent their ideas as well. As should be in this format, there is only one rule: “their are no rules!”
Also, by the end of the month, I’ll be able to tell you whether I still work as a Marketing Manager at Microsoft, or whether this project finally turned itself against me"
My favourite line is "I know everything about you. You're 28 to 34"
Posted by: Philippe | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 03:15 PM
You rock, Armano. This is fantastic. I love the look on the advertiser's face when she says "You're not doing a radio commerical."
Posted by: Scott Monty | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 03:23 PM
Scott, be sure to share this one. Too good to keep to ourselves... ;)
Posted by: DA | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 03:33 PM
This is absolute greatness. So, when does Microsoft come out against the release of this video, and fire the person responsible?
Posted by: Paul McEnany | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 03:58 PM
Don't know Paul. I'm still waiting for all of the Ad peeps to weigh in and say what a horrible video this is. Poor lighting, bad script, terrible concept.
Maybe they should have used a storyboard?
I watched this about 5 times already. I think it's good for a chuckle and quite accurate.
Advermarketing. Gotta love it. :)
Posted by: DA | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:04 PM
Genius.
Posted by: Cam Beck | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:13 PM
This is awesome. I wonder how much the internet, and it's role in personal empowerment (and instant gratification) have to do with this stuff.
Jason Alba
CEO - http://www.JibberJobber.com
Posted by: Jason Alba | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:15 PM
Brilliant. "You're saying you love me... but you're not *behaving* like you love me...."
Oh brother I just love this...
Nice find, DA!
Posted by: Ann Handley | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:18 PM
I already saw some bitchy comments on bringtheloveback.com. I sometimes feel that wathever Microsoft is doing, there will be a bunch of people to tell how arrogant we are. C'mon, give us some love :)
Posted by: Philippe | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:22 PM
Philippe
Good point about Microsoft. They have an uphill battle. For me, personally, I don't care if WalMart hired someone to produce this. It's pretty good stuff. :)
Posted by: DA | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 04:27 PM
Interesting find David. Thanks. But, why not comment on how difficult it is to find the code and embed the video. That's WAY more insightful.
Posted by: Tom Asacker | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 05:24 PM
Tom. I agree!
I left a comment somewhere to one of the producers about this. The daily motion experience was HORRIBLE. I wasted 15 minutes and finally grabbed the source code the old fashion way!
Ugh.
It was bad. People forget that You Tube rocks because it's both USEFUL and EASY.
Posted by: DA | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 05:29 PM
Glad you like it and of course glad that the dialogue is really happening... I only hope some advertisers will join the conversation ;-)
And I agree, Dailymotion isn't the easiest choice...I'll share on other major video sharing sites soon.
Geert
Posted by: Geert Desager | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 05:58 PM
Nice one David! I'll be sure to share this. I'm a big fan of the "I know everything about you" line too.
Posted by: Katie Chatfield | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 06:20 PM
LOVED that. "We don't talk anymore" - brilliant!
Posted by: Lori Magno | Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 11:46 PM
Thanks for this. I'm going to share this one. Good to see from Microsoft.
Posted by: jj | Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 08:17 AM
Great video. I saw lots of parallels for the online job market. Change their t-shirts to "company" and "candidate" ... hmmm ...
Posted by: Ben Yoskovitz | Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 08:33 AM
Microsoft beginning to understand that we are all people and not just numbers and statistics to be manipulated? Oh, how I hope it's true!
Posted by: Chris Cree | Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 02:57 PM
I can't wait for the sequel! Does advertising finally get the message? How do they win the consumer's love back? Do they just fade away and get replaced????
Great find, David!
Posted by: ann michael | Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 07:13 PM
Freeing the video from Dailymotion.
feel free to download it on Google Video - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6820947761964666270
or youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZDXfB0Rd4Q
or on viddler - http://www.viddler.com/explore/theafter/videos/1/
Enjoy
Posted by: David H | Friday, May 18, 2007 at 06:38 AM
I loved this video, David. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm finishing a post right now to share it with my readers.
The bottom line for me is that we're heading for an economy based on relationship and, as you said, conversation. It's inevitable. It's happening already. And we bloggers seem to be at the forefront.
Posted by: Dawud Miracle | Friday, May 18, 2007 at 01:55 PM
I used to work at Microsoft. Only today I was thinking how they're kind of losing their way. Then I saw this. Very Apple, dare I say it! I know there are pearls of let's say 'out of the box' wisdom in that company. Perhaps this video reflects the fact that these people are being given a chance to be creative and challenge 'the way things have always be done'. I really wish them a lot of luck. It's a struggle in such a big company with a lot of senior old timers who struggle to look to the future to create new 'Purple Cows' (Seth G). The 'Purple Cow' days of Windows are over.
Posted by: Charlotte | Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 12:23 AM
Yep, this is classic.
This is something I can show to my wife, and she'll get it immediately. (If I had a grandmother, I'd show it to her, too...)
In fact, once I show it to my wife, then in the middle of our next spat, I can just look up and say, "Coupons!"
Posted by: Adam Kayce : Monk At Work | Friday, May 25, 2007 at 09:21 PM
That's weird. There's a comment above that is apparently mine from last may, I remember seeing this video but I distinctly remember commenting about how the Tom Cruise look-alike guy was so perfectly cheezy, not anything about the code. I don't think I actually made that comment... is there any way to delete it?
Posted by: Paula | Saturday, November 03, 2007 at 07:04 AM
Sure thing Paula. I deleted the comment.
Posted by: DA | Saturday, November 03, 2007 at 08:20 AM
lol "I know everything about you" priceless
Posted by: the magic of making up | Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 05:28 AM
That was pretty sweet
Posted by: magic of making up | Monday, April 20, 2009 at 05:30 PM