Abosult Vodka and Kanye West announced a collaboration in February:
“Their creative ventures begin with sponsorship of the Glow in the Dark Tour 2008 Ignited By ABSOLUT 100, and will continue as West works with the brand to bring his signature style into nightlife arenas and marketing campaigns in a daring and provocative fashion.”
It’s the second viral video campaign in recent months from Absolut using pop culture icons in retro-absurd awesomeness. The first featured two “undeniably insane, eye-popping videos that come exclusively from the minds of some of today’s most entertaining, hyper-creative, and especially bizarre minds of progressive comedy,” Zach Galifianakis, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.
For the Be Kanye ad, Kanye picks up where they left off, concocting an entertaining mix derived from those Bacardi and Cola ads, Ron Popeil, and Kanye West. But while Galifianakis and co. enlisted over-sized martini glasses to show how much they enjoyed Absolut, alcohol is conspicuously absent from Kanye’s video.
It’s a trade off from a marketing perspective. Clearly display the brand and get viewers to immediately associate it with the content, or make it more nuanced and hopefully have engaged viewers say, “WTF is this for?” I dig the subtlety.
One more thing: Taking a tip from Jon Udell, can we get a name for this intentional amateury aesthetic? Gabe calls it, “fake commercials that look like they were badly produced for a local cable market,” but that’s way too long, and what I’m considering would encompass commercials, icons, advertisements, flyers, everything.
Comments
Fake local? Fauxcal? I can’t do buzz words.
That Kanye thing wasn’t very funny and I dunno how effective it would be at pushing their product. Why do people think that online marketing always has to be subversive… I was just watching Ben Dickinson’s old Absolut ad and it was awesome: http://waverlyfilms.com/ben/bengay.html
Why not just put a regular ol’ clever commercial on an established YouTube venue, rather than expecting “LOL, what’s a CELEBRITY doing on the INTERNET!?” to net them a viral hit? Ben’s commercial was much more entertaining than the Kanye thing, and actually associates to the product. I remember seeing that Zach thing and not realizing it had anything to do with Absolut. When I first saw Ben’s commercial online months ago, the joke (and the brand-name-punchline) stuck with me for months.
But I guess since it’s 2008 and we’re on the Internet, bad marketing is okay because ITS THE INTERNET and no one can prove they screwed up. Meh.
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