In an age where the audience has an overwhelming number of choices, channels and media, getting people to switch on or subscribe to your channel is increasingly difficult. Therefore, advertising television channels with flashy idents and major marketing campaigns is now more common. Well, everywhere in the world except Australia it seems. We still have pretty cheap idents and very little innovative marketing of our major commercial networks - although Foxtel has done a couple of interesting, if obvious, campaigns.
This is one of the best commercials I've seen in a long while - for French TV channel Canal Plus. Just wait for the final twist!
(Don't scroll past and read my comments on it until you've watched - you'll only spoil it!)
Okay, you've watched it?
Brilliant, isn't it! I also love it because it celebrates the scriptwriter - often the unsung hero in movies and television but without which the magic just won't happen.
This is the kind of creative television promo we just don't see in Australia - and we certainly don't see scriptwriters put forward as a valuable representation of the brand. Sure, it requires a bigger budget to produce something of this standard, but the channel is now talked about around the world. Isn't that worth it? When your brand is all about creativity and spectacle, isn't this exactly how they should present themselves?
To show you that the French really are in an elite class when it comes to advertising TV channels, here's another . (This was also shown on The Gruen Transfer a while back as well.) You won't believe what you're seeing until the final caption puts it all in context. Sheer brilliance!
