Case Study: White Bull Lager

FYEverybodyI Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that couldn’t have been done five years ago, to an audience of your choosing. Be mindful—original ideas rule.

Having said that, the target audience here is judges (c'mon we know how this works). And the film is five effing minutes long.

I'll leave the rest unsaid, as I don't want to steer the direction of the comments/debate. More opinions welcome.

Oh feck it. Can't shut up. If I disregard the five minute opening, that writes me (or the jury) on the nose about the historical and political context of South Sudan as if we never opened a god damned newspaper in our lives while wasting the time of the jury... It ends up being something that is more a piss-take of congratulatory award show case study videos, you know the "worlds first" and "top hit on google" pat on the back-usuals. We've seen funny pisstakes of case studies before: Dagens Industri Zoo Me comes to mind, and that was made even funnier because it actually advertised buying newspaper media to advertisers.

So the idea that it boils down to is.... A new beer sponsoring the Southern Sudan army. "And best of all, if fighting does flare up in the future, our brand will be see by millions on news-channels worldwide.. Beer army!

That's what you sent to the Future Lions? In the end I'm wondering why you're wasting time. Your own and the juries. (and as a side-irk, I'd never do a headline this short)

I couldn't get through the first minute. Really don't care. Not sure how this is awesome. Not sure how the judges will care to watch through the whole video.

"Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that couldn’t have been done five years ago, to an audience of your choosing. Be mindful—original ideas rule."

This is a way that could have been done 5 years ago, although not in Sudan. I guess where I lose this (beyond using an army to sell beer and a video that could have been shorter) is how this pertains to that direction. Armies have been around for centuries. So not sure how this ties to the direction of the ask. Good creative follows strategy.

Ok. Now that your intentions are declared straight up, I can respond.

Or I could I have used this opportunity to create something which will make me stand out from the crowd

Attention for attentions sake is nothing but a cheap trick. Or you're taking the Future Lions line "Start Out Famous" to heart and really want to be remembered for a shit piece of satire entered into a real competition with an apparent straight face.

The best thing for me is that people think it's real. People from the advertising industry think it's real. I'd chalk that up as a win.

I'd chalk that up to you being evasive, and/or lying about your intentions here. Lets check our Bettween convo - my reply, and asking you what it is again, then my opinion that ... you cranked up the serious to CNN-war-report level, and then presto joke-time. Ouch. Joke has a long way to fall.. I'm telling you I don't think it's funny even as satire. Your cryptic response is Gallows humour is from victim's POV. Who do you think the victim is here? which doesn't address any of my questions ( Is it a future lions entry?) but left me thinking that you indeed meant it all as satire. Even if you seem serious when you say that : "Avg person is unaware of Sudan secession ". So I asked you to post it on adland (adding that I wouldn't - here's the thing, I never intentionally LIE to readers and you carefully avoided to clear up whether you meant this as a serious entry or not each time I asked, opting to laugh instead. Har har!) You posted it here without any other details than it's a case study, and we can read "Future Lions" in the youtube title.

The French link you show says:

A little fiction to enjoy music on the video above, dislodged by NanoJV today. A very cool clip that should climb the stairs in June in Cannes.

... in other words he thinks you'll be winning a Future Lion with this. I don't. Like the wonderbra spiral kids (see comments), you mention with pride that the video has "hundreds more views", than any other future lions entry. Like the kids who made the WWF DDB ad (fired), the guys who made the "Rebuild it" Twin Towers lego ad (fired too), you seem to think that the shock and awe in itself is the goal. It won't hit HuffPo like Max Isaacson's "Porn sprite ad" which ad Coke lawyers phoning me as the fake ad (seen here) messed with their real trademarks. Unlike the WV suicide bomber it's just not very good, neither as a satirical 'Onion' piece mocking advertising, nor as an actual idea entered into the awards for real. (It's five minutes! If you're going to spoof something, do it in the language of what you're spoofing, a case study is never five minutes for a reason - judges don't have the time. We simply throw out long case studies without marks.)

Friendly advice, taking on several different identities in comments is generally a really bad idea.

It's a satire on the advertising industry, on self-congratulatory circle-jerk advertising awards ceremonies, and on holier-than-thou marketeers who delude themselves into thinking that their careers are dedicated to something that makes a difference to people's lives - when they aren't.

It's just not a very good one. The Pink Ponies case study mocked the serious case studies before you. That it flies over at b3ta (which by the way, is TOTALLY frequented by ridiculous advertising industry types what fucking rock are you hiding under?) where dark humor prevails and is expected isn't that strange.

So let me get this straight.

You spent days on a 5-minute, practically unwatchable video to enter into an awards show you had no intention of winning.

You're about to graduate and enter the job market and in order to gain visibility, you have decided to crap all over the industry in which you hope to make your living.

Seasoned ad people on this site have given you their professional opinions and you choose to side with your father?

Okay, send me your resume when you get out of school. I'll make a video of burning it over the waste basket. Maybe it will go viral and that will increase your career chances.

G.

It's a bad idea, poorly executed. Thomas Evans made a video 'satire' (and I use that term loosely) to enter into the Future Cannes Lions, and has now made it clear that he never intended to win (nor thought he could), so his strategy was to make a video that would be talked about instead, and thereby advertise himself as a creative go-getting guy who soon will be seen dragging his portfolio at an agency near you. Not a bad strategy, really, but since the target has now shifted from "award judges" to "potential employers" (ie: creative directors in advertising) it gets a bit odd again as the entry is quite the cynical story, a caricature of the cynical adpeople, and justified by "I'm making fun of you cynical lot". How confused.

He then tops it off by telling everyone around that we don't get it, when we don't like the idea (seen both from the angle of a future awards entry, and the angle of a satire on advertising). The future of advertising is sure to bring technological advances to the table that we haven't thought of yet, but the old ad-truism that we can't personally go and explain our ad to all the viewers of it will still hold true.

In the end, the advertisment, which is one for Thomas Evans, the soon to be creative at an agency near you, has informed us that Thomas Evans doesn't take criticism very well. Just look at this comment thread, and the one over at DavaiDavai for examples. It's good to know, I guess. Truth in advertising, at last.

ps, this is the sort of thing the spoof title in Badland is reserved for. I figured you simply didn't know that.

@inthecompanyof, the "in a way that wasn't possible 5 years ago" here is only that The South Sudan didn't exist as a country five years ago. Sponsoring an Army was entirely possible. In fact (and here comes the bold!) the Cambodian government rolled out a plan in 2010 to use private businesses to sponsor the country's military units.. There was a bit of hubub about this last year in the UK news, as a British institute known as Global Witness kicked up some shit about that and called Cambodia's military "a vast organized crime network".

What a trainwreck this thread is. It's clear that Thomas Evans doesn't understand where (or who) the criticism is coming from. Dabitch is the adgal who on this Beancast outtake about super bowl ads explained that the Dodge last stand buyers weren't "dysfunctional male impotent rebel wannabes", but anyone who hates their capitalist life, and then rightly called the narrator "whipped, weak, and pathetic, and his only way to get any balls is to buy this stupid looking car". She's been calling out destructive advertising ideas since before ad creep was a word.

Sure, there are super cynical people in advertising who would sell their mother and her little dog too, but this 'satire' isn't good enough to be that even. And to enter a competition with a satirical piece is cynical, so you've just joined their ranks. How meta indeed.

And then the real Beer Army joined in. That made me laugh.

This thread is a shit show.