This week’s content highlight is another one that blurs the boundaries between content, advertising and promotion.
It’s an invitation, in video form, to fund and feature in an ad on TV in the US. So what’s that then? Perhaps the only people who know for sure are Newcastle Brown Ale, who commissioned it. Whatever it is, it’s another notch on Newcy Brown’s bedpost for seductively innovative marketing to our American cousins (check out last year’s funny if grammatically compromised ‘If we won’ campaign for further proof). Odder than Newcy Brown and bedpost notching appearing in the same sentence is the fact that Newcastle Brown Ale doesn’t seem to be up to that much in the UK at the moment. They could easily adapt this idea for Britain too. It would be great to see which brands would want to join them. Judging from my student experiences on The Brown, I’d be betting heavily on Roy’s Kebab Van, Alka-Seltzer and Domestos.
Anyway, a great creative thought, with a delightful all-American-heart-of-the-nation-ad parody at the beginning. It will be fascinating to see what sort of TV ad they're able to cobble together from their open invitation to pretty much every other business on the planet. Good luck to them.