Advertising with cats: 'Catvertising'

"Mr. Kitty" photo by Paula Slade

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.” ~ Garrison Keillor ~

Whether you call it categorically correct, or a purrfect passion for the pulse of the populace, a very bright creative team of advertising professionals known as John St. have tapped into something very unique in terms of making products memorable, including their own firm.

Based in Toronto, John St.’s mottos is, “We exist to make our clients’ brands unignorable,” and in doing so they count some pretty impressive companies as clients, from corporations such as Tetley Tea and Kraft Foods, to Mitsubishi Motors and Moosehead.

On November 10, 2011, John St. uploaded a video on their YouTube Channel, which has become a viral sensation with almost 1,500,000 page views – it’s titled: “Catvertising.”

According to John St., the video was created, “To stay on top of the ever-changing advertising landscape,” and in their effort to deliver on that promise, they declared that they had, “opened the world's first cat video division. With production, filming and seeding all in-house.”

There’s no denying the worldwide popularity of Felis silvestris catus, better known as the domesticated cat.  One has only to look no further than the runaway success of Lolcats, and Nyan Cats, along with the number of cat videos that are constantly uploaded to YouTube.

IMHO, John St.’s video is certainly humorous, albeit with an ever so slight, tongue-in-cheek delivery.  However, it definitely promotes what was promised.  Even if it’s a spoof,  “Catvertising” has put their name on the map in an “unignorable” way.

Thanks to John St. for this delightful infomercial.

Embracing Life: One seat belt at a time

Courtesy myparkingsign.com

“Safety on our highways has improved significantly, with the help of the Legislature and the media.” ~ Jane D. Hull ~

Once in awhile the advertising community does more than promote products – they promote public awareness on issues of great importance, and such is the advert, which appears at the bottom of this post.

Each year, thousands of people worldwide will lose their lives in automobile accidents; many of those fatalities could be prevented by simply wearing a seat belt.

The public service commercial, EMBRACE LIFE has been viewed online more than 13 million times; its message is stunning and there is absolutely zero dialogue.

The advert, created independently by Alexander Commercials has gone on to win numerous awards.

Produced by Sarah Alexander and directed by award-winning filmmaker Daniel Cox, with music by Siddhartha Barnhoorn, this video features a family of three portrayed by Austin Spangler (Father), Lara Corrochano (Mother), and Clare Denning (Daughter).

 According to Cox, “Key to the film's creation was to focus on a message that didn't take a conventional route to shock and scare the audience; rather it was my intention to bring the audience in on the conversation of road safety, specifically seat belts, and the best way to do this was to make a film that could engage the viewer purely visually and could be seen and understood by all, whoever they are and wherever they lived."

In my humble opinion, Cox and his fellow filmmakers did an extraordinary job with a wordless message.

Thanks to SussexSaferRoads for posting this life-saving message.

12 Days of Internet music: Day 5

“On the twelfth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtledoves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!”

The religious period in the Christian church known as “The 12 days of Christmas,” which officially begins on Christmas Day and ends on “Twelfth Night” was immortalized in song by English Scholar, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps who popularized the piece when he published it in 1849.

The melody is believed to be much older and possibly originated in France.

The version of the song, which we know today, is attributed to an arrangement for choral and solo voices written by singer/teacher/composer Frederic Austin in 1909.

Now, it's your turn to serenade and see how many of the lyrics you remember.  No peeking, just have fun!!  

The commercial that never was…

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.” ~ Maya Angelou ~

Eleven years before Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed last year’s hit family film, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, these two brilliant entertainment hyphenates concocted a television commercial that never made it to Saturday mornings – the “Brontë Sisters Power Dolls “

According to Lord and Miller, from their YouTube page, “This was a fake commercial we made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. Its educational value was somewhat suspect. It was never aired.”

The commercial parody featured everything one would see in a typical cartoon break, which included kid-friendly action figures slugging it out for dominance of good over evil. The only difference were the action figures, they were based on three Victorian women writers, Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, all who initially wrote under the pen names, Ellis Bell, Currer Bell and Acton Bell respectively. (Such was the fashion of the literary era and the non-acceptance of women as writers.)

How myopic times were then, as all three women produced some of the most enduring and popular novels of all time – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

Too bad the commercial below was never allowed to inspire legions of young girls – it’s something, in my humble opinion that Gloria Steinem would relish.

Talk about smashing the glass ceiling with a “Brontesaurus.”

I Don’t Think I Need to Comment – but you do!

Sometimes a picture is definitely worth a thousand words and this is one of those times!

This leaves me speechless!

Would you all like to weigh in on this?