Uwe Gutschow

Useful TV advertising

Insurance has to be one of the worst categories to advertise for. 

A lot of this type of advertising is about scaring people into thinking that they need your product and if they don't have it they will go straight to hell... I mean be in financial trouble. And then there's the other end of the scale: a cool, calm sounding voice that reassures you that they are there for you and that they have been in business since 1920 (so they won't go under, I guess).

Well I'm glad to see someone out there is starting to create some useful TV spots.

The latest Nationwide Insurance spot advertises their iPhone App. It shows how easy it is to record an accident, report and claim it, all from the app. 

Now that's useful! 

A tool that helps you deal with a car accident and connects straight with your insurance

The spot is not well produced or well directed, but who cares. In my mind this is great advertising. Before this spot I hardly noticed any of their advertising.

Toyota Rock The Space Myspace contest

Toyota and our agency Saatchi LA has a partnership agreement with Myspace.

Instead of littering Myspace with even more advertising we decided to provide users with something useful that adds value for arguably the reason why Myspace got started: music and bands. Other than Toyota Tuesday, where we give away a free mp3 every week, we have created a Rock the Space competition for unsigned bands.

Our Rock the Space contest gives bands the opportunity to submit their demo tape for a chance to win a record deal.

And as we have lots and lots of ad unit impressions, we've decided to use them to promote the contest and bands rather than product.

Bands will also get all sorts of widgets and badges that their fans can use to promote their band across the web.

We've already been flooded with entries - way more than expected.

You can check it out at: http://www.myspace.com/toyotamusic

And today's Twitter spam award goes to.... @Chrysler

that's only half ... here's the rest  

Why not just link to the press article? 

Terminator Twitter Game

SMS games are nothing new, but this is the first time I've seen a Twitter game to this scale.

This game is part of the launch campaign for Terminator Salvation.

It keeps score on the main site for actions performed in response to their twitterfeed.

It's kinda geeky, but fits perfectly with the type of audience that would watch this movie. Great idea!