I can't work out how I feel about the TMobile flash-mob / ad / act of genuine kindness (ahem)- whatever you wanna call it.
When I first saw it I was really impressed, a smile appeared on my face + I thought, wow, a brand has created a genuinely exciting, positive experience for all those commuters at Liverpool Street stn, bringing some fun into their otherwise dull, uneventful journey into work.
I first heard about it through Twitter, where everyone seemed terribly excited. I later found out that it had been aired as a 'special ad' during the Big Brother ad break + thought 'cool', well targeted, relevant, that'll put a few goosebumps on a few people around the country + give out a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. I also love the 'life's for sharing' line - it's lovely. And it makes sense - this great piece of content brought people together in the real-world + extended that sentiment in the virtual world + on tellyboxes everywhere - it's a lovely way of demonstrating the emotional benefit of the functions of TMobile's android phone. So why do I have a bit of a niggle with it?
Hmm. I think it's that they just wouldn't let it go! Having voluntarily viewed it following a tweet from a friend on Twitter I'd been excited, had a little look-around the TMobile channel to see the behind the scenes video, the public reaction etc, shared it with some friends then got back to my life. I didn't expect to then be bombarded with it everywhere I went! It was on the digital panels on the tube, on the radio, on the TV (again) + who knows where else. For me this took a lot of the magic away.
Having worked on these kind of campaigns myself, I believe that TMobile ('s agency) should have had more confidence in the idea. It was a great idea that would have spread across the UK (and beyond) fuelled by word-of-mouth alone. It would've become the property of the people, who would certainly have still learnt the dance + created their own content in response to it, but TMobile would've maintained an amount of credibility. I can't help feel that by getting Kelly Brook + Peter Crouch to 'do the dance' (cringe) + use every form of media available to ensure it's sufficiently rammed down all of our throats, they've lost some of that + the magic + to be honest, reminded everyone of what this actually is - a marketing campaign. Just read the comments below the YouTube videos - it's really quite amusing. I don't know if I should be saying this, working in marketing and all. But I just think that they should have let it go + seen where the real people took it, instead of applying a traditional, broadcast media-type campaign to what (I think) should have been an entirely word-of-mouth, genuinely 'sharing' type campaign.
But what do I know? I can't really argue with the numbers (see below). And the fact that the 'fans' recreated the dance in Liverpool Street shortly after means that it was clearly loved by many. And it's also benefiting charity with Plush Presents recreating the dance for Comic Relief in Leeds on 13th March. Who can argue with that?
The numbers (as of 12th Feb)
- The Facebook fan page 'The TMobile train station advert is the best advert ever made' has 4,313 members
- The full ad has been viewed 3.5m times
- The 'making of' video has been viewed 235k times
- The 'public reaction' video has been viewed 268k times
- The 'rehearsal' video has been viewed 255k times
- The 'do the dance' videos have been viewed a combined 163k times
- Peter Crouch's attempt has been viewed 72k times
- And Kelly Brook's 65k times
4 comments:
uldn't agree more. I blogged about this too (who hasn't). for me they should have done four of them, and had the balls to not brand them at all, except maybe the fourth one, and ONLY with the logo. No 'aren't we connecting people' strapline.
The Kelly Brook one makes me want to vomit, and that is not a nice thing.
i'm sick of waking up every morning to hear some old woman banging on about how she's going to tell her grandkids about it.
i smiled at the start and thought - ahh that's a copy of a copy, and all 'the real' people aren't real, but hey it's kind of cool and a distraction.
now i associate t mobile with those irritating market research calls that you get when you're in a rush
Thanks Steve. And yeh I agree with the idea of releasing 4 over time + unbranded..much more credible + so much more intriguing / clever.
so, so so true. Not being a big brother viewer, and generally being a bit out of touch, I came across the campaign in reverse.
After 7 days of getting irritated every morning by the very edited, very branded ads on the tube's digital screens, I discovered the (actually incredibly charming) full video on youtube.
Alas, too late. I imagine even a drumming gorilla would have annoyed me with that kind of media exposure.
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