COVERPLAY, Jacob Tyler’s web design and brand strategy client and now Shark Tank entrepreneurs appeared on ABC’s hit TV show The Shark Tank last night. COVERPLAY business partners, Allison Costa and Amy Feldman impressed the Shark Tank investors with their business savvy and the potential of their product. COVERPLAY had the investors scrambling to come up with competing investment offers in the company.
Feldman and Costa created a sanitary cover that is used to cover a child’s play pen to protect them from bacteria and illness. The original idea came to Costa while staying in hotels with her twin babies, she realized there is a definite need for a slipcover to go over a child’s playpen. The inferior playpen provided by many hotels were full of germs and stains. Jacob Tyler Creative Group created the COVERPLAY brand and filmed the Video and pitch that was used to land their Shark Tank debut.
Feldman and Costa initially asked the Sharks for $350k for a 15% stake in their company. In the Shark Tank, the two San Diego business women had multiple ensuing offers from the Sharks, including attempts from all three investors at upwards of $500,000. Finally Allison and Amy chose to go with Barbara Corcoran, who offered $350,000 at 40% interest in the company.
It was bound to happen, eventually I was going to talk about the Mac vs. PC comparative ads, and since Mac finally came out with their latest rebuttal, here we go. If you turn on any prime time show today, you can be sure that you will come across the omnipresent “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials that have so many YouTube parodies that the originals now almost seem like the parodies. Microsoft has launched its own rebuttal to the Mac comparative ads with an absolutely useless campaign with a spot by Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates buying shoes that simply confused and annoyed people. What creative agency came up with that quality effort??
However, all major players, Microsoft included, have remained silent to the Mac ads that seem to roll out on a monthly basis. Now that’s what I don’t understand?? Even though there are many players in the PC arena that are also getting stepped on by the constant verbal destruction of PCs and their many problems, no one other than Microsoft seems to step up and challenge Mac. Where are all of the other PC brands? Do they not have a backbone? Why wouldn’t they all gang up and hit Mac from all angles?
Maybe the Mac vs PC comparative ads can be better understood if we take a look at older comparative ads from past companies. There are many, many case studies of companies running comparative ads and succeeding. There are tons of comparative ads for Accord and Camry, and they are always throwing their cheaper, domestic foes under the bus. Then, on a more local level, we have COX vs AT&T, and that seems to have some longevity and help COX out as the respective attacker. The initial attacker usually seems to come out ahead in the end. However, like political careers, it’s a game changer when the relentless attacker’s armor is pierced with a quality rebuttal. Take the former Governor of New York, Elliot Spitzer for example. Spitzer made news when he brought down several prostitution rings serving as the state Attorney General. Of course, his career was instantly over the minute Spitzer himself had relations with one of the prostitutes that he took down… but I digress… back to Mac.
There is already a descent amount of concern over the validity of some of the Mac commercials. Many people question their evidence and ability to claim that PC’s don’t have the security that Macs do. But even though the FTC is getting involved and investigating some of Mac’s claims, the PC world remains silent, still. Why??? Newsflash to the PC world – Mac is not going to have sexual relations with a prostitute and go down in flames… (actual motivation for bringing up the Elliot Spitzer comparison revealed) in case that is what you are all waiting for. Sorry to ruin the suspense.
Right now this is still not a battle, it’s a full-on domination by Mac, but when the armor is finally pierced it will be an all out online reputation war that makes these current comparative ads seem civil. It would be one thing if it were soup, but when you are talking computers, the catalyst to the internet, it could be WWI on the internet. And it’s getting close, Microsoft has finally hired a legitimate advertising agency and their new spots are gaining more and more popularity. Already we are seeing some success with Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” campaign, but eventually they will come up with the bullet that pierces Mac’s armor and there will be war.
Companies that make the move don’t see “mailbox is full” errors in their email. They don’t worry about backing up their data. They can get to any file they need from any internet-ready computer. They can access and edit the same documents and spreadsheets with their colleagues simultaneously. They use Gmail and Google Calendar at work as fluidly and easily as they use their personal Gmail accounts. They video, voice and text chat within the same system. They do everything, and it’s much easier. So what is this move?
This move many companies are making is a move up to the ideal world that Google wants to create with their new advertising campaign. In this campaign, they have a term for the moment a company realizes there’s a better way and goes for it: “going Google.” What is it with Google and their self-describing action verbs? (i.e. “google it.”)….
Anyway, according to Google, over 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have gone Google — including Motorola, University of Notre Dame, the Mercy Corps and many more. And it doesn’t stop there, 3000 more organizations join them every day.
Google kicked off their new ad campaign with a series of outdoor billboards in four major cities — Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco. The messages on the billboards will change every weekday for four weeks. The billboards tell the story of an anonymous IT manager who gets so fed up with the typical IT status quo that his company eventually goes Google.
Its nice to see a well-recognized brand like Google step out of it’s digital element a little bit and try a different approach to their advertising methods. That’s what happens when you become that big- instead of differentiating yourself and trying to gain market share, you do whatever you think is necessary to stay in the minds of your audience. And it’s not like outdoor advertising is dead and gone, billboards are still a very effective advertising medium.
Because I like to end the week on a cultural high note I included this inspiring TV spot from SKOF snacks. Borderline talent- everybody has it, and SKOF knows it. They are reaching out to their target audience by asking them to send in videos displaying their “borderline talent.”
As an advertising agency, the amount of creative freedom you have when you are promoting a product like snacks/chips is just plain ridiculous. It’s a common knowledge product, has been around for a long time, and exists in a saturated market. They could have gone pretty much anywhere with this campaign- and that’s exactly what they did. Saatchi & Saatchi uses the idea of “borderline talent” in this video not just because it is funny, but because it is relative. Like I said earlier, everyone has some kind of borderline talent, and as weird, random, inappropriate or stupid as it might be- it is still acceptable in this contest. I mean- it’s obvious that when you set the bar as high as SKOF did with this Ping Pong farting video, contestants will have to dig deep and send only their best borderline talent if they expect to win….
Anyway, as ridiculous and over-the-top as this video may seem, it definitely makes people remember SKOF, a new-comer into the snacks arena, and allows for their target audience to participate and become involved with the brand. In only 24 hours, it already has over 1,200 views on YouTube. Pretty bold move with this one, but I like it- Tip of the cap to the creative agencySaatchi & Saatchi.
