From David -
One of my favorite things about web marketing is the ability for a company to let its hair down and try things that wouldn’t work for on traditional outlets. Beyond the time and space limitations, a company’s online campaign can be more niche, more eccentric, and at times, just weird.
Take for example this piece from Bertolli Olive Oil Australia introducing their sexy chef Freddo.
There’s a lot of silly happening here. But beyond the obvious joke of ‘sexy chef’ there’s a few things here that you wouldn’t see anywhere other than a web video.
The first thing that struck me was the pace. As an editor/writer, I found at times that it lagged, held a beat for too long, and generally could be tighter. But when viewing this with a colleague, he appreciated the non-traditional choices. Here on the web, there’s not constriction for a 30/60 time limit and thus doesn’t need to be viewed in the same way. It’s a different medium and can play by different rules.
Second, there’s an actual product education component to this piece. If the goal was to show what olive oils to use for different situations, than this piece succeeds in presenting that information without having the narrative thrust grind to a halt to do it. This a great example of using humor to deliver what could be other wise dry product information.
Finally, the humor is obviously more risqué than you’d see on television, but still a reasonable soft PG-13. But it also employs some random cutaways, off message jokes, and a generally weird tone by the end. Freddo’s quick off camera insistence at not removing any additional clothes gives a sense of deeper narrative that I doubt the creatives meant to include, but I appreciated anyway.
There are a lot creative choices here that I wouldn’t have made, but it’s clear the team behind had fun doing it and allowed Bertolli to do something that probably would never make their broadcast advertising. By utilizing the freedom of web advertising, they get a chance to expand their creative without infringing on their brand and allowing their agency a chance to try out different styles and tones.
What are your favorite examples of non-traditional web marketing?