Why are these Argentinian health insurance ads in English?

I saw these today on Ads of The World:

Nice ads, simple idea, well-executed. But as with many campaigns I see on AOTW that were created for non-Anglophone countries, I scratched my head and wondered how they would work in Spanish.

You see, it's become common practice for agencies around the world to create parallel English-language print campaigns so that unilingual Anglos, as well as ESL people from other language groups, can evaluate and share their ideas in blogs and award shows. Sometimes the headlines are poorly translated. Other times, the agency puts a lot of effort into adapting the concept.

With a copy-based campaign like this, depending so heavily on words-within-words, I assumed the latter — and was quite impressed. But then I tracked down the original-language versions at the Medicus site:

The body copy is in Spanish, but the headline is the same. I guess the client was convinced that every member of their target market read English well enough to get the concept, and wouldn't mind that it was in a foreign language.

A couple of other notes about "international" versions of campaigns:

• The client only showed three executions, while the portfolio piece shows five.  
• The client version has body copy and a call to action, whereas the portfolio piece drops it and goes landscape — billboard version, or just Creative Director's choice to keep it "clean"?

Have you seen other examples of English ads created for audiences within a non-English country? I'd love to see them.

F'd Ad Fridays: When the idea overpowers the brand

It's actually a really cool piece of weird video:



And even the messaging strategy, posted on YouTube, is single-minded:

Not long ago, there was one model of Prius for everyone to share. But now that one Prius has become a family: There's one for everyone. There's the original one, the bigger one, the smaller one and the one that plugs in. They're all a little different, just like us. The Prius Family is growing: Which family member is your favorite? Visit http://www.toyota.com/priusfamily to meet the Prius Family from Toyota.

But when I went back to Ads of The World, to get the video for posting, I had to stop and ponder to recall what brand it was for. I remembered "the one that plugs in". Leaf? Volt? ...Prius! And then I searched "Toyota".

That's always the problem, isn't it? Me, I have an interest in connecting brands with their campaigns. The average consumer does not. And this commercial, like many other high-budget creative orgasms, is memorable for its concept, not its product. Even the messaging strategy of "there are many Priuses (sp?) because there are many types of people" fails to communicate anything of real value about the car itself to a motivated car buyer.

Saatchi & Saatchi LA, though, will get well-deserved props and PR for the creative and production quality. So at least someone wins.

Is media the new creative?

Acart's Media and Consumer Marketing Director, Sue, shared these funny self-promo spots from Astral Media. (She e-mailed them, but I'm pretty sure she was smiling a vengeful smile when she hit "send":)


The presentation from Astral on Vimeo.


The portfolio from Astral on Vimeo.


The media donna from Astral on Vimeo.


The visit from Astral on Vimeo.


As a Creative Director, can I say I love them. Nobody in the industry deserves to have their asses kicked like stereotyped primadonna creatives, and agency perceptions of media people really do need a healthy shot in the arm.

It's not that "media is the new creative", however. In the current communication age, media IS creative IS digital IS public relations IS strategy. We're all being called upon to be a little more collaborative and a lot more open-minded than ever before.

Ironic, though, that none of these spots is timed to fit into neatly a :30 or :60 spot. Isn't it? It's almost as if the whole campaign is meant to be... unpaid viral? ;)

Via Astral Media