People saw Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens on Christmas day last year. Though not what you would call packed, Countryside Mall’s theater contained people watching the new round of the sci-fi series. How many of those people did that because they had nothing to do on the holiday is a sad speculation I am not willing to elaborate on, but Lucas and Disney made money that day. And was it intentional beyond normal parameters? Is Disney advertising for watching a Star Wars movie on Christmas day as a potential “tradition”—at least until the new trilogy and companion trilogy finishes?

It might be hard to recall, but when the advertisements for The Force Awakens began, they advertised it as coming out in “December 2015,” which marked it as coming out around Christmas time (I even remember seeing an advertisement saying it came out “Christmas Day.”). But, I wonder if this was part of the plan? Sure, it may just be because they had the movie ready to go, but they do schedule these things with a lot of stuff in mind, so why around Christmas?

One potential alternative to my theory is the toys. Star Wars makes a lot of money, astronomical amounts of money, on merchandising and tie-in products, and if the movie is just hitting the eyeballs of the new, young generation, they will clamor for the toys showing up underneath the tree. Heck, I wouldn’t mind a little figurine or a nice light-up lightsaber, and I’m an adult. I can only imagine the number of preteens and young children taken to the movies by their families—those nerdy families who want to share the most famous movie series of all time—walking away with a craving to cuddle a Chewy doll, or run around with Han Solo’s blaster (which you can, assuredly, buy at Target in Clearwater Mall.)

But, as I said in the beginning of the article, I think they also wanted the movie to become a linked franchise to Christmas time. A lot of the target audience is around—free from school, and in a softer version of what the Saw franchise did to itself with Halloween, they could become an expectation of the holiday.

Now, it takes a lot to shove oneself into existing Christmas traditions. It’s got its work cut out for it if indeed this is the plan, but if someone, anyone, can manage it, well, this is Star Wars we are talking about. They are powerful in a way difficult to comprehend. Their advertising, with the right announcement, can cement it as a thing kids grow up watching on the 25^th, just as easily as A Christmas Story, or the Claymation Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, or, and you might accuse me of blasphemy for saying this: Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, even without being tied to a holiday. We do live in the world of franchises, after all.

So, we’ll see if I’m right. We’ll certainly see. With Rogue One coming out this year, a pattern may form, or perhaps not even Star Wars can take control of the holiday. The force of their advertising will decide.  

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com 

I’m late to this party, but can we please talk about this for a second? This advertising from Starbucks is...well...brave. Watch this video posted around a month ago, from Starbucks’ official YouTube channel:

Now, for the unenlightened, or anyone who doesn’t bother to know about strange P.R. kerfuffles from coffee shops, last year Starbucks deemed to remove any Christmas-related symbols from their cups. Leaving nothing to make it specific to a holiday—though keeping in the red and green color. And a lot of people, or at least the internet and media made it seem like a lot of people, got rather up in arms about the whole thing. Wrapping the incident into the “war on Christmas” party which also rears its ugly head around now.

And, I don’t personally have an issue one way or the other with it. They are a private company, and I don’t go and drink coffee at the Starbucks on Cleveland Street or anywhere else often enough to have a strong opinion. But, I will say using that controversy now as advertising, is darn clever. The ad may as well say: “come at me”.

And controversial publicity is often good publicity, so I can only imagine how it played out for them—and how much money they made. But, in a move also calculated to perfection, they added this advertisement to hit the critical mass of effective advertising.

Watching this made the inside of my head go “boom.” This is practically a mike drop of ingenuity. They hit all the bases. They involved the customers and thus made the P.R. for the company even stronger. They created—like the gingerbread latté—an artificial scarcity specific to the holidays. They brought attention down on them to make the blow hit as hard as they could to the right eyes. And did it with flair.

Because I hope I am not alone in saying that those cup designs are beautiful. They are stylish and sync up well with the general esthetic of the brand. That of minimalism, but friendliness. The same simplistic setup which Apple and Google and Facebook and Best Buy all use to great success.

And, if you look over the designs, they are apparently cool with bringing back the Christmas iconography again. Which, funny enough, might make (or likely already made) a whole different group mad. But, that’s neither here nor there for our immediate purposes. And all I can say is, regardless of how you might feel about it, and what this may or may not represent, you must at least give some props for them doing something with so much gumption, and being confident enough to take a stand, and to do so in a way that no matter how many people it may make mad, they will still probably rise above and succeed.

Also, the fact the previous sentence, taken out of context, could be construed as talking about President Elect Trump is not lost on me. But hey, whether for delicious drinks or the political parties: good advertising is good advertising.
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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com 

What are you hoping to get for Christmas? I know you can’t tell me because I’m words on a screen, but it is something all observers of the holiday think about. If you are living in a first world country, your answer will probably include some sort of technical device. I mean, with the iPhone and Samsung and Google devices coming out whenever there is a modicum of an update to what we can do with present hardware, and those same products are made readily available all over the place at tech shops like the Sprint Store or Target or hhgreg in Clearwater Mall, it’s easy to see why this happens. Especially among the younger people of the world, myself included. Christmas is the one time (outside of a birthday) where it is socially acceptable to ask for items of a ridiculous price tag. And the reason that this happens, the reason we all go along with it, is in no small part because of advertising.

And I mean this in both “social advertising”, and actual on-the-screen advertising. Sure, the festive ads for getting the latest smartphone can certainly make the idea appealing, but it’s also because of the social expectations of Christmas. Beyond the previously mentioned acceptance of asking for big stuff like a television and not thinking it odd, there’s also the ingrained idea of the specialness of Christmas. Left over from when we were kids, or perhaps still in full effect with children we may have.

Opening presents under the tree is such a necessity, such a staple, such a preconceived absolute, that to defy the tradition would be madness, and the smile of a kid getting the thing they dreamed about we recall as so special, by our own experiences, that we never want to let go of it from the world.

Now, I usually am willing to point out when capitalism is being its usual flawed—but the best system we have—self. But, in this case, I am part of the problem. I too use the advertising phrase burned right into the mental dictionary of people which is: “come on, it’s Christmas”.

Come on, Bobby should get a new phone. Cynthia that iPad. And Terry the new shiny Xbox or PlayStation. After all, it’s Christmas. We’re told Santa rewards the nice, and thus we expect to get a big reward if we are—or even if were not. And, if there’s somehow nothing under the tree (even if the alternative is only something I bought and wrapped for myself), then I too would feel sad and like Christmas did not come.

Sure, materialism is not inherent to the holiday, and should not be. But that doesn’t mean it’s not part of it for many people. And I do not fault those who have the means to expect the newest tech gadget. The knowledge of someone caring enough to find the right thing, and wrap it, and the joy of new tech as the year comes close to the end, is a Christmas memory. It does stay with a person.

Now, don’t be greedy. Don’t be demanding. The thought is, above all, what counts, but if you really do want the new tech: put it on the list. You might not get it, dear reader. But, if that’s what you want for Christmas, there’s (usually) no harm in adding it.

Just don’t let the advertising consume all of yourself. And always remember to give, no matter what you receive.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com  

Nostalgia is the way of current advertisements. I’d say—by cursory glance—that about half of movies coming out now are based on previous intellectual properties. For every new thing, we bring back an old thing. This is because they expect us to buy what we already know. This world flies so hard and fast toward the future that some appreciate the flying back for a time.

Ghostbusters was a recent example of people milking the past (and I liked that movie despite its flaws) and recently we also had Trolls as another nostalgia product.

But, while some may use nostalgia to advertise old stories and characters, what about another aspect of those bygone times: the product advertisements?

Before we had a bevy of ways to view something without many ads, we all had to crowd around television sets and watch advertisement-heavy cable programming. And those advertisements now have their own sort of nostalgia. Some as recognizable as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the Care Bears.

And, since it’s December, I figured I’d narrow the focus to more winter and Christmas-friendly fair.

Here’s one you all will know:

Takes you back, doesn’t it? Back to when a television set could crackle? Brings back that moment of staying inside on early morning Christmas day and watching television after opening presents.         

And doesn’t it seem so much more humble and warm than current commercials? Sure, nostalgia goggles are almost assuredly tinging my perspective, but, at the same time, look at this classic:

The soft, muted energy. It’s not bombastic. It does not try to sell with power fantasy, or gorgeous women, or thumping music, or even go weird to make someone do a double take. This, this little advertisement, tells the simple story of a kid who needs a warm cup of soup. The song is calming, friendly, and it’s not flashy. Sure, it doesn’t snow in Clearwater, but I think anyone can enjoy this as a piece of media regardless of your normal weather expectations.

In fact, looking at a lot of classic advertisements reveal perhaps the nature of the bygone compared to the contemporary: a sense of “pleasantness”. A lot of advertisements nowadays are grabby: “buy, buy, buy! Oh, please buy me!”

And sure, old media has that too, in spades, but these few, these few classics, were calm and showed something nice and happy, perhaps even a little silly, and made the product out as a friend.

You can imagine the red and yellow M&M as a buddy, just as much as you might be able to with Frosty the Snowman. It not only harkens back to what our brains perceive as a simpler time, it’s also a simpler presentation.

The holiday season is, I think, geared toward simplicity—at least in theory. Oh sure, consumerism and such, but if there’s anything the myriad of Christmas specials tried to teach, it’s that we need to get to the root of the holidays more: closeness. To enjoy the basic things of life like friendship, and family, and love—for at least a little while.          

And these advertisements, whether intentionally or not, captured that perfectly.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com  

I don’t watch NBC’s The Voice. That’s not anything against the show—I just don’t watch contests. Or many television shows at all, to be frank. But I know someone who genuinely enjoy it to the same degree I like the BioShock franchise. And, for what it is, The Voice does something which elevates it above most others. A marketing trick only possible on a mass scale in the modern day.

The technique in question is: connectivity of the audience to the work. I don’t mean this in the sense of likable characters, or making a communicative emotional link that all art strives to do—though they do have that, and I’ll get into it later—what I mean is The Voice literally has a phone app which lets you influence the show’s outcome.

And this does more for the fans than perhaps any social media could. Sure, a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff and frequent clips and tweets and Facebook updates help create involvement between the audience and the show, but the voting app trumps all of that in direct connectivity.

Because it makes the audience care more.

As a related example, I can’t get into sports. I don’t find it satisfying to watch someone win unless I know them, or have some vested interest in their struggle. But it can be done. The Clearwater Academy Knights, for instance, a high school football team (and I do not care about football), managed to make me bother to learn the rules of the sport and engage with it because the guy who got the touchdown was a person I’ve met.  

And The Voice does a form of this technique. Some people on the show have sob stories to melt a thousand hearts, or a wonderful personality, or are just physically attractive, or are so young they impress by their blooming talent. And The Voice deepens connectivity by tying the fates of these people to, yet again, the viewer’s choice.

Did you bother to tune in on the news’s coverage of the recent election? Did you see the looks of happiness/horror as the outcomes came? The Voice and the election are in whole different leagues of comparison in importance, but people wanted who they voted for to win—obviously. And, in this show, you can feel the same type of tension when they declare the winners. The idea that the viewer added to the collective will for this one person to succeed makes said viewer invested in seeing if things pan out in their will’s favor.

You, the viewer, determined the outcome. It’s a power fantasy which isn’t even really a fantasy. You are not only a customer or a viewer. You’re a judge, a decider. A hot shot like Adam or Miley. So long as you view the show live.

The marketing power of The Voice is why it’s still around when so many other music shows die. They took their marketing and advertising and perceived openness (whether they manufacture said openness or not is another matter entirely) and hit the sweet spot. And it’s a lesson worth learning, don’t you think?

So, won’t you turn your chair to this new idea? And bring it on your team? Give the customer a little power, and they will come back again and again for many seasons to come. Because you made them feel like their voice...was heard.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com