‘Wake Up’ teaser campaign – believed to be for BlackBerry – to be revealed after midnight Sunday – ideas agency Tongue behind the campaign
The ‘Wake Up’ teaser campaign – believed to be for BlackBerry – is set to be revealed just after midnight Sunday EST, if the countdown clock on the wake up site is to be believed.
Whether it’s for Blackberry or some other brand (Vodafone?), CB can confirm that Sydney-based ideas agency Tongue is involved, as confirmed last night by partner and ECD Jonathan Pease.
Although if for Blackberry it may have some input from AMV/BBDO London, which runs the business in all markets outside the US.
Again, if for Blackberry, more clues to this may or may not be revealed at BlackBerry World 2012, which starts in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday (US time). The conference is the largest annual gathering for the BlackBerry ecosystem.
UPDATE: BlackBerry confirmed as client – the following statement has been issued by RIM Australia this morning: “We can confirm that the Australian ‘Wake Up’ campaign, which involves a series of experiential activities taking place across Sydney and Melbourne, was created by RIM Australia. A reveal will take place on May 7th that will aim to provoke conversation on what ‘being in business’ means to Australians.”
32 Comments
AMV/BBDO London runs the business globally i.e. inside and outside the U.S.
Pretty sure Clems Sydney has Blackberry.
Love a little teaser.
Loved the bold elegance of the intriguing ‘Wake Up’ billboard teaser. Too bad its ruthless simplicity will be spoilt by add-on elements such as a selling message and branding.
this is for erectile disfunction.
Sure to be another massive award winning campaign for JP
I’ve gotta say, this campaign has my (and everyone in marketing) attention. RIM has taken on the bully in the room and clearly they’re coming through punching.
Keep it up RIM
Yawwwwwwwwn…
Good luck with it.
So RIM created it but Tongue are claiming it?
Gabbo is coming!
It’s better than anything you ever did Ben.
I spotted it on Kings way today and thought it was TAC
Ice bergs looks good.
Did we only wake up Sydney?
Stinks of another campaign aimed at winning awards – not sales.
Invariably, when one of these ‘experiential’ campaigns comes along, it peeks the curiosity of the public, as it’s intended to do, but once it’s revealed that the publicity stunt is in service of a product’s brand advertising, and that’s really what this entire of genre boils down to, a stunt, no matter what it’s being called currently, then everyone feels duped, made a fool of, taken in, manipulated, and the long term value of the brand is undermined, if not destroyed.
Imagine your entire audience, the very people to whom a product or service is being promoted or sold, made to feel as if they’re all the one being ‘punk’d’.
If it takes a gimmick to help a brand compete, then how authentic will consumers feel that the product actually is in the end? Not very.
Wake Up Blackberry, the inspirational advertising of Apple is leaving you and your stunts in the dust, of history.
2.15 How do you feel duped? It’s not promising you anything? It’s designed to capture your attention so, ultimately, have an opinion on what’s delivered when the phase 2 (or the reveal) arrives.
It’s got my attention, so I’m OK with waiting to see what all the noise is about. And I’m not expecting it to be world peace. (Although that would be nice.)
@ Dwata/s
“but once it’s revealed that the publicity stunt is in service of a product’s brand advertising” . . . the expectation of feeling duped 2:50, and the promise is that the provocative WAKE UP, and a seven figure tally will somehow have a payoff with a modicum of gravitas, or at a minimum some nice prizes for our audience.
It won’t of course, and that’s when the ‘feel(ing) duped’ comes into the picture.
Promise without delivery, a metaphor for the all style no substance, image is everything, just get me the publicity, good or bad ethos of modern culture, brought to you by below the line marketing and stunt advertising.
Hey, maybe that should be the next big category at Cannes . . . Stunts Titanium.
You’ve taken too much of the brown acid, 2:15/3:32. Suspending disbelief about the fraudulent nature of advertising is a primary requirement to work in the industry. The awful truth is that to a greater or lesser extent advertising is about selling stuff by trickery. Sorry to shock you. It’s time to get that job working in a florist with all those pretty flowers.
i think NAB’s behind it
That’s bound to start a riot.
@Marketing 101
At least wait until you’ve passed 102 to start telling us all how much you know about the soullessness of the industry.
There is actually an art, and a consciousness, perhaps even a soul to advertising.
Granted, juniors like yourself who think they’ve signed their deal with the devil by lying to their first client and having the sniff of success by writing a campaign that successfully pulls the wool over the eyes of the great unwashed imagine that they’ve got it sussed and can ride off into the sunset as a CD for a retail agency in Oz may think otherwise, but the truth is that the real creatives in this business are selling inspiration, and they’re not doing it by making the public believe that Blackberry is Apple, but by showing everyone how much imagination is involved in the best of our ideas as a culture.
The thing is, m101, that one day you’ll grow up and wonder why those without your particular brand of cynicism have done so well for themselves, while you’re working in Asia, reusing their ideas from three years prior.
Sounds like Tongue specialises in RIM jobs.
AbM, I’m a 30-year veteran of this business, with experience in the best agencies in the world and in Australia. At 50-something, I’m certainly no junior. I’m the beneficiary of the view from the top. Our job is to exaggerate the positive and ignore the negative. As advertising creatives we are like barristers, cajoling and persuading with all the considerable weapons at our disposal. We are superficial experts on one thing one day and another the next. It’s important to not actually believe your own bullshit. It is you, my friend, who sound wet behind the ears. It’s great that you’re so unrealistically idealistic. But you’ll get there in the end. Have fun kidding yourself in the meantime.
AbM it’s 2.50 here. Why so miserable? Allow me to have a guess. I reckon you’re the cock in the room ‘fighting the battle’ against the Junior suits – rather than helping them. You’re probably the creative that ‘has all the skills’ but have never been ‘rightfully recognised’ (most likely because you reserve your A-game for the blog). I’m tipping you’ve also spent your time in that retail agency you refer to, dreaming of bigger days and bigger things, ironically now you’re sitting in a much bigger agency thinking of far smaller things.
How’d I go?
@M101
A “50-something, with experience in the best agencies in the world”, and now here in Australia. Your career arch, or slope rather would explain the cynicism.
The critique was of ‘experiential’ campaigns, public relations stunts by any other name, that tease much and deliver little, taking an expedient path to brand advertising, and drawing attention in the short run, the Gen X, Y, Z attention span, while showing very little strategic thought for establishing a lasting identity for their brands.
Great advertising took Apple, Volkswagen, Nike, Guinness, Honda, Levis, Audi, Johnnie Walker, and any number of iconic international brands to where they all are today. Once upon a time, the Australian advertising industry believed in the big brand campaign, but of late, the retail sensibility and a control of the industry from the point of view of the accountants, the account directors, and cynical burned-out creatives who’ve found there way here to help tow the line of executives bent on cost-cutting strategies as opposed to leading with creative brilliance have taken over the shops.
The only ones kidding themselves are you and your lot who think that cheap, quick, and superficial is going to keep the industry alive, because the great creative ideas that have had resonance in the past and have tapped into a zeitgeist that is far deeper than the topical surface are the reasons you have an industry to work in in the first place.
It’s not idealism, it’s strategic realism, because underselling yourself and what you do will only help bring everyone and everything down to your level, and the lowest common denominator approach has always had a far shorter shelf life than those that aspire to inspire.
Guess the next stop for you will be Asia, the graveyard for retread CDs from the West who survived by copying the latest trend until they were unmasked by someone who came into their department and had a great idea.
When did this stuff happen at Bondi. I run along the path at Icebergs several times a week including weekends and I’ve never seen it.
Was it just for the photographer perhaps?
This teaser is doing a great job; getting people’s attention is the first battle for any campaign. Most people I’ve talked to about it have seen it somewhere, and remember it, and for an ad to have that much cut through across the board is pretty awesome. But whatever the reveal is, it better be bloody good. Otherwise is backfire city.
@Dwata/s
Off by a country mile, but then you would be, as the picture you paint sounds more like one that you’re all too familiar with personally.
Your “waiting to see what all the noise is about” has taken less than 24 hours as Blunty’s just revealed that he was paid by Blackberry’s marketers to masquerade as a bystander, make the ‘guerilla’ demo, and take it viral.
The stunt’s now backfired, unmasking the entire process and bringing nothing to the table for the brand but the infamy of a challenger looking ridiculous as it tries in vain to unseat the market leader . . . SOP for these kinds of pranks, which was my point.
I know you claim to have no affiliation with the agency, but from the way you’re wagging, you sound suspiciously like one of the Tongues involved in the RIM job. Don’t forget to brush your teeth afterwards. We hear those oral infections can be quite nasty.
Dear AbM – it’s 2.50’s secretary here.
2.50 has asked me to let to know he’ll be back here tomorrow to respond. In the meantime he’s asked that you please keep away from the mount-up spray booth. Or at least use maybe mount up the pitch prezo outside.
Regards x
Oh AbM, you’re such a silly sausage. I won’t be going to Asia for some twilight hack job. I got out years ago. You sound terribly difficult and precious, just like I was at your stage.
@Dwata/s, 2:50, your secretary (do people still have secretaries?), et.al.
Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
Apparently, from your last post, English grammar is a bit of a challenge at your office as well.
Best to leave it to professionals.
@M101
‘Silly sausage’? Now you’re really showing your age.
Stop projecting, and if you “got out years ago”, then maybe it’s high time you gave up the ghost and got off the blog.
Blogging at 1:47AM, AbM? Like I said, you’re way too intense for your own good. And, I suspect, for those around you.