The Writer’s Coin

It’s time for the second edition of Ad Friday.

Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed about last week’s edition, I really appreciate it. As a great tie in to this week, I attended a networking event last night hosted by my school called “Networking in Advertising and Marketing.”

It was more about Marketing and none of the speakers were creatives, but it was still a great opportunity to ask questions and get to know some of the people that work in the periphery of the industry I’m hoping to be a part of for a long time.

As we all know, networking is the best way to get the good jobs, so it was good that I went.

Without further ado, here is Ad Friday, and again, please do comment on anything about these ads that strikes you (or doesn’t).

Product: Rosetta Stone (language-learning software)
Medium: Print (Radio and TV tie ins)
Campaign Tag Line: Accents are Fun

This is more of an idea than a specific ad, but the concept is to get people over the tough parts of learning a language and getting them to see some of the side benefits to learning. We all know about becoming more worldly and being able to communicate when we travel, and impressing people at cocktail parties when we roll our Rs. But this campaign takes a look at famous lines in movie history and asks, “What will your accent sound like?”

“Say hello to my little frien’!!!”

“I’ll be back.”

“Thank you, come again!”

“Hello Mr. McLane.”

“I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”

“Round up the usual suspects.”

The idea is to link well-known Hollywood moments with accents and how fun/sexy/cool they can be so people get over the hump of trying to learn a language “perfectly.” You don’t have to be perfect, you won’t sound perfect, and that’s OK. Nobody is.

The reason I think that TV and radio have so much potential is that people can actually hear the accents. I think radio is an especially good medium for this kind of campaign. Accents catch people’s attention amidst all the radio clutter.

I know I was advised to stick to print for my portfolio, and this campaign maybe isn’t the best place for print, but it was an idea I had and wanted to see what people thought.

Tags: ads, Advertising, networking