When did merely being brown qualify anyone to judge multicultural advertising? Do clients do this with mainstream ads? Do they ask random white folks if their multimillion dollar campaign works? And then, do they yank it?

Full disclosure: this campaign was my brother's work.
(Russell Barrett - at the time Executive Creative Director at Bates in India - is now at Bartle Bogle Hegarty Mumbai in the same role).

Warning: 110 commercials.
Relax, they're about 10 secs each.

Ok, now that's out of the way... this is a great campaign.

It's for Virgin Mobile and it's work Richard Branson could gladly dip his beard into and sign big fat cheques with.

110 commercials in which die-hard Indian cricket fanatics from several different Indian states call each other.
To deliver the kind of insults that, in English, are best begun with a "Yo' mama...".

Where does Virgin fit in? (Get your mind our of the gutter, people.)

Well, Virgin makes it possible thanks to long distance calling rates that are a mere .005 cents/min. This is smart, funny. pertinent, timely, salty, saucy work in the pure vernacular (yes, I know that's an oxymoron). And it's utterly satisfying as a result. Want to know what it means? Write to me and I'll tell you.

Or if you're in Canada, why not call me? It's just 10c/min, long distance, on Rogers. Oh, what's that, let's see... a mere 200 times more expensive.

Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

At first sight, this Eid ul Fitr ad from Levis Indonesia, seems relatively straightforward. The kind of harmless but useless festival advertising that most banks in Canada like to do, for instance. The headline is what you'd expect of just such an ad: Let us celebrate this day of glory together. Happy Eid ul Fitr.

But a closer look reveals that it's not just another pair of blue jeans - it's a stunning visual depiction of the massed congregations so typical in Jakarta's giant mosques. A beautiful surprise set against that straight headline and proof that, yes, even in advertising, you can find God in the details.



Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

It's Ramadan again and No Frills the Canadian discount supermarket is running a commercial advertising some halal specials.

They've picked the foods perfunctorily to start with - halal chicken, ground beef, etc.

They aren't promoting or advertising the most common and traditional of iftar foods - dates!

And of all the language choices available to them, they've chosen to run the ad in Punjabi. In a Bollywood movie commercial break. (Bollywood movies, everyone should know, are in Hindi).

It's the equivalent of running an English ad on French television.

To add to the confusion, an almost identical spot runs in the next commercial break - during the same movie - except, this one is for The Great Canadian Superstore and for some mysterious reason, this spot does run in Hindi.

It sounds like a carefully thought, perfectly executed strategy. If your strategy is to utterly befuddle your customers.

I won't even begin to explore the insultingly poor production values and the total absence of a creative idea from these ads.

Instead, I thought I should first show you some great Ramadan advertising, done right. Which is what I did last week.

Ramadan Kareem to my Muslim brethren.
I pray that Canadian marketers may one day do right by you.

Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

This outstanding video from TED may be one of the most insightful presentations I've heard on the relationship between culture and consumer choice.

Sheena Iyengar dispenses with the consumer focus group and leaves behind some of the more obsolete but dearly loved quantitative testing methods so popular among marketers today. Instead, she dives deep into the the psychocultural motivations behind the act of choosing. Iyengar's research has been informing business and consumer-goods marketing since the 1990s and has produced material for writers like Malcolm Gladwell. All of which makes me think that her new book, the Art of Choosing is well worth buying.




Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing | Video on TED.com


Article: Creative Commons License 2010 Gavin Barrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A simple smart advertising campaign can go a long way towards converting drivers to riders.
Luck led me to this posting on sustainable urban transportation blog, The City Fix.

One campaign in particular caught my eye - the comparative, good vs. bad, cars vs. buses Go Metro ads made their point with clarity and immediacy. I went hunting for the rest of the campaign and found a treasure trove at another blog Long Winded and Proud.

Check out the Naughty vs Nice t-shirts they distributed to baristas - a lovely grassroots touch.

Images via The City Fix and Long Winded and Proud.
Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2010.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Züm is Brampton Transit's new bus rapid transit brand, carefully developed through a year-long process that included stakeholder interviews, best practice reviews and town council approvals. Appropriately enough for a transit service, Züm has an origin and a destination. Züm began its journey in the idea of a speedy, urban, world-class, rapid, modern, forward-looking, cosmopolitan rapid transit system. Züm sounds like zoom, the sound of something moving fast, something speedy. Zoom also means to move closer in, to zoom into something for a close-up. Züm’s graphics evoke speed, linkage, modernity, world-class, a certain euro-style sensibility.

Client: Sue Connor, Kim Moser, Brampton Transit
Agency: Barrett and Welsh

Designer: Rob Segovia

Creative Directors: Gavin Barrett and Mike Welsh.
Art Director: Mike Welsh

Writer: Gavin Barrett