Sponsored music videos are a chance for brands to get cool again. Given that expensive-looking, high quality TV spots are a thing of the past (I've already cleared my inbox in preparation for the rebuttal emails from Thinkbox et al on that one) music videos offer brands the chance to associate with a successful music act and reach significant audiences over a prolonged period.

Essentially, a sponsored music video offers a highly visible product placement opportunity, but on a much faster turnaround than in films. We're still some months off watching 007 down a Heineken in the next outing of the Bond franchise, but when it comes to the three minute pop-promo, there's no shortage of high profile content available.

Here's our pick of the best...

OK GO: Needing/Getting, starring Chevy Sonic

Another brilliantly inventive clip from Ok Go, this premiered during the 2012 Super Bowl. It's also worth checking out the behind-the-scenes clip for this. 

 

LMFAO: One Day, starring Tuborg

It all started as  competition in the UK for budding directors to apply to make the new LMFAO video. The result is a predictably dopey ad for Tuborg which features some heavy handed product placement with an irritatingly catchy soundtrack. A guilty pleasure.

 

SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA: Greyound, starring Absolut Vodka

This is definitely the most inventive of the group. Outlandish outfits and astonishing CGI make the union of vodka and electro-house a visual feast.

GORILLAZ: DoYaThing, starring Converse

The Gorillaz story might be blemished by tales of an acrimonious split, but this wonky electro track features the band's famous cartoon members elegently slumming it in Converse sneakers.

MARK RONSON & KATY B: Anywhere in the world, starring Coca-Cola

Okay, so this isn't exactly a music video, but it's the live performance of the official Coca Cola 2012 Olympics theme song for London games. Eagle-eared listeners will hear snatches of previous Coca Cola anthems from the World Cup. As branded songs go, this one is going to be huge.

Much is written about the world's rapidly ageing population. The advances in medical science that have helped us to live longer are legion and manifold. But leaving aside the usual concerns about more people living for longer in a world of limited resources, a hitherto unforseen issue has arisen - and I doubt it's something Age Concern saw coming.

No doubt thanks to one particular medical discovery that comes in the shape of a little blue pill, we now have a rapidly ageing population that is best described as feeling frisky.

Yes, it turns out the oldies are at it to such an extent that STI rates are on the rise. An organisation called Safe Sex For Seniors has released a film to raise awareness of the issue that is funny and frightening in equal measure. You can thank BBH for this.

This is safe to watch at work, but still wrong on a number of levels. You have been warned.

Public service films often fall into one of two types: the patronisingly inane, or the downright gruesome. (Apart from this work safety video from the 90s which is both ridiculous, hilarious and disgusting). 

This latest video from Impact Teen Drivers aims to promote the idea that concentrating when driving is probably a good idea. To help get this point across to a modern teenage audience raised on the Saw movie franchise, ITD has opted for a 45-second horror scene featuring a distracted dentist and his lipstick-wearing male assistant. 

The shock value is undeniable, nervous patients should probably look away. This would probably be a strong contender in the Content BRAVES awards...

By Ben HumphryThe ‘Year of Mobile’ has been raging in the atmosphere of predicted media trends for at least the last five years.  Despite chirpings of mobile ad spend growing to massive degrees; we’re still a long way off mobile representing any more than a rounding error for most campaign budgets.
 
According to the most recent IAB the UK’s mobile ad spend had increased to £203m for 2011; let’s not forget that this only accounts for around 5 percent of either TV or online’s spend. However, there is no doubt that mobile advertising is growing in importance in the media mix.  What is promising is that mobile’s share of media consumption is about 30 per cent of that for TV or fixed internet. This is even bigger when we account for mobile’s increasing dual/triple screen usage.
 
There are many reasons for this discrepancy in figures. First and foremost, mobile presents a challenging environment of multiple media consumption, where each media has different formats. There are also tightly controlled routes to access these media because they all have operating systems which pertain to different regulations.
 
At the moment, mobile ads are difficult to target, hard to manage, and restrictive in terms of what they can measure.  While it can potentially provide effective geo-targeting, IOS lacks the usual mechanism to track users for data-driven or behavioural targeting because third party cookies are restricted.  This is the reason why until now the majority of ads have been sold with a cost per click model, allowing for the management of a simple ROI.
 
Brand advertising is pretty much non-existent right now. Other than through digital magazines and a handful of branded apps (almost certainly both representing test campaigns rather than general marketing), very few brands have ventured onto mobile platforms.
 
There are several vital requirements that brand advertising must deliver in order to be effective. The ad must reach a target audience, convey a strong message, and finally the brand impact of that message must be measured.  But mobile faces challenges in these certain requirements. We have an environment where cookies are strictly controlled so audience information is hard to collect and even harder to maintain. Furthermore, messages that a brand is trying to convey are limited to either basic formats or require multiple creative executions. Also, the same limitations as every other medium apply in terms of measuring the messages; traditionally brand impact can only be measured using expensive market research, post-campaign.
 
However, what remains exciting is that we’re starting to see improvements.  Mobile- specific ad platforms have been enhanced considerably because they can deliver rich formats across operating systems and mobile web environments. Technology vendors, like nugg.ad, who have specialised in brand engagement tools in digital advertising, have created audience and brand measurement tools for mobile.
 
These kinds of advances enable brand advertisers to choose an audience based on social demographics and product preferences, deliver a rich, engaging message to them on any phone and understand what portion of the total audience they’ve reached. What’s more, the impact it has had on brand recognition, brand affinity and intent to purchase can be captured in real time, and used to optimize the campaign.
 
We have in front of us the technology, the audiences and a maturing medium to create impact through mobile. I would say education is the only thing that is keeping brands back from using mobile extensively. In time media owners will begin to implement the latest technology on their mobile properties and the much-lauded ‘Year of Mobile’ will inch itself slowly towards reality.

Ben Humphrey is country director UK and Ireland at nugg.ad

Research from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) appears to prove the superior effectiveness of large display formats.

The global ‘Size Matters’ study delivered by Millward Brown, analysed the effectiveness of larger display online ad formats in 940 campaigns over a two year period across UK, USA, Europe, South America and Australasia and examined the performance of formats across five key brand metrics:

• Aided Brand Awareness
• Online Ad Awareness
• Message Association
• Brand Favourability
• Purchase Intent

A total of six formats were analysed, three new: (Billboard, Wallpaper and Half Page) and three already established formats, (Skyscraper, MPU and Banner).

The study consisted of responses from 910,000 participants across 15 different countries. The results highlight the performance of the different ad formats against brand metrics by showing the average uplift achieved by exposure to each format.

• The Billboard (example shown above) outperformed other formats analysed. It offered three times better ad awareness levels and double the level of brand favourability uplift than the next best performing format (wallpaper).

• The Wallpaper format provided five times the level of message association and the highest level of brand awareness.

• The already existing Skyscraper outperformed other formats at the end of the purchase funnel, achieving an uplift of 1.4 percentage points for purchase intent.

The developments in online display advertising and the surge in growth in the discipline has been a primary focus for the IAB recently, resulting in the launch of our first ever Future Formats awards in February – showcasing new display formats being adopted by advertisers.

IAB’s director of research and strategy, Tim Elkington said, ‘“There’s a lot of excitement in the industry about new larger display formats and these important research findings show that this excitement is well placed. The new formats, in particular the Billboard and Wallpaper, deliver great results for advertisers against key brand metrics, especially at the start of the purchase funnel.”

This cheeky viral from Blueprint TV is a nice update of the Burger King Interactive Chicken video from a few years ago. Meet Ruprecht, the unlikely hero of a new ad campaign from The Phantom Card - a discount club card that helps ordinary members of Joe Public enjoy the finer things in life at a fraction of the price. The full ad features Ruprecht on a wild night out full of sex, drink, rock'n'roll and a bit more sex - Oh yes, discount cards have been made as cool as a Black Amex.

But although the full ad is a slick piece of work with enough fast cuts, funky beats and f**k you attitude to make Guy Ritchie jealous, the real fun lies in the accompanying interactive clip that allows the viewer to control Ruprecht in a series of frankly rather bonkers activities.

If there's any justice in the world, Ruprecht deserves to be a huge star. Make him dance like the online gimp you always secretly wanted...

Enjoy the full ad here

Despite all the tech trivia facts about the first email being sent in the 1970s and the first internet protocol suite emerging in 1982, it's still fair to say that the spiritual birth of the internet as we qould recognise it today lies in the 1990s.

The early stages of any technological revolution are always fraught with difficulties, evolutionary dead ends and expensive dead losses. Names like Netscape, Boo.com, Pets.com and GeoCities pepper the list of internet brands that fell by the wayside as bubbles burst and expensive gambles failed to pay off.

Sometimes it was a case of consumers moving on quicker than the brands they used - anyone remember how important a listing on the Yahoo! directory seemed all that time ago? But what if the current big names of today's online landscape had existed in 1995, would we have been ready for them? How would Facebook have faired in the decade where Mosaic was once considered to be a contender for the standard web interface around the world.

Such speculation is ultimately pointless, but its a diverting idea to consider how successful Facebook might (not) have been, had it launched just a few years earlier. To help your imagination along, try watching this pretend introduction to a Nineties version of Facebook. Pop on your Global Hypercolour sweatshirt and enjoy...

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