By Cream Editorial

Last year in September, Irish bookmaker and betting services brand Paddy Power took ambush marketing to new heights, quite literally! And here’s the story behind the story.

 The brand used skywriting as a tool to post tweets high up in the sky in Chicago just above the Medinah County Club at the time of the Ryder Cup tournament. The aim? To motivate Europeans to cheer for their team. The cheeky brand did so by fuelling the US-Europe tussle at the golf matches through sky tweets cheering European players, and taking none-too-subtle jibes at American golfers.

By Cream Editorial

I’m not much of a Starbucks loyalist, so this 2012 Starbucks campaign called ‘Every Coffee Should Be a Starbucks’ leaves me oddly amused, considering the current ‘tax-ing’ environment the brand is in, no pun intended. The American coffee chain recently faced turbulence in the UK when it was widely criticised for evading corporation tax over a period of time. And that makes this summer campaign strange to look at – with its tone of voice almost bordering on arrogance. A trifle baffling! 

Cream's 'Campaign of the week' newsletter is out now - featuring IKEA's brilliant work on the Paris Metro, LG's mischievous flat-screen heist video and some advice on two-screen strategies from Billington Cartmell's Dan Machen. 

'Campaign of the week' delivers a weekly shot of inspiration,innovation and insight straight to your inbox. Subscribe to it on the Cream homepage or read it here. 

Catch up with the best of Cream by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. This week's 'Campaign of the week' is the digital graphic novel from Axe, promoting its new fragrance 'Anarchy'. 

Wether or not Axe is onto a good thing by launching a fragrance line for both men and women remains to be seen. Spurred on by the number of female Facebook fans on its brand page, Unilever have apparently decided that the world is ready for the scent of 'Anarchy'.

See the full case study here with details of how Axe has turned to its fanbase to inspire this online graphic novel project.

Get full, instant access to Cream's pool of case study studies with a free trial here. 

Celebrity endorsements have long been a powerful marketing tool. Like all strategies, the idea of getting a famous person to act as a brand ambassador comes with its own unique pros and cons.  Lots of commentators covered this subject during the various indiscretions of Tiger Woods, which saw the professional golfer sacked from a number of lucrative ad contracts over his marital indiscretions.

But while some relationships do not end well, it is a sad fact of media that some partnerships are doomed from the start. Some are very successful and in some cases you have to wonder if it’s just a case of brand managers abusing their position to meet their favourite actors and pop stars.

Fiat and Jennifer Lopez

At the start of 2011, Fiat launched its new Fiat 500 campaign in the States, enlisting a dream spokeswoman in the face of Jennifer Lopez. After a few years in the pop wilderness, J-Lo was back in 2010 with a hit album and worldwide smash single. Her appearance as a judge on American Idol confirmed that her star was in the ascendant.

Inspired by Canada's Marketing magazine digital awards that were announced at the end of last year, Anthony Daniel reflects on the strengths of the country's creative media industry. 

The digital universe has given marketers a plethora of devices to engage and target audiences whether it be SMS, email, QR, AR, projection stunts or content driven campaigns. The digital revolution universally refreshed the creative industries and each culture around the world has stamped their own creative heritage onto various digital tools to execute successful local strategies.

The airline industry and Twitter were never going to get along. As a method of getting about, air travel is dependent on so many variables that delays, cancellations and missed flights are going to be inevitable. Frequent flyers are used to all manner of disruptions called by fog, mechanical failure, ice on the runway and refuelling delays – and this assuming that the air traffic control staff aren’t on strike in one of the countries you have to fly over in order to reach your destination.

by Mattias Ström

Tying the perfect bow tie

Don’t let the title fool you, this is not a piece about men’s fashion. It’s about a new model for integrated communication. There are however some similarities to the fickle world of fashion: the white Bow Tie symbolises the very finest of occasions, just as integrated communication has come to be looked upon as 'the tailcoat' of communication disciplines – both by juries in industry awards and by heads of marketing departments across the globe. Donning a bow tie, although special, can also be quite a difficult sequence to master. And solving multiple problems – a key requirement for the next generation of integration – will always be harder than going after just one.