The Economist - 'Red Wires' Commercial Campaign

Very clever outreach to me of a rare Economist commercial from, I think, the ad agency, AMV. Tom Carty directs. What do you think?

Comments

[LelandM]

I too received the 'outreach' email.

What did you think was clever about the email?

I ask because it offered a paltry "insight into why The Economist is pursuing a new brand strategy," gave me meaningless incentive of "an advanced look" at a commercial that was going to be made public later in the day and, when i did look, the ad wasn't particularly good. The "metaphor for the inherent pleasure in connecting different ideas" doesn't come across in this ad. Instead, the ad speaks more to attention deficit disorder than a pleasure in connecting ideas.

All in all, this "outreach" email was nothing more than a trite solicitation asking me to blog about the new commercial.

Which I won't, of course.

[Damiano]

You're right Leland. It was a spur of the moment decision to post. True, it isn't a particularly good ad but the Economist rarely does them and I am an enthusiast and subscriber to be honest. I don't care about the email outreach but clever, because I have never before been given three hours to post something before the link was taken down. I'm sure it's no doubt very common for more established bloggers but I found this obvious tactic novel to me and when we are moving fast towards real time search with twitter etc. It gave me an idea and I can see a time, soon if not now, where something could be posted for a minute and then it's gone. Catch it if you can...Enthusiasts, evangelists and fans following an artiste watching out for that piece of content, link, that gives them value. That would be up to the minute engagement. Just an idea.