Airlock 2008

Lessons in the bleeding obvious but oft-forgotten

Lesson 1: Be Likeable, And People Will Like You

Obvious, no? But it’s a fine line - try too hard and you’ll come across as irritating and ingratiating. Don’t try enough and you’ll seem aloof and arrogant. But here, a two-fold lesson in likeability courtesy of the Hope of a Nation^TM. Firstly, Barack Obama is a likeable guy (let’s face it, he didn’t have to do a hell of a lot to improve on the incumbent prez), so his audience is doing a good deal of his marketing for him - like the sweet new site Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle. If you needed any more reasons to like Barack Obama, here’s a heaped serving.

Lesson 2: Good Content Is Sometimes Enough

The second interactive music video for Arcade Fire, this one for ‘Black Mirror’, is so simple it seems obvious - switch various strains of the recording on and off to enjoy all its subtleties and intricate layers, and discover a familiar song anew. The reason it works is also simple - the song, and the band’s musicianship, is strong enough to stand alone, even broken into its composite parts (think it would be as effective if McFly tried this approach?).

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Creative, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.