Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

Here’s to keeping it real: Barbaric Chivas Regal films offer cautionary tale for content makers

02.19.2013 by David Murray // 1 Comment

George Bernhard Shaw said of the bagpipes, “At least they don’t smell.”

I wish I could lavish such praise upon the Chivas Regal “Chivas Real Friends” films, which are currently placed front and center on the company’s website.

Alas, they do smell. Bad.

Let us attempt offset some of the scandalous cost of this unbelievably embarrassing content marketing project by learning something from it.

As you can see from the trailer, Chivas marketers hired Academy Award-winning short-film director Joachim Back, first-class production company Park Pictures and four professional Hollywood actors.

 What you can’t tell from the trailer is how desperately insipid these movies are. 

Each one begins with the four “Real Friends” sitting in a fancy lounge, looking and talking as if they’re deep into their third glass Chivas. (Really, Chivas? You wanna show guys drunk on your sauce? Well, it’s your money.) They’re engaging in some forced Swingers-esque banter, which in each case leads to a memory and the beginning of a yarn … and then we find ourselves in the flashback.

Because you can’t spoil a plot that's rotten to begin with: In “Here’s to Twinkle,” the shorter of the two films, one of the friends was sad over losing his girlfriend and the guys tried to cheer him up by taking him to an amusement park and surfing and playing basketball. But he was inconsolable until a little dog ran onto the basketball court and he cuddled it and a supermodel came along and thanked him for saving her dog and then kissed him and they went out on a date.

Normally, a plot description doesn’t do a movie justice. In this case, the movie doesn’t do my plot description justice. If you have seven and a half minutes of your life to waste, see for yourself.

Like, Chivas content marketing duders: People will take you as seriously as you take yourself—once. If you make a 60-second TV commercial about some well-heeled, well-dressed old buds drinking Chivas and cracking wise—well, you’ve shared your brand image without really slowing me down too much. But if you’re asking me to stop what I’m doing and watch a short film—well, I expect from your film what I would expect from any film: to be made to think, or, in the case of something you call “Real Friends,” to feel a genuine emotion.

The only emotions I feel watching these films are a rancid sort of amazement at how comprehensive their witless artificiality and disgust at the money they must have cost. 

The other film, “Here’s to Big Bear,” is worse than “Twinkle,” and not only because it’s twice as long. Behold this classic tale of “real” friendship:

The four high-class boozers let their marinating minds drift back to a day when, for vague reasons, they got off a train in the middle of a desert in tuxedos. When a toothless, cackling old man tells them the next train isn’t coming for days, they set off hiking across the desert while lonesome strains of “Home on the Range” irrelevantly play. Our chapped and dusty heroes stumble upon a gas station and ask the mean old proprietor for water and are charged $50 for four bottles. Then they take their pants off and go hitchhiking in their boxer shorts. They’re finally picked up by a psychotic-looking trucker, who gets on the CB and says, “Big Bear got four in the trap.” Then Big Bear puts a CD and leads the guys in singing “Together in Electric Dreams.”

If you don’t believe me, watch the film. But you’re better off believing me, believe me.

I’m trying to get into the mind of the marketer who conceived of this bullshit. Here I go!: We want people to think of Chivas Regal as cool. We want them to think of themselves as cool for drinking it. So we’ll make a film showing people who think they’re cool and who are dressed cool drinking Chivas in a cool setting and telling cool stories about uncool moments in their otherwise cool lives. 

But for all the money and human time “Real Friends” films waste, they reveal nothing more than the cynical and unimaginative and contemptuous minds of their creators.

Content marketers must remember: Your customers, no matter what their demographic, are real human beings—not composite characters invented to consume your product and your advertising. And real people, when they sit down to watch real films, expect real drama. And real drama isn’t branding. Real drama is art. 

You can pretend to make it, but we’re not going to pretend to like it.

Cheers.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // " content marketing, "Real Friends, Chivas Regal

Rocking social media isn’t enough. You have to rock the world.

10.30.2012 by David Murray // 8 Comments

In the course of my correspondence with Mark Ragan yesterday, he mentioned a blog post titled "25 Women Who Rock Social Media."

Among the social media-rocking sisters was one Lauren Salazar. Here's why Lauren rocks:
Lauren-salazar-150w

"Her experience as a writer and editor for The New Yorker and New York Magazine have helped prepare Lauren Salazar for her current role as the Social Media Manager for Weight Watchers.  Lauren uses the same personal touch with the community management at Weight Watchers that she does with her own Twitter account.  She does a great job of creating a true engagement by finding a way to really connect and relate to her audience. …"

It used to be that writers and editors came to corporate communications when they wanted to get married and have kids after 10 fun years at the Virginian-Pilot.

E.B. White, on the other hand, edited an employee newsletter at a silk mill—for a few weeks, before quitting out of fear that the job was too easy and would make him soft.

And once a young David Murray, then editor of The Ragan Report, interviewed for a job in employee communication at Aon Insurance. The corporate communication director tossed a copy of The Ragan Report across his desk and said: "You write this. Why would you want to write our shit?"

I've always seen corporate communication work as being exactly as honorable and worthy as its practitioners. I've known more than my share of whip-smart communicators, and I've seen some profoundly good communication.

But now here come the best and the brightest, fresh and enthusiastic, from the most respected publications in the world, to "connect and relate" to the the customers of Weight Watchers. Well, they damned well better rock social media. I hope they use their brains and energies and hearts to rock their employers, too.

Update: And thanks to Writing Bootista Liam Scott, who was so distressed by this item that he dug into Salazar's background. It appears that "25 Women Who Rock Social Media" blogger Lee Odden may have pumped her up a bit when he said she was a "writer and editor" at The New Yorker and New York Magazine. According to her résumé, she spent "Fall '06" as a "creative services intern," where she "developed integrated campaign pitches, executed special event marketing … and provided copywriting support for advertising sales staff."

She did more editorial work at New York Magazine; among other responsibilities, she did "beat reporting for citywide retail, fitness, restaurant, and nightlife venues."

So I guess we can't expect Ian Frazier to be rocking social media at Zappos anytime soon. But we do expect Lauren Salazar to punch above her weight at Weight Watchers.

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // " content marketing, Aon Insurance, brand journalism, E.B. White, Lauren Salazar, Mark Ragan, The Ragan Report

“Content Marketing World”: Joe Pulizzi built it, and they came. But where will they go next?

10.11.2011 by David Murray // 6 Comments

Last month Writing Boots readers revealed that they knew little and cared less about a notion called "content marketing."

Yet, the concept has enough gravity that it drew 650 human beings to Cleveland, Ohio, for a conference called Content Marketing World 2011.

I was there.

Marketing consultant Joe Pulizzi, who conceived the event as an extension of his self-invented Content Marketing Institute, addressed the crowd on the first day and encouraged them to get to know their fellow "content marketing people—people who get it."

In a special issue of ContentWise, I explain what, exactly, the people who get it think they've got.

(Among other things, they've got their work cut out for them.)

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // " content marketing, Content Marketing Institute, Content Marketing World, Joe Pulizzi

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