Soft Selling ESPN

I had a bit of a rant about Setanta earlier in the year about how they came storming into the football broadcasting market and expected football fans to dish out over £10 a month to see additional live games. Now that they're gone, ESPN have come along and are trying to shift the monopoly of Sky Sports. The big difference between ESPN's strategy and that of Setanta is that ESPN have taken a much gentler approach and have tried not to become just another broadcaster that wants consumers money.

In the 60 second spot below, ESPN have tried to reflect the passion of being a football fan. There is no mention of any monthly fee, just a delivery that indicates the channel is a passionate follower of football. The ad seeks to emulate the oath of football that exists in so many towns and cities across the country. The call to action in the final frame, enables ESPN to develop a brand experience for consumers through their customer service or online presence. After football fans rejection of Setanta last season, the knowledge that ESPN is not merely trying to take our money is one that I believe will gain the broadcaster a lot of support.



Obviously to try and maintain its dominance Sky has created a series of ads depicting the feeling football brings and how they share this passion. A similar execution to that of ESPN, it may be difficult for viewers to differentiate between the two broadcasters and therefore due to the high level of brand awareness for Sky Sports, the UK brand may just come out on top. A clever piece of strategic advertising from Sky.

Checklist for Getting a Job in Advertising

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about creative ways of cutting through the clutter and getting my dream job in a communications agency. From a certain individual on my university course to resume songs posted on YouTube, I have seen a decent amount of attempts from others to persuade potential employers that they are perfect for the creative communications agency.

A certain individual on my course has gone to town on their application and it has proved worthwhile with a job offer at a top london agency. The individual in question delivered a few strategies for getting the attention of his favourite agency. The first was to stand outside the office building and hand his CV to every single person who came out, a tactic I'm guessing that would annoy most but would surely make people remember him over everyone else who simply sends their CV in the post or via e-mail. Another tactic employed by my coursemate was to send the agency a mobile phone with only one number on the sim card. An expensive way to cut through the clutter.

Other stories I've heard from the various blogs I read, have included one guy who got all his friends to pester the CEO of an agency through Twitter, trying to convince him that he was worthy of a job. Another attention grabbing tactic used by an advertising job seeker was to recreate a 1972 Cosmo centrefold featuring Burt Reynolds in which the copywriter posed nude with only a Television set masking his modesty. As the individual had only just been laid off by his previous agency, he was established enough for the picture to build momentum and get people talking about him.



The video application is something I've seen spring up a few times across various blogs and it's a simple and great way to visualise a dull CV. The video below is by an american marketing student showing potential employers what he has to offer in a creative and engaging way.

Hello World

I'll start by introducing myself, my name is James Davies and I'm just about to finish my final year studying Advertising and Marketing Communications at Bournemouth University. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Bournemouth and have really found a passion for advertising and communications in what is a very exciting time for the industry.

I have desire to set up a blog to let the world know how I feel about advertising and sometimes maybe other issues that are close to my heart. Advertising often attempts to reflect the current structure and views of 'society' which will provide the main focus for a lot of my blog posts along with comments on existing and upcoming campaigns in the glitzy world of advertising.