American Airlines’ AAdvantage program was the first frequent-flyer program. Established in 1981, the program now has more than 56 million members. In 2006, members redeemed more than 142 billion miles to claim in excess of 4 million awards for flights, upgrades and car rentals. But members have been asking for more information regarding where to go with the miles they’ve earned. So American Airlines turned to TM Advertising, Dallas, to develop a way to deliver information about vacation destinations that would break through the clutter and deliver the content in a contemporary, engaging and entertaining way.
The result is AAdvantage Milestones™, an e-magazine launched earlier this month at www.aa.com/milestones. Among the site’s engaging content is a series of 60-second videos, hosted by comedian Regan Burns from Comedy Central, offering viewers quick tours of American Airlines’ destinations. Rome is the first destination featured in the June issue. The next edition of the online mag will appear in August and the focus will be on Hawaii.
“For a while now American has been wanting to better engage their customers with their brand and have them spend more time with them. They have a lot of hotel partners and rental car partners. What they want to do is create relevancy for all the offers that these partners have. This project is the first step in saying, ‘Don’t just consider renting a car from Avis because you can get double miles, rent it because you can get the miles to get you a specific destination that much faster,” explained Toby Adams, director of relationship marketing at TM.
Roman Holiday
The Roman holiday videos provide an overview of Rome and an up close and personal look of the Forum, once the political and religious center of Rome, and the Coliseum. The clips showcase American’s lighter side of brand marketing, incorporating humor through the condensed home-video style format. One of the videos even features hilarious outtakes from Burns’ two-day shoot. “He rose to the top,” said Todd Connelley, copywriter and creative director at TM, who also helmed the videos, about Burns. “We had a specific kind of talent in mind that we wanted. One with a good improv background, someone who was charismatic and funny and could think on their feet. We cast in Dallas and L.A. He was the obvious choice. He’s very funny. He thought quickly on his feet in casting.”
He also thought quickly on his feet in Rome. “We had a script we wrote here and then we got there and we found out a lot of places we wanted to shoot we couldn’t for one reason or another. Regan and I would brainstorm and we would go out there and just do it. It was pretty wild,” explained Connelley. “We’d walk by a statue and say, ‘Hey I got an idea and just shoot it and see if it would work. That’s what he brought to the table. He was a talent that could do that, who was used to working like that, which fit well with what this project was.”
Adams added, “Some of the best clips that we have and that the client is most happy with we got just being on the street and thinking of things on the fly.”
Having someone like Burns also allowed the agency to keep production in-house. “I don’t want to say he directs himself, but we are not taking an actor and molding him into a character. We’re just taking a talented comedian and letting him be himself. It allowed us to think about it in terms of not really getting a director per se. We knew the best approach was to keep the crew small and nimble so you could dart around the city and get what you needed to get, ” said Hal Dantzler, TM producer.
Teamwork
Along with the video tours, the corresponding e-magazine includes relevant travel information and tips on the highlighted destination, along with AAdvantage offers. For example, in the Rome edition there’s a Getting Around Italy map and Italy’s It List plus must-see Italy events. There’s even a gallery where AAdvantage members can share personal photos of their trip to Italy. Additional community forums will be introduced with the release of subsequent editions of AAdvantage Milestones…. One of the ideas on the table is to have a message board where people can share info about their travels.
This project brought together TM’s broadcast department and interactive department, which was a new way of working for the agency. The lesson learned was to lean on people in your own agency that know what they are doing in their respective disciplines.
“This hybrid approach is a new thing for us. It’s a new way of working that worked out just great,” said Dantzler, adding that they are working on video ad units for other clients. “We’ve laid the groundwork for some great things.
“I feel personally like web content standards are going to increase just like they have on any other new media. TV spots were a dancing pack of cigarettes when they first came out and look what they’ve developed into. I think as bandwidth increases, quality is going to become an issue. This is one of, if not the most, legitimate means of reaching consumers there is so the stakes are going to get higher and what we are really striving for here is to up the ante across the board.”
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More