Russ Curry, Ministry of New Media
I came across this yesterday on a tweet from @viscom_paris as I was preparing for the event that opens today. I think it’s probably a good example of what can go wrong when the creative department gets carried away:
Apparently the Honda Civic Type R uses an old-fashioned ‘Start’ button. JCDecaux Ireland wanted to make this look like a ‘modern’ feature, so they came up with this clever idea of an interactive billboard.
A passer-by just has to send ‘START’ by SMS to wake up the beast – the car unlocks immediately and the motor starts up. After the little show, the prospect receives a link to a mobile-enabled site with photos of the range, prices and a list of nearby showrooms.
Nice one Seamus! I can just imagine what fun they had at the creative meeting about this one. Several Guinness’s later <sic> some bright spark came up with this. Not that there’s anything wrong with creativity, mind you, but I’m not sure that I want a new car with a chronic smoking exhaust problem (my 23 year old BMW doesn’t have one!) or where the warning lights start blinking as soon as you start the engine, and that’s not to mention the CO² emissions – if the poster is coughing them out already, what does the car do?
At least its tucked up there somewhere away from the road where it could potentially harm people…
(Nice sound effect on the video though)
September 21st, 2010 at 12:09 @548
Who is Seamus?
September 21st, 2010 at 12:42 @570
My guess is he’s the Irish equivalent of Cyril.
September 21st, 2010 at 13:10 @590
It won’t curry favour with your Irish readers, try harder Mr.Curry.
September 21st, 2010 at 15:50 @701
I also wonder how many times the fire brigade has been called out…
September 21st, 2010 at 15:51 @702
Apologies. Le Brigade Fire
September 21st, 2010 at 16:16 @719
Nice try, Bryan !
(Hope Fritz doesn’t mind me calling you Bryan)
In French it would be ‘les pompiers’….could be useful to know if ever your car catches fire in France – it’s not a Honda is it ?
September 21st, 2010 at 17:45 @781
Absolutely no objections to you calling anyone by their first or last names, titles or whatever. However labelling Irish people with names like Seamus is puerile!
September 21st, 2010 at 17:50 @784
I rather pride myself on the fact that every so often DailyDOOH is puerile – it’s rare that our contributors get in on the act though 🙂
September 21st, 2010 at 19:56 @872
As a native of the rock called Ireland I cannot see what the fuss is all about. It’s only a name. And we have more names than Seamus, Paddy, Patrick, there is even Mark. Jeez even the occasional Mick or Mike
September 22nd, 2010 at 17:08 @756
Thanks Mark – I didn’t intend to offend anyone – I thought Seamus was slightly more original than Mick or Paddy!
Speaking of stereotypes, I wonder who’s hiding behind ‘Herr Fritz’ – I wouldn’t think of labelling a German with the name ‘Fritz’ – Jochen, Karl-Heinz or Markus, perhaps…
September 23rd, 2010 at 21:12 @925
Possibly a disaffected Brit called Maik!