There’s a playful new way to tell a colleague to get with the times. A series of e-cards by Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, launched yesterday at eCardsForTheDigitallyImpaired.com, are aimed squarely at those in the advertising industry that don’t have a digital clue.
The tongue-in-cheek e-cards pair tranquil shots of nature scenery with scathing comments directed at creatives who lack digital know-how. One of the cards, for example, features an image of trees reflected in water and reads “You are unique” in elegant, cursive text. Underneath that, in simpler font, the message continues “Because even Betty White understands Twitter. Just saying.”
The e-cards can be shared by via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. They’re also printable.
Each card features the tagline “Digital. Maybe you should learn how to do that” in the bottom right corner beside the logo for the client – FITC (once called Flash In The Can).
The cards are meant to get more advertising creatives out to FITC conferences, which focus on digital design and technology. (The next Toronto event begins May.) While the worldwide conferences are well attended, less than 5% of attendees are traditional advertising people, said Helen Pak, executive vice-president, co-executive creative director at Saatchi.
“It’s shocking because digital is here and everybody needs to embrace it,” said Pak. “FITC asked us to come up with a way to encourage traditional advertising creatives to attend their conferences, so we thought we’d do it by evoking fear,” she laughed.
“In a fun and enjoyable way,” added fellow EVP and co-executive creative director Brian Sheppard.
The idea for the e-cards was created by Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, FITC’s creative advertising partner. Relish Interactive was the developer.
Rather than go the “easy, knee-jerk reaction” route and do a film follow-up to The Last Advertising Agency on Earth, the successful short film Saatchi made for FITC last year, Sheppard said the team made a conscious decision to do something different.
To help let the ad community know about the e-cards, the Saatchi team tweeted them out to influencers they know and industry sites that feature such initiatives. “Between Twitter and Facebook, it’s amazing how that can light the candle and then it just starts to go,” said Sheppard.
FITC has also been using its own long list of connected supporters to feed out the word about the e-cards, he added.
There’s no expiry date on how long the e-cards will run, said Pak. “If they get passed around a lot, maybe we’ll refresh the cards with even more vicious lines,” she said.
