The Black Hole develops Open & Direct campaign
High street insurer, Open & Direct Insurance has launched a TV advertising campaign, created by The Black Hole.
The 30 second direct response TV ad is a parody of 80’s disco classic ‘It’s Raining Men’ and will be supported by press advertising, planned and bought by TCS Media.
All Open & Direct shop windows were also wrapped in vinyls and POS.
Working alongside SKV Manchester, The Black Hole developed a pre-launch campaign involved Northern Irish Pantomime star May McFettridge and 40 dancers in a ‘flash-mob’ stunt outside Belfast Town Hall, as well as touring the company’s shops in Northern Ireland alongside email and DM activity.
Lynne Cook, head of strategy and planning at The Black Hole, explained: "It’s been a mammoth effort all round and a huge achievement, considering the budget we had to work with. We needed to get into the heads of the Northern Irish people and understand that DRTV ads in Northern Ireland are completely different to that of the mainland. They’re all about the craic, they’re disruptive and we needed to create something that people would be talking about down the pub with affection.”
Karl Stones, creative director at The Black Hole, added: “It’s taken nearly four months to complete; we’ve spent over two weeks rendering the falling CGI coins; re-created an iconic disco track that hadn’t been used in any advertising before – and essentially shot a funny 30sec pop-video that works seriously hard to get the response the client needed.”
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Are they singing- 'it's rainy hash'?
I'd play that to small children to scare them. It's actually quite funny eh.
4 months to complete - 2 weeks rendering coins- someone's definitely been having a laugh.
also,
'we needed to create something that people would be talking about down the pub with affection.”
I think they missed the goal on the affection part - its awful.
Just got back from the pub and it was open an direct insurance this, open and direct insurance that. The place was buzzing with talk of the new campaign. Old retired steel workers talking about how clever it was as a concept and how they feel a deep affection for the brand.
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May McFettridge is an infamous panto icon in Northern Ireland!
Saw her in the Aladin panto last Xmas and everyone in N.I. absolutely LOVE her!!! Hilarious! :)
I couldn't get into the pub, it was totally rammed with people, they were all singing a song praising the open & direct campaign - one bloke outside was saying how he'd be surprised if those CGI coins took any less than a fortnight to render - another fella was saying how he loved that ad even more than his dear ol' mum - there was only one dissenting voice, he said it was the first time he'd seen a 'pop video' with a strange interruptive voiceover bang in the middle of it.
The man you are talking about said to me "he is off home to the shed for two weeks to render some coins to spend in over the bar they looked so real"
Working in a printers or repro house sure makes you bitter, eh?
Can't wait 'til he's got a tricky repro problem, they gonna rush to help him sort it
Black Hole should be Dug a hole
I preferred Rainham Sheds' effort http://www.rainhamsheds.co.uk/
FOUR YEAR OLD BUZZWORD ALERT!
Please note: if you're trying to wring the last dregs out of the "flashmob" then it's a good idea to understand the basic concept. The element of surprise and an interesting location would be a decent start. Youths milling about in a ready made space outside a shopping centre doth not a flashmob make. That's just formation dancing.
Still, "we've spent over two weeks rendering the falling CGI coins" is undoubtedly my quote of the year so far.
tis a peach of an utterance and no mistake.
Have you seen the outtakes at www.open&direct.com? How funny.
Scripted outtakes? Seriously?
'Welcome to Belfast Boys'. Quality. Have you seen the dancing drunk in the flashmob online? You can't script that.
Funny!
You just don't get it.
Can't get this tune out of my head. Where's my vu vu zela?
May looks like a bird I used to go out with
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