#venablesbell

Hands are vital to touch, and 740 is vital to, you guessed it, sound. In this ad for Reebok’s #BeMoreHuman campaign, 740Sound gets hands on with Venables Bell & Partners on Adweek’s #AdOfTheDay. 

This Campaign Doesn’t Suck.

Now that the holiday season is long over I thought I'd take a second to give credit to a fantastic REI campaign created by San Francisco based agency Venables Bell & Partners.

If you don't care about my opinion and just want to see the campaign, click here.

No doubt about it, standing out as a brand on Black Friday is damn near impossible. To me, this year only REI did. Many successful campaigns rely on a time-tested strategy used here: see what everyone else is doing, do the opposite and do it well.

It's no secret that more and more companies force their employees to drag their tired, turkey filled bodies into work for Black Friday. It's also no secret that this tactic doesn't sit well with a lot of people (unless they need to buy last minute gifts). So REI, an outdoor supply company, decided to close up shop, pay their employees anyway and encourage everyone to abandon the shopping mall for the great outdoors. While the Walmarts and Macys of the world were pushing expanded hours and clearance prices, REI was encouraging people to go hiking and get some fresh air. Even as someone living in a city that hasn't experienced fresh air since the 1950s, I found that appealing and refreshing - I even remembered it.

Of course the image of REI's CEO on a picturesque mountaintop didn't hurt either.