Pixar Markets Nostalgia
Remember Saturday morning cartoons? Maybe you used to sneak out of bed early on Saturdays, and sit yourself down in front of the TV with a bowl of cereal to watch all your favorites. YouTube can bring those old memories right back, giving you hours of cartoon intros and toy commercials. It’s nostalgia-on-demand, and plenty of viewers partake.
Here’s a good example. Remember Lots’o’Huggin Bear? Big, purple, and bound to be your huggable best friend? If not, here’s an ad to jog your memory:
Do you remember him now? Hopefully not, because if you do, Toy Story 3’s marketing team is a little too good. They put together this ad (and another that was apparently for the Japanese market) and released it to the wild, complete with fake YouTube accounts and descriptions that waxed poetic about a lost childhood toy. And for a few days, it fit in with the crowd of ’80s toy commercials. Then the truth came out, and the views skyrocketed.
The video has a real best-of-both-worlds approach. If you watch it without knowing that it’s a modern day ad for Toy Story 3, it might not have much impact — until you see the TV ads for the film, and recognize the big purple antagonist. So it avoids the problem of advertising to thousands of people who are never actually exposed to your brand. But it also has enough of a twist to get internet viewers interested. It’s a great piece of work.
