Welcome back to A Creative Review with James Cooper. Today Coop rocks out to the hashtag heavy ads for this week’s Grammy Awards.

The World is Listening

It’s always tough to follow a really good campaign. The Grammys ‘We’re All Fans’ campaign with Lady GaGa a few years ago was somewhat of a watershed moment. GaGa was at the top of her game, she was the undisputed Queen of Social Media. Kids were uploading stuff on YouTube - genuinely - rather than because a brand told them to. It was a time, and the Grammys nailed that. 

A few years later and we have a hashtag #TheWorldIsListening.

I did a brief search on Twitter and it seems the world is not. Apart from a few retweets from people like Carly Rae Jepsen, no one is using that hashtag. It’s not natural. For starters it’s too long. The best tweets are short. They travel the most. But it’s also confusing. 

Photo credit: marianne237 via instagram

If the Grammys was on radio only, then yeah maybe. I bet they thought about the ‘world is watching’ but then went ‘no, it’s about music’. And then someone said, “How about just #Grammys’ and some smart ass said that would be too boring.

Photo credit: xaviscorner via instagram

But even with a boring hashtag, they still could have done some amazing work - the promo film with Rihanna is pretty cool. In fact, I bet it would have made everyone concentrate on producing better content rather than worrying about a ‘hip’ hashtag. 

By the way, when the band The #Hashtags finally launches, you’ll know that’s the time to pack it all in and go live in the desert. 

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That’s all folks! Want to get involved? Send us shots of the best [or worst] outdoor advertising you’ve seen, and we’ll choose one every week. Just email coop@adstruc.com.