Literacy

“The Reader” Give That Man A Bell’s.

Over the weekend I came across a long format commercial for South African whiskey distiller “Bells”. The two videos below show the full length commercial and the behind the scenes documentary that was produced to show the strategic thinking behind the spot. The commercial itself, is a touching and heartwarming look at a man’s growth to literacy.

The product and the tag line don’t even make it into the spot until the last 5 seconds of the 2 minute commercial. It doesn’t matter, this is not a hard sell commercial. It is however extremely effective, having hooked the viewer, and pulled you all the way through the story.If you are a content producer, videographer, story teller, or anyone that works with dynamic media, the second video is well worth watching for the  King James insight about the thinking that went into this piece.

“The Reader” was developed South African agency King James. The team consisted of;

  • Chief Creative Officer Alistair King,
  • Executive Creative Directors Devin Kennedy and Matt Ross,
  • Creative Director Mike Wilson,
  • Art director Cameron Watson,
  • Agency Producer Caz Friedman
  • Bell’s Whisky Brand Manager Thandeka Mgqumeya
  • Marketing Manager Thami Silwana.
  • Director Greg Gray for Velocity Films with Producer Helena Woodfine
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The Ministry of Letters, and the Singing Letters App.

Mother’s recently launched Singing Letters, an iOS application for both the iPhone and iPad designed to bolster a love of literacy in children.The application is a companion piece to the website Ministry of Letters which functions as an educational site helping to teach children to read in a fun and memorable way.

The application consists of an animated signing alphabet, made up of 26 individual male and female characters. The letters are waiting on a stage for the interactivity to begin. When a child touches the letter, it sings its ‘phonetic’ sound. As the child continues to press letters, they build simple words, and create unique tunes that the alphabet preforms.

The application has a fun quality to it with simple animations. There is a quality about it that is guaranteed to draw any child in. Fun, simple, entertaining, and game like this is sure to be a hit. Watch the videos below to get a sense of how the application works, and click through to see what Ministry of Letters is all about.