Edmonton library’s spot calling all the single ladies
Simon Houpt
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, Apr. 30, 2010 11:38AM EDT
Last updated Monday, May. 31, 2010 7:12AM EDT
We’re library geeks. (In grade school, we spent our lunch hours quizzing friends on the Dewey Decimal System.) But we’ve never thought of the dowdy houses of literary worship as hip, so we’re overjoyed to see the Edmonton Public Library’s re-branding effort. One low-budget YouTube spot features employees boasting of the library’s treasures, but we prefer the TV spots that riff on the library’s new iconography, developed by the city’s Donovan Creative, of five parallel colour bars which represent everything from books on a shelf to keys on a keyboard. In the first of four 15-second spots in the TV campaign, a hip-hop music sting blends into a sample of Beethoven’s Ninth, as the on-screen text reads: “Beyoncé’s Latest. Beethoven’s Greatest,” and then dissolves into the EPL’s proposition: “Endless entertainment. Show-stopping value.” It’s sharp and effective, even though the singer is actually a fake Beyoncé – a Faux-yoncé, if you will. Of course, if all the single ladies actually hung out at the library, we doubt there’d be much need for an ad campaign.
