Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Here's a novel idea.
It is an emanation devoutly to be wished that somebody smarter than I, or more famous than I, or smarter about getting himself PR than I, will Christen the era I believe we're about to enter "The Back to Basics Era."
We have for so long sold sizzle instead of hormone-enhanced steak. We have for so long judged people according to the size of their bank accounts or the decibel level of their bluster. We have for so long prized bombast over logic.
"A url in the spot will ruin it."
"That's too 'selly.'"
"It's not subtle enough."
Right now in the ad industry, there is (I am speaking broadly here) a lacuna between work that wins awards and work that drives revenue and builds brands. Salient product features, permissions to believe, unique selling propositions are, at least to awards show judges and the agencies that kowtow to those judges, passe. No one seems to care that a Bud ad could be Miller ad, the fucking horse ones notwithstanding.
My guess is that the commercial here will win all sorts of awards. It will earn its creators all sorts of plaudits and they will get fat new titles, fat new jobs and maybe skinny new wives. But this spot could be about any product. There is no innate-ness in it. Therefore, it sucks. Eyebrows my arse.
My idea here is simple, and something I stole from an agency I worked at twenty years ago, "Impart useful consumer information in an executionally brilliant way." That is communication. Most of what we see is communturbation.
Look at the two spots embedded here. Which works? Which is about the brand? Taking out age-bias, which would get you a job today?
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5 comments:
Amen, Amen, Amen. If I hear one more time how consumers "just want to be entertained", I'll eat a Cannes Lion (if I can get my hands on someone's). Sure, people laugh and talk about the spots and email them to everyone--but the product is an add on. A little blip at the end of the big joke. If anyone even remembers who the dang spots were for in the first place, they're still not going to have a single reason to buy that product over another. I don't know of anyone thinking "gee, their commercial was funny, so I guess I'll buy this brand instead off that one."
How did things get so mixed up?
Some British ad guru once said "We don't sell, we make people buy". Maybe the dancing eyebrows will make people buy chocolate? However, what impresses me is that a client actually bought it. How do you actually make a client buy such work?
To answer Tore's question, "How do you actually make a client buy such work?";
It's simple. You get them to first buy a spot of a guy in a gorilla suit playing the drums to Phil Collin's "In The Air Tonight."
Of course I have no idea how you actually make a client buy that spot?
Dairy Milk's main rival product is Galaxy. Dairy Milk made the Gorilla, Airport Trucks and now this ad with the children, which won awards and were 'brilliant'
Galaxy advertises in women's magazines and female TV shows, with stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3oh0pCGtE
And, oh look...
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/847895/Dairy-Milk-lags-market-Galaxy-steals-share/
But it surely can't as simple as one ad makes you think "I like Galaxy" and the other makes you think "I like that advert" can it?
You know, when I'm craving a chocolate bar I don't usually have visions of twiddling eyebrows or drumming gorillas.
And to boot: Whenever I head to Ireland on vacation, half the girls in the office hand me cash to pick them up... not a "real" Cadbury...but a fistful of Galaxies. They love the gorilla ad, but crave something altogether different.
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