Posts tagged ‘ad’
lovely ad, but will it do the job?
CSL sofas have just launched a new campaign by TBWA:
It’s beautifully shot, stands out in the category and will certainly do something for CSL’s awareness, but…
I’ve done quite a lot of work in the furniture retail sector over the last few years and I know how hard brands have to work to get their store onto a sofa shopper’s ‘to visit in person’ list. So I’m not sure that this campaign (at least in the initial execution) says enough about why you should visit CSL in preference to any of the other three lettered sofa retailers that fill up retail parks.
Lovely ad, I’m just not sure how effective it’ll be.
damn you, shoddy spontaneous awareness
(title nicked from a tweet on the subject from @sweenagekicks )
Nice outdoor ad, right? The problem is that when I’d driven past it a few times and sat down to blog about it, I realised that I wasn’t sure which car brand it was actually for…it felt like it should be Jaguar, but nothing popped up on google or creativeclub so I had to ask twitter. Who also didn’t know. In the end it was bugging me so much I was about to drive ten minutes out of my way to check it out and get a photo when @johnallenuk found it on the Audi website.
I’m actually target market for this ad – my Dad is car hunting at the moment to replace his BMW and as my family’s designated Queen of the Internet I’m in charge of desk research. But to be honest I’m a bit fuzzy (due to disinterest) about anything technical that’s engine related and am more interested in what this means in terms of how it compares to a 3ltr Beemer for speed, power and mpg. I think in this case Audi mean fast (but thirsty) when you need it and slower (but more economical) when you don’t, but I haven’t watched enough Top Gear to be sure.
And anyway, if it wasn’t for John, I’d be sending my Dad off to the Jaguar dealership to find out.
Chanel No 5′s Brad Pitt ad – doing a job or simply a dud?
There’s been quite a bit of high profile negative feedback about the new Chanel No5 ad fronted by Brad Pitt. Like here, here and here.
The one above is the second ad from the campaign – the first one below (despite probably costing millions to make) has more than a whiff of mood-film-shot-in-an-agency-meeting-room-for-tuppence about it:
All this negative feedback has got a point – he’s (as ITIABTWC puts it) texting in his performance and the script makes no sense whatsoever.
screen grabbed from Conan (via steakandcheese on ITIABTWC)
On the other hand, a friend pointed out on facebook that at least Chanel’s use of Mr Pitt acknowledges that more women are buying perfume for themselves (although in 2010 Mintel was clear that women were still more likely to receive fragrance as a gift than to buy it for themselves). Perhaps it’s simply that women are nowadays more likely to specify exactly which perfume they’d like to receive as a gift, rather than settle for whatever their husband/boyfriend/lover happened to like the packaging of at the duty free shop.
If Brad had a script that talked about what makes women strong, beautiful and intriguing (and actually put some effort into delivering it) then I think Channel could have had an ad that placed No5 on women’s not-very-subtle-hint Christmas lists. As it is, it’s no better than wrapping paper.
PS it turns out a bloke who writes for GQ came up with the script. Whether this could be viewed as a genius or idiot move depends entirely on who you think buys the blumin stuff in the end.
Land Rover ad evoques past triumphs
I’ve been wanting to post this for ages, but the only version I’d seen before today’s Sunday Times Magazine ad was a 48 sheet on a dual carriageway roundabout which would have made photo taking a bit hairy.
It nicely shifts the Evoque away from the rather chavtastic TOWIE niche it currently seems to be occupying (I actually saw an Evoque in Barbie pink the other day…), towards something a bit more refined, focusing on design and engineering.
And I’m sure it’s no accident that there’s also an implication that the Evoque will be every bit as durable as the old Defender – round my way (half my friends are vets and/or horse owners) new Land Rovers and Range Rovers have a terrible reputation for reliability…
M&S Summer ad hits the spot
I rather like the new M&S Summer ad. It’s an excellent way of a) subtly muscling in on the Olympic action without being a sponsor, b) hedging their bets as to which big event of this Summer (the Jubilee, Olympics or Euro 2012) will provide the most retail uplift and c) allowing RKCR/Y&R to edit the full 90 second ad down to provide event specific executions.
It’s also a kind of Greatest Hits, featuring most of the big names who have fronted ads for them in the last few years, including Twiggy, Dannii Minogue, Myleen Klass, Lisa Snowdon, Gary Barlow, Jamie Redknapp and Noemie Lenoir (the one who looks depressingly good in her underwear).
Breaking an ad that has Gary Barlow singing ‘sun, sun, sun, here it comes’ is however a tad unfortunate timing-wise, given that it seems to have snowed across half of the UK overnight …
M&S and X Factor – which brand are they actually promoting?
So, I said I’d deal with the M&S X Factor Finalists Christmas Commercial in a separate post.
Now obviously, this is part of a much wider M&S / X Factor tie up that includes sponsored airtime competitions, behind the scenes films and so on.
I assume the brief was about repositioning M&S for a wider, younger audience, but with a touch of festive fuzziness thrown in.
God knows how much they’re spending on re-edits as finalists drop in and out of the competition like yo yos and heaven help the poor agency account managers if Clearcast have insisted on re-approving each version.
The behind-the-scenes film looks they filmed all the original finalists – including the four who were dropped prior to the public voting. Which ended up being rather handy when Amelia Lilly came back in following the Frankie Cocozza drugs malarkey. In fact, a cynical type might suggest that having an extra four ‘maybes’ known to the public but not in the final was designed to deal with just this kind of commercial problem.
exhibit A: the origional ad (I think):
exhibit B: the latest version (we’re due another one about now):
I did a side-by-side comparison and all the edit changes currently happen between 30 and 45 secs. It’s a cunning plan – put the good acts likely to stick around at the beginning and end and the ones likey to get voted off in the middle to simplify editing.
Anyway, is the ad actually any good? IMHO, not particularly. It doesn’t have enough warn and fuzzy family stuff to jerk the heartstrings a la John Lewis and the X Factor lot aren’t big enough yet (singly or together) to endorse as huge a brand as M&S. So it ends up as more of an ad for the TV show than the retailer.
I wonder if this December’s trading (and viewing) figures will bear me out?
xmas ads – Christmas Crackers and Festive Flops
There are some great Christmas ads already airing…and some not so great ones too.
Boots has continued the Here Come the Girls theme with a crack team of women getting Christmas sorted while everyone else is asleep. It’s engaging, funny, on brand and totally relatable. It also stands up to repeated viewing, which is a good job since it has been on air for several weeks already:
John Lewis has done it again with their ‘thoughtful kid’ ad, that judging by twitter seems to have reduced most Mums to tears on first viewing. I’m not sure how this one will stand up to weeks of airing though:
Waitrose’s School of Christmas Magic is great too – another double hander from Delia and Heston but interestingly focusing on semi-scratch solutions to Christmas catering:
There are, however, a few less impressive festive ads out there as well.
Argos use blue aliens to demonstrate why you should avoid stressmas shopping and ‘check and reserve online’ all your gifts and then pop down to Argos to pick them up. I’m not sure that slagging off high street shopping then suggesting you would be better off doing all your shopping by reserving online then shelpping down to the Argos store to pick it all up is actually a winning strategy:
I found the Argos ‘making of’ ad on youtube (why do so many brands feel the need to add a Making Of ad as if they’ve just made a major movie, complete with director, cast and client interviews?) and the client talks of how the campaign is brave, bold, arresting and “really bringing to life the dichotomy of the high street at Christmas”. I think you might be overthinking it a bit love – and that’s coming from a Planner…
I posted about the Littlewoods Christmas ad the other week (it seems to be to be rather heavily inspired by a scene in Love Actually), but even after having viewed the ad several times and written about it, talking to an agency bod this week I merrily misattributed the ad to Argos, which doesn’t say much for its memorability. I’m also not sure in Austerity Britain that ‘make your family happy by buying them lots of stuff’ is the way to go:
So some Christmas Crackers and a few Festive Flops. Let’s see what the next four weeks brings.
PS I know I haven’t mentioned the M&S X Factor ad, but I think it deserves a whole post to itself…
is the Range Rover Evoque a designer handbag?
I was wondering round Leeds the other week when I saw the new baby Range Rover Evoque on display in the middle of an upmarket shopping arcade.
Of course I had a nosey – I’m always on the lookout for my motoring holy grail, an automatic that’s good on the motorway, is small enough to park easily and can get down a 1in3 snow covered track in one piece.
Unfortunately, it also has to come in under budget, which I quickly realised ruled out the Evoque. It’s still on my list should my premium bonds come up next month, but it nearly lost it’s place when I saw this:
So it would seem Range Rover are not going after a target market like me. More like footballers wives, Essex girls and drug dealers. It suddenly feels like owning one of these cars would be like owning a particularly garish designer handbag.
Oh well, in my more affluent fantasy life I suppose I could always get it debadged…
What’s going on with sausage food styling?
I seem to keep seeing rather a lot of ads focusing on the humble British sausage.
But what surprises me about them all is that the food stylist / art director / director / client chose to illustrate the all-round awesomeness of the sausage with a plate of grilled sausages, mash and peas (or sausage, chips, peas and carrots in the case of Walls).
I don’t know about you, but sausage & boiled vegetables say ‘school dinners’ to me, not ‘reliable and tasty meal option’. Where’s the gravy? The Full English Breakfast? The Toad-in-the-Hole (explanation for overseas readers here)? The sausage casserole?
I’ve never actually seen a real, live person tucking into sausage, mash and peas on their own (minus gravy) with gusto. It doesn’t feel like the benchmark for perfect sausages, so I’m wondering why they keep using it?
what happens when designers and printers don’t talk to each other
I was at spectating at Bramham Horse Trials last weekend and in the official programme I found a classic example of what happens when designers and printers don’t talk to each other.
This is the map of the cross country course:
No less than eight of the jump locations were hidden in the binding. I’d already broken the spine for a better view before I took this shot at home, it was actually even worse when I first opened it.
Surely someone should have wondered whether putting vital bits of the course in the middle of the map (and hence hidden from view) was such a good idea?
On the upside, the programme also threw up this rather lovely ad for Land Rover that anyone who has spent time with dogs and horses will appreciate:
It’s exactly what my horse would do, given half a chance :) Weeeee!
