Bad ads, and some good ones

Out of the previous blogposts there are a lot of genius works, but of course some bad ones too. I want to take a deeper look at them here and find out why they're so seriuosly good (horrible).

Good ad -


Woolworths, Maria and Stavros

The reason why I like this ad so much is mainly because it is so comprehensive yet creative. Strategy wise, its use of both rational and emotional appeals not only put forward the freshness of Woolworths' products but also generated a generally good image of the brand. What's even cooler is the fact that the ad itself was in another ethnic language (Greek), lifting up that warm and fussy grass root friendliness. As for the audience who couldn't understand the language, the use of an old couple still managed to relate to mostly everyone throughout its association with family, grandparents, and everyday life.

Creative wise, it is a pleasant surprise to see Woolsworths quietly sways itself away from the cliche price-oriented promotions. Instead of telling us what is on sale and trying too hard to persuade us to move our ass to the supermarket, it is actually working on something long-term and more enduring, that is the brand image and personality of the retailer. Another thing to be noted is the humorous and down-to-earth tone used in the ad (especially if you understand Greek). By watching the ad, it makes the consumers immediatly relate themselves, or people around them, to Woolworths, and furthermore develope an intimate and friendly connection with the brand.

Bad ad -

Big House Communications, We Get Them

One word: Creepy. Especially when the ad is coming from a creative communications company, it makes us wonder, if this is how they promote themselves, how are they going to help our company... I mean, we don't want to "trap" our clients like ants or spiders!

Anyway, while the creativity of the campaign is still acknowledged, this ad seems to take the wrong strategy as they did not throughly examine the appropriateness of the ad content. The reason lies in although this is a B2B ad, essentially the heart of marketing and advertising is still based on a people relationship. In this case, target audience has the tendency to feel pressurised and intimidated, because they will relate themselves to the tiny customers that are "trapped" in the ad by the agency.

Moreover, as advertising is all about its effectiveness as a part of the company's marketing activities, I assessed these 2 ads using a research conducted by Jagdish N. Sheth commenting on some theoratical considerations of evaluating advertising effectiveness. In his article, 3 aspects are especally mentioned, namely the strength of impression an ad makes in a customer's mind, the influence an ad plays in consumer's buyer decision making process, and an ad's role in increasing a buyer's consumption of the product / service advertised.

Based on the three considerations, while it is certain that the creativity of these two ads above gave both away in the first column that evaluates impression, we can however see Big House Communications' campaigns appearing to be weaker while it is presented in the audience's decision making process due to the lack of likelihood in its ad association.

However, only thing we can be sure is: while Maria and Stavros may be forgotten soon after woolworths' new commercial comes out, the bad ad is gonna long live in our heart... At least it's made an impression, no?

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Credits:

Big House Communications "We Get Them"
Advertising Agency: Big House Communications, Vancouver, Canada
Associate Creative Director: Michael Bryden
Art Directors: Mike Fiorentino, Michael Bryden
Copywriter: Chris Kostyal
Photographer: Peter Holst
Published: August 2007

References:

Journal of Marketing - A model for predictive measurements of advertising effectiveness


JSTOR - Measurement of Advertising Effectiveness: Some Theoretical Considerations

Jagdish N. ShethJournal of Advertising, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1974), pp. 6-11


Jeff Vincent - Trap Your Little Customers
from his blog How to not get a job in advertising


J.

ads that travel the world - Global Advertising

Credits:
Absolut Vodka ad campaign by TBWA
Best Job In the World campaign by CumminsNitro

details (Best Job In The World)

Type of Entry: Integrated Campaigns
Category: Best Integrated Campaign Led by Direct Marketing
Title: BEST JOB IN THE WORLD
Advertiser/Client: TOURISM QUEENSLAND
Product/Service: ISLANDS OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
Entrant Company: CUMMINSNITRO Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
DM/Advertising Agency: CUMMINSNITRO Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
Creative Credits
Name Company Position
Merrin Mccormick CumminsNitro Copywriter
Ralph Barnett CumminsNitro Art Director
Cristian Staal CumminsNitro Art Director
Darren Mccoll CumminsNitro National Strategy/Planning Director
Anne-Maree Wilson CumminsNitro Account Director
Edwina Gilmour CumminsNitro Account Director
Nancy Hartley CumminsNitro Creative Director
James Burchill CumminsNitro Creative Director
Jason Kibsgaard CumminsNitro Senior Digital Producer
Adam Ford CumminsNitro Account Director
Matt Farrugia CumminsNitro Senior Digital Producer
Horia Traian CumminsNitro Head Of Technology
Glen Peterson CumminsNitro Senior Developers
Anton Ward CumminsNitro Senior Developers

Not-For-Profit advertising: ads that play games with our heart.

myths in B2B advertising

What do you think about B2B advertising? I asked, when most people gave me a look on their face that says "boring."

Well, if we take a look at a traditional B2B advertisement, we won't be surprised to find a few apparent trademarks, i.e. lots of copy points, lots of direct information, and lots of professional jargons, as opposed to the emotion-driven, image-driven B2C ads. These little things in B2B ads seemed to be presented especailly to the trade market, however


(cont.)

the old-time favorite still works! Tipp-Ex's No. 1 viral campaign uses the "write your own adventure" trick

Honestly, this campaign is awesome. I was on it for the whole night and it hasn't run out of things to play with!



Interesting enough, it's said that the Tipp-Ex ad is actually a rip off of this early Burger King viral campaign called Subservient Chicken. Go check it out and judge by yourself.

Burger King Subservien Chicken



Seriously, the Tipp-Ex one is so much more attractive.... no?
After all, bear is still cuter than a human chicken.
tell me what you think.

J.

Direct Response Advertising.... we're too cool for that

First thing that hit me whenever someone talks about a direct response ad was always the annoying telemarketing phone calls, direct mails, clutter advertisements in the papers, and the old-school direct marketing TV programs.

With no positive thought assocated with it, I was thinking whether people in this generation like us... are finally getting over one of the oldest types of advertising, and moving on to something more exciting - like iAd (yay!)

In fact, a forecast from DMA in 2002 also suggested that the growth of direct response advertising spending has hardly been as strong as predicted.

Initial predictions by the DMA suggested marketers would spend $206 billion on direct marketing this year, but the figure is now expected to be closer to $193 billion, up only 3.4% from 2001 and almost 7% below the initial estimate.

However, it seems like the business is not quite dying yet, but the dynamic of it did change a little bit.

Direct Response ads nowadays appear to be created in a even more appealing, tech-savvy, and humourous way. With the invention of the great World Wide Web, now a direct response ad can be considered successful as long as it drives traffics to the desired website, instead of being restricted of its value depending on sealing the deal.



This advertisement for Cash4Gold is a successful example of the contemporary direct response ad.

With its objective solely being driving people to the website, it did create a huge buzz as well as a large amount of website traffics during the time the ad is shown which equals to successful outcome (Over 1 million Internet views! click here for their media release). In fact, this 2009 ad is the first direct response ad during the Super Bowl TV spot, its success lies in the eye-catchy website which shows at the very start and the end of the ad, and the strong impression it leaves for the audience.

Moreover, just like a lot of other advertising categories, the target market of most direct response advertisements nowadays have also moved towards a more specific niche. In other words, advertisers would have more chances and resources to allocate the spending and make the ad more sophisticated. With less money spent, they still manage to achieve a higher success rate.



This print ad is a classic example of the statement stated above. The objective of the ad is to promote attendance at the Client/Server Conference, a seminar designed to teach new high-tech computer methodology. While the advertisement itself is done in a humorous and creative way, we can see it is also targetting not at a large market, but a certain tech-savvy crowd.

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Credits:

Cash4Gold "One Up"

Brand: Cash4Gold

Agency: Euro RSCG Edge
A collaborative creative team created the commercial with Cash4Gold. This team was led by Euro RSCG Edge, and included sister HAVAS Agency Arnold Worldwide and veteran Super Bowl commercial director Bryan Buckley.

Client / Server West Conference and Exposition
ad created by Mollica Design

References:

Advertising Age - DMA forecast: Direct spending for '02 falls short of expectations


Journal of Marketing - Direct Response Marketing: A Comparative Review (by Donald R. Self)

NO MORE PRICE WARS? the new face of retail advertising

When retail icon Wal-Mart finally had its first new slogan that guarantees us better life after the two decades of Always Low Price, we thought too, maybe it's finally time for the retail advertising world to leverage itself from quantity to quality.

Simon Burrett from Retail Times stated that big retailers have started to recognise the power of emotional stimuli, and the trend is growing to be bigger than ever.

retailers are learning to look beyond the rational realm of lower prices, better stores and better locations as motivational stimulus for customers. Instead, they are accepting that emotional factors can also be powerfully motivating...executives of large retail chains are being forced to accept what boutique stores and chains, non-retail marketers and ad agency professionals have known for a long time – that ‘warm and fuzzy stuff’ can drive a commercial result....

In fact, Target is probably the first big Australian retailer who has taken notice of this growing trend. A series of ads it produced after its repositioned marketing objective "100% happy" have all been targetting at consumer's emotional feeling rather than rational thought .

Here's one of my favorite.



the person (ILuvBritneySpears123 ...lol) who posted this ad on YouTube said in the description that this is the only tv ad that she/ he actually like and is HAPPY to watch, proving advertiser's success in achieving its marketing objective.

Besides Wal-Mart and Target, supermarket head Woolworths has also started to emphasise its promotional strategy on the tagline Fresh Food People, after scrapping off the old Safeway name which seemed to restrict the retailer's possibilities of changing.



This is the new 2010 ad. I found it interesting how there is no pricing mentioned in this short TV spot at all, when the major selling point is solely the "freshness" of Woolworths' products, creating a positive vibe for the perspective consumers.

Adage Encyclopedia categorises the marketing message of retail advertising into promotional and institutional. While promtional message carries a specific product and a message (such as price off) alongside with it, institutional message, vice versa, focuses on the image of the retailer itself. Instead of using only a single category, advertisers nowadays usually integrate both sides of the messages, despite an inclination towards institutional.

So, no more price wars? or is it just a temporary peace?
Well as a devoted bargain shopper, let's just hope that it is not so over yet.... :)

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Credits:
Target's "Every Colour You Can Dream Of"

Product: Target Colour 2009

Client: Target

Agency: The Campaign Palace, Melbourne

Production Company: PRODIGY

Director: Dael Oates

Exec Producer: Jonathan Samway

DOP: Peter Eastgate

Animator Designer: Matt Boug

Animators: Lewis Morley & Brian Carlin

Post Production: Animal Logic

Creative Directors: Gerhard Myburgh & Brent Liebenberg

Creative: Jacqui Paterson & Jessica Harold

TV Production: Fiona Gillies

Account Management: Jayne Driver

Woolworths' "Maria and Stavros", I'm still struggling to find the responsible agencyl. Will put it up as soon as it's figured.

References:

Warc - Retail advertising: something special


Retail Times - Emerging trends in retail advertising


Advertising Age - Retail advertising

J.

some works from The Grey that inspire...

So I was flicking through the Grey's website for an agency visit tomorrow, and was utterly amazed by some of its fantastic works...

and as I thought I'd share some here as well, these are some of my favorite works, all developed by the different agencies from the Grey worldwide.












And of course some amazing ones from our proud Australian agency:








yeh, it's 2.47 in the morning now, and I'm off to bed.
Will put some more responsible comments / credits on tomorrow

but for now, bonne nuit, Melbourne.

J.

Chanel No. 5 and the haute couture: the shifting dynamic of brand advertising

Chanel No. 5 Ad (1960's)

Chanel No.5 Ad campaign(2009)

To talk about the evolution of brand advertising dynamic, I always think that the haute couture speaks its best in representing this ever-changing environment because that is a typical world where the name of the brand is more important than what's in it. Simply look at the two Chanal No.5 ads above, we can see how the way a high-end brand (or on a larger scale, most brands) changes its way of advertising in a short period of 50 years:

1. A shift in target market positioning:
From the 1960s tagline "Every woman alive loves Chanel No. 5", to the 2009 campaign that targets more directly at the high social economic consumers, we can see how brands hacve become more and more cautious in selecting the right target market instead of doing those one-fits-all advertising campaigns. Mark Ritson, the author of Why are brand positionings made so complex?, suggests that if positioning are successful, it will ultimately "drive the company's behaviour to such a degree that it will appear in customer research as the things customers notice about that company." That way customers will then be able to identify themselves with the brand's characteristic (which in this case is the celebration of woman individual expression, beauty and luxury), and furthermore develop likelihood for it, if found any connection. Especially in an information age cluttered with marketing messages, if a brand like Chanel isn't able to set itself apart from the generic "all women" brand, it is more than likely that the halo of its glory will finally fade away.

2. The celebration of new media:

As for the media used, when the 1960s ad uses print due to the technology limitation of the time, the advance of the new media allows the 2009 campaign with a whole new range of possibilities. Besides the print ad, there is also a consistant TV commerical and a 2 minute short film developed to be placed in retail and its online promotion. This shows how brand advertisers in the digital age has the advantage to utilise more than one kind of media, maximising the marketing effectiveness.

2009 Chanel No 5: train de nuit

Another interesting thing I've noticed is the shifting of female role in advertising through this 50 years.

Although Chanel has always been a brand that celebrates female independency, we can still see the 60's ad basing its idea of 'attractiveness' on the appreciation of the male gender towards female. Females are positioned as an object, and by seeing the model in the print ad looking straight at the audience we can tell that she's aware of the gaze of appreciation, or even enjoying the attention. In other words, the consumer insight established by the advertiser would probably be as simple and shallow as: "all women who feel attractive when guys flock towards them." On the other hand, when the social dynamic of female gender continuously grow stronger and more independent, today brand advertisers tend to target female's independent success. The perception of beauty shifts from being appreciated by the opposite sex to self-appreciation, as portrayed in the 09 campaign. Also the model in the ad no longer cautiously stares at the audience. Instead, she seems to be enjoying her own presence regardless of others' opinions.



References:

Ritson, M. (2004). Why are brand positionings made so complex?. Marketing (00253650), 21. Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.



Tom Denari from Advertising Age
Has Your Advertising Become a Vuvuzela Blowing in the Night?



Credits:
Both advertising campaigns are created in-house. However the 2009 video campaign is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of Amélie. (Audrey Tautou also starred as the main character in the movie.)

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by the way, this is the second time where Chanel has played with the cinematic idea in conjunction with its famous No. 5 fragrance. The first campaign was released in 2004, with actress Nicole Kidman and Rodrigo Santoro in a Baz Luhrmann-directed/Mandy Walker-filmed multi-million dollar commercial entitled No. 5 The Film

2004 Chanel No 5: the film

J.

controversial advertising - has PETA gone too far?

PETA always has its reputation in its controversial advertising campaigns that feature nude or semi-nude celebrities and shockingly abused women images in order to educate the public about animal rights.

Some famous campaigns include its "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" print ad series

(source: PETA media centre)

and the recent sexy Vegetarian Superbowl TVC that is undoubtedly banned...



The objective of all these rather controversial advertisements are clear in its own way (regardless of how they're ACTUALLY percieved by the public on a larger scale), that is to protect animal rights, catching audience's attention on the issue which PETA cares about, for example fur wearing and carnivorism alike. And as cliche as the purpose can be, PETA chose to deliver their message in the most outrageous way, with its bold and graphic execution throughout female nudity and abusive scenes (either in print, broadcast, or experience) appealing to the (male) audience's eyes.

hmmm, thoughts?

I mean, I get it. Sex sells. And PETA surely well-understand the power of female bodies. In fact, we all have to admit that PETA has a rather strong marketing ability as they really know the golden rule of engaging different types of audience differently. Simply check this out: Other than the mainstream PETA website, there are also PETA2 which targets young adults, PETA kids for children and PETA prime for the old folks. And they do raise more than a few eyebrows everytime they have something new coming out.

However as a critical thinker, there are still a few issues that I identify with amongst these outrageous PETA campaigns. and the main concern lies in the ratio of respect given to women verses animals.

We've seen quite a bit of commentators online having the same concern. According to homepage DAILY, an online student newspaper, "these ads get your attention but they only do so because of the sexualization and not the message. Showing someone a bare ass and a nice set of breasts does not make them into a vegetarian. PETA has increasingly shown no conscience when it comes to respect for women, or the roles that they place us in."


(Source: Pitch News)


(Source: NowPublic)

The way that PETA utilises female nudity to get attention has the tendency of degrading women's identity and making them a passive sex object or even worse. However my question to them would be, in a marketing communication perspective, if their target audience is the entire human world, then would this kind of advertising - despite its effectiveness - be suitable for all ages in the first place?

Some may argue that as PETA targets their market so carefully, there must be some ads suitable for your young kids at home.

Ironically, according to The Ten Most Controvesial Ads of 2007 reported by Stephen Whiteside, PETA's "Feeding kids meat is child abuse" ad, though not upheld, had recieved 68 complaints from the consumers by ASA as being offensive, misleading and irresponsible.


(Source: WARC - The Ten Most Controvesial Ads of 2007)


And now it has just become harder for PETA to counter all the criticisms flooding toward its politically-incorrect advertising method. Well, way to go for them.

Here's another interesting article I've found that says something about PETA's advertising stunt, have a read.

Eco Salon - When Good Causes Go Wrong: 7 Utterly Outrageous PETA Stunts


Also, here's some anti-PETA ads consumer-generated content, just for a laugh.






And finally, to balance off the angle of the article, PETA's response to the numerous criticisms toward its disgrading of females beings is that they do not base the ad campaigns on sexism but simply on what that catches the attention of the audience.
Alongside with it I have another article for you, this time written by PETA in reponse to the rejection of NBC to its sexy SuperBowl ad, which was shown previously in the post.

NBC's Sexually-Explicit Super Bowl Ad Rejection Makes Us Blush

Ha! Good call, PETA.
it seems like the war between the wild and the civilised is still on...


J.

a fresh start

so I started this blog because of my university subject- as a part of my advertising management folio. Therefore I'm not foreseeing it to be entertaining... However as nerdy as it may sound, I'm actually pretty excited to see this happening as I've always had an interest in advertising, as well as rambling about my thoughts.

Anywho, to start this off, as this blog is going to be all about advertising - the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between - Here's one of my recent favorite: A series of TVC of the new Sony Bravia TV.

New Sony commercial for the latest range of BRAVIA TVs - Superstar

New Sony commercial for the latest range of BRAVIA TVs - Rockstar

Well, surely Sony is a master in stirring up its customer's heart.
This is a successful series where emotional and rational appeals in advertising are effectively used.
The two ads, while showing off BRAVIA's superb ability as an internet TV, they've also left an unforgettable impression in the audience's mind by reminding every adult their once-had childhood dream.

Reliving the moments hey? Who doesn't like being given another chance to dream again?

I shall rant no more.


More discussion on this ad please see:
The Inspiration Room-Sony Bravia Superstar and Rockstar

Credits (source: The Inspiration Room)

The Superstar and Rockstar ads were developed at Anomaly, London, by creative director Mike Byrne,

Filming was shot by director Frank Budgen via Gorgeous Enterprises with producer Rupert Smythe, director of photography Ben Seresin.

Post production was done at Framestore, London. Editor was Paul Watts at The Quarry.

Music was recorded and mixed at Grand Central Studios, London. Music for Superstar is ‘Simple World’, by Jonathan Elias, Elias Arts.

J.