I like this ad, but then it's hard not to: friendly music, beautiful people, dramatic landscape, emotive subject, touch of humour yada yada yada. Oh, and it's made in Argentina, so there's that Latin sense of flair we can allude to should we want to wallow in the backstory.
I found out about it from this site. They send me an email each week and occasionally I deign to take a peek at their proffering. And the reason I don't usually bother is the reason for this blog entry.
See, I reckon it's piss easy to make ads about chewing gum. You've got thousands of metaphors in the bank to draw on; you've got the obvious 'mouth' imagery to resort to; buying a stick of it isn't going to bankrupt you, and to the best of my knowledge, there are very few chewie manufacturers involved in sub-Saharan oil deals, military coups, drug denial, or who test their products on fluffy white bunnies.
Oh, hang on, maybe I'm being a bit unfair. Because someone in the last couple of years did make a chewing gum ad that courted controversy - remember the one about the Afro chap with a loud-haler? Apparently there were complaints to the ASA because he was being a bit racially stereotypical or somesuch nonsense. (I would link to the ad here but I can't remember the brand name, and YouTube don't seem to think that the search terms 'chewing gum ad afro loud-haler' are specific enough to conjure it up.)
Anyway, back to the point in question. The job of advertising can be described in as many ways as there are marketers alive, but the definition I'm going to use today is along the lines of: dramatising a brand's particular feature in a way that increases its audience's propensity to, at some stage, buy it.
So, well done, Topline, you've suggested that if you chew this gum it will make you so kissable that heaven and earth won't be able to pry you from your lover. And we've kind of enjoyed seeing this happen because it appeals to lots of emotions and senses - and that's why you've been awarded an average of 4.73 out of 5 by the voting public.
That, by the way, is a very high score.
Try achieving that with an ad about flu. Or cheap insurance (with the notable Meerkat exception). Or, in my case, ads about weird and wonderful diseases and drugs (usually ridden with side-effects, and costing a billion times more than a stick of chewing gum).
My point is that when you ask the public whether they like an ad, or reckon it's any 'good', they'll almost always go with the ads that involve humour, sex, big images, romance, aspirational and beautiful couple and so on. So if the product feature that you're dramatising is a 'nice taste' or 'fresher breath' then you've got a lot of potential stories and metaphors at your creative fingertips.
I doubt very much whether Top 5 Ad Forum will ever include a press ad about cures for pig diahorrea, growth hormone injections or replacement hips.
All subject matters are not created equal.
A challenge for us in the pharma marketing industry, maybe, but also an indictment on the easy job that 'Top 5' has.
And that's why I don't bother visiting the site that much: it's all pretty predictable.
3 comments:
The meerkat example is a telling one though, don't you think?
You can make a creative ad about the flu. If the will is there, it can be done. Convention is the only things stopping it. And maybe reason.
But your point is a true one. And one with which I am painfully familiar.
Ah but let's be honest. You could get a job making 'easy' ads at the drop of a hat if you chose to. And you'd be bored of it within 5 minutes.
Yup - the Meerkat one keeps nagging away at me too.
Let's face it, we like it because it's got nothing to do with insurance!
And it's a brave client who will approve a brief that goes along the lines of 'let's come up with something that's catchy AND, unusually, likable rather than annoying.' (Oh, and can make clever use of social media and have longevity).
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