The utalkmarketing.com site has published the People’s Choice and the Industry Choice of the most favorite ads of the 2007. The People’s Choice is based on a panel of consumers that site has and the Industry based on users of the site.The Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Gorilla Ad was the People’s Choice and the Industry Choice was Vodafone Mobile Internet Raining ad. You can watch these by clicking the links at the end of this posting.
There are some important and striking things about these choices for me:
(1) The consumer and the industry had different choices.
We see this happening a lot in these kinds of awards. I did a post some months ago, which compared choices of the best brands, which also saw a lot of difference between consumers and marketers. Considering marketers and advertisers are supposed to understand consumers this is quite telling and thought provoking.
(2) Both the ads chosen were 90 seconds long and entertaining versus hard sell.
This for me is very significant and I believe a very important factor and aspect to consider. Both of the ads worked on different levels and across different media, where sites like Youtube seem to be rapidly growing in importance as part of a total creative mix, where ads as entertainment and viral content are capturing a segment of consumers’ imagination. Both are designed to entertain and create a “buzz” factor – or at least a talked about factor and with Youtube even if you have not seen it on TV you can seek out what people are talking about. It is also, for me, showing the need for a bigger discussion.
(3) Both work on the basis of better to be seen and remembered once, than ignored 100 times.
One response to media costs and fragmentation has been to reduce spot lengths to get frequency, and I have seen some brands that do that struggle as people do not see them or get engaged enough to build the brand and the message. The other approach is to focus on being seen. The premise being it is better to be seen and noticed once than ignored 1000 times. The Lynx “Billion” TVC (with the 1000s of women running to a guy on a beach using the product) is another great example. This ad was a long spot length, carefully bought and only run a few times. I have seen even in the Beauty Care space that I am in this working and being sued. Proactiv have build a huge business in the States with infomercial long spot lengths and brands like Olay, Aveeno and Clean & Clear have all used successfully 60 and 90 second ads when launching new products and technology to ensure they stand out – and get new complex messages across.
(4) It is all about a clear brief and understanding of what you want to do.
I originally thought the Gorilla TVC was just creative indulgence and not great advertising. Until I saw an article in the paper about what the brief was: to make advertising that was even more famous than the product. To create advertising that was talked about. With that as a brief then all I can say is: well done, job done 100%. It is all about the brief! Note the brief here as it links back to my obsession about making a brief as short as possible so that it can fit on a small post-it note – how short was that brief and how successful the creatives were at cracking it as they had to create their way out of the small box.
What do you think we can conclude or learn from these choices? Leave a comment below!
Cadbury Gorilla TV AD: click to watch ad
Vodafone Mobile Internet Rain TVC: click to watch ad
1 comment:
What are / were the short-term / long-term successes of these ads on the brands? As far as i believe Cadbury's sales increased enough to suggest that the viral was repsonsible for significant short-term gain.
Assuming that the gorilla ads was successful from every point-of-view, then it sends an interesting message to brand-utility people who say that the internet will soon be / should be demanding 'brand utility'. Well the gorilla ad is as anti-utilitarian as you can get. And it has been a phenomenal success in the heart of social networking - in the heart of where 'brand utility' should be taking place. Where is 'brand utility's equivalent, or near-equivalent success?
I think we should be taking 'brand utility' seriously but the success of Cadbury's gorilla reminds me that we shouldn't take advertising too seriously (and what has The Sound of Music and making cakes got to do with an expensive bit of technology such as a Skoda car, for example, and so on).
I liked the other ad too because it was both very relevant and creative - enhancing, i have no doubt, the long-term identity of the brand
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