This week on the main terrestrial commercial TV channel in the UK (ITV 1), they had a program that counted down the twenty most loved ads from the “noughties” (the last decade)based on over 8000 TV viewers from a list put together by the stationThe top 5 were in ascending order:
5) Cadbury “Gorilla”
4) Honda “COG”
3) Compare the market “Meerkat”
2) Skoda “Cake”
1) Hovis “Boy through time”
What was a little bit scary for me is that as a marketer I think pretty much of all them are terrible ads, and wondered if that is where it all goes wrong! In fact some I think are almost dumb and perplexing, and I am fairly sure would not have made it past the 1st presentation. Also I am still not sure as a consumer that they would have had much affect on me. So I started to ponder that, this and the meaning overall and here are the 4 things that I took from it all:
1. UK consumers love ads that entertain. They love the indirect sell, the clever and the quirky. And they really like humour. Though when they mde their final choice it was nostalgia that wins through. Especially in the uncertain times, it was interesting to see the very clever and thought provoking ad from Hovis bread was the number one.
2. They all are quite long, up to 2 minutes for the full Hovis ad. Does length mater after all? They are big, memorable and would seem small in short ad lengths.
2. We have no idea if they loved the ads and acted on them. For an ad that does not sell or change perception and sell is not worth it all. Personally, the one ad that did make me change was the Compare the Market ad, which is just about brand recognition and recall so when it was time for new car insurance their name popped straight into my mind. There are reports that Cadbury sold more chocolate after the Gorilla ad, and the huge PR and talking point it created. So maybe there it was more the buzz and the top of mind again that worked.
3. We have no idea what the brief was and if they met it. If the brief was “get my brand talked about” then 4 of the 5 on this list interesting did and a lot. There were written about, discussed and covered in all sort of media. But did it deliver the brief.
4. It would have been a dull show if the ads that sold lots of products only were in here, as suspect it would have been a drier and more message driven show. Nearly as dull as many of the breaks these days.................
Scary as most with marketer hat on I despaired of at the time as felt they were more production than selling
WATCH THE TOP 2 ADS
SKODA CAKE: click here to watch on YouTube
No comments:
Post a Comment