Superbowl Adverts 2012 – My personal favourites

So I’ve checked out all the Superbowl ads.

The favourite for me is Suzuki. It doesn’t tell me much about the car (what I got was good for all weather conditions and an upgrade people will know about), but the execution is cute, clever and relatable (“I traded it in”). Therefore I love Suzuki that little bit more and am actually a little curious to what this car delivers. A true Superbowl advert there to entertain and lightly inform. Also I love Huskies and these are more like wolves…which I love more.

 

 

Worst ad by far was the TaxAct advert. What the hell? This has nothing to do with tax and at the end they have poorly tried to tie the message and service together, which is so noticeable to anyone, let alone professionals. Fair enough, it’s a service, not a physical product, but this is NO excuse to give such little thought into what can represent your message. Also the art direction is terrible. The scenarios are weak, unentertaining and too ‘familiar’ to keep you drawn. This is such a waste and I’m so so angry at them!

 

 

1st runner up is Chevrolet’s Happy Grad. Very entertaining for me and stays strong until the very end. The personalities and emotions of the characters are portrayed very well to enable the ‘over the top’ execution to be accepted. Everyone loves this type of scenario, you can’t go wrong!

 

 

2nd runner up is Bridgestone tyres. This series of advert gives a lot of information about the products yet manages to do it in a captivating form. The dry humour of the interview style also gives it a little seperation from other Superbowl ads.

 

 

3rd runner up is the Budweiser ‘Wego’ dog. What guy doesn’t love a dog that fetches you beer? Little cheeky spot of women targeting too. It doesn’t really have much of a strategy behind except brand awareness but is anyone complaining really? Also at the end it has a URL to help rescue dogs. A giving brand it seems!

 

 

I’m just babbling really and am being hypocritical. These are my first impressions of the adverts but that is how I am keeping it because afterall everybody is bombarded by 50 odd adverts! However Coke’s idea of putting the polar bears in our situation needs bigging up, and the speed dating baby is pretty memorable.

Also the strategy behind the Samsung note advert is really really simple yet unbelievably effective. It speaks the truth that nobody dares speak to such a wide audience about such a loved brand (and I’m the owner of an iPhone and Macbook Pro…)

Basically I love the Superbowl.

 

Before I leave, I’ve just read an article on the ads and poor pepsi is being slated for their unoriginal advert? It’s not unoriginal because it’s going for the ‘obvious’. It is executed very well and gives the viewers good old fashioned rivalry. Surely any second place brand that gets the upper hand on their first place competitor would be accepted, entertaining and not slated for being ‘unoriginal’? Jeeez!

Advertisement

“Without a creative strategy…

…your print advertising would just be expensive wallpaper” Think, then do – England agency, Leeds. 

Sack the Intern?

Well, the image says it all. How on earth can you use such a controversial phrase and not expect to get backlash from some 65,000 followers. A serious lesson is learned here. Brush up on the grammar too, please?

I believe this is a firm lesson learned, but you can’t call it  ‘just a careless mistake’. Every tweet must be carefully reviewed before posting. People aren’t all her age and do not review things the way she does. An intern in the industry of social media, PR, PA or Politics should know this as a number one rule. Sorry. I’m all for interns (as I am one) but she needs some serious disciplinary action, possibly one which gives her a push into another career direction…

@ChloeJHarvey

British Red Cross simplicity

This is a great example of planning and creativity all rolled into one neat trick.

So, imagine you’re walking to work from the Tube, and you get a charity pot shaken in your path. Do you stop? The majority of people would say no, and half of the time it’s purely down to ‘laziness’ of changing what your routine usually consists of. I’m sure we are all glad to get rid of the coppers weighing down our pockets and bulking up our wallets. However the amount of time it takes for you to deliberate whether you are going to stop/have time to stop usually takes up the amount of time that you use to walk past the collector, thus it being far too much effort to stop, walk back and give change, rather than to just completely forget about the opportunity to donate and carry on with your routine.

The latter is much much easier, and we all do it in many different situations. How many times have you not done something because it isn’t needed of you, but once it is, its a 2 second job and you always promise yourself to do things like that more often…

Correct me if I’m wrong, please!

Here is the tray (click to see it larger):

It's as simple as this...

This is where the genius of this collection tray comes in. People have to take the change from their pockets and empty it into the tray. People HAVE to do this. This is number one eliminated.

Secondly, people then have to take their change back from the tray, which goes hand in hand with the  ‘people not wanting to waste time’ element. I would say quite a few people will be in a rush, and the task of scooping out their loose change is probably not worth the money that they put in there in the first place.

The other cheeky little aspect that I like is the guilt element that people will feel. Who would take back the money they have just donated from a charity box? This tray acts in a similar way and creates a strong guilt element that again is probably stronger than the element of leaving behind change they handed to the tray.

Also, the situation of being in an airport probably helps more than people think. People who are in airports, especially those on business, seem to conform to an expectation (or at least one that I feel when I am in airports) of rushing about, being important and not caring about spending money. Therefore, why would they want to break an expectation like this by picking up their change? Leaving the change behind, showing off your disposable income and what a big kind heart you have is definitely something you wouldn’t mind the queue behind you noticing…

No doubt all of these things and more would have been discovered through masses of research and ‘creatively’ creating solutions (rather than my assumptions) when planning how to increase donations to the red cross. This, ladies and gentlemen (whichever you prefer), is why I love planning!

 

Twitter – @ChloeJHarvey

My motivational (and slightly egotistical) speech

So, I answer the office door and bring in a Parcel (a bloody heavy one at that). Then, I say hi to my colleague Brian, where he continues the conversation (being the very friendly chap he is) onto how I’m enjoying my time at DNA. This chat turned into some epic motivational conversation about how I should aim for the top agencies I want to work within. A couple of minutes in and another colleague joins in the talk. This guy has contacts within AMV BBDO. I think the sounds I made when he mentioned it were a little disturbing but MY GOD. Also I blogged about Brian a couple of weeks ago about the agencies he has worked within, but yeah, he’s prettyyyy impressive too!

So. I’ve got this huge motivational mindset at the moment that I must share!

I can do it. I genuinely can do it. I have a mindset that I believe a lot of people do not have. The way I think seems to stretch what people around me think. I’d love to see how they feel about what I say, but I genuinely feel I add things that wouldn’t be discovered if I weren’t part of it. I’m not arrogant either, incase you were wondering after that!

The sad thing is at University, my grades do not reflect the passion, dedications and brain I have for planning. It’s quite nice to see my grades within planning units are significantly higher than others, but this isn’t good enough to be noticed for interviews. I need something other than grades to let people know I can actually do this.

SO this brings me to my point. I WILL get into agencies I want to get into. They just need to see me work. They need to see my personality and dedication to discovering insights that would have never been discovered without me, or propositions that would have never been developed without my help! (Note the exclamation mark there. I definitely mean business here).

I will be drafting a letter to send out. I have my little black book. Things will get started from here. No more nice Chloe.

My last year at University will give me the chance to develop the knowledge I have learned these past 3 years, work with some very special clients and thrive under pressure. I will blossom from an advertising student to a planner and will finally be released into the hungry world!

Seriously, watch this space. If you would like to offer this clearly dedicated student a placement in an agency or client position, please let me know via Twitter. Or if you just want a chat! @ChloeJHarvey

Carling – Please be relative again!

So, this post was originally for the rants revolving around my thoughts on the new Carling advert. However, I have just taken another look at it to refresh my memory and it seems to have grown on me, but I guarantee once I start ranting, I will revert to stage one.

I will let you know firstly why I didn’t feel much for the advert to start with.

Carling for me, is a brand based on humour and male friendship, especially with their strapline of ‘belong’. Their adverts were liked, clever, creative and extremely relative to their target audience. Not only that, but I believe it gave the audience the opportunity to feel good about themselves, because in reality you would do the things (proposed in the ads) for your best pals but it’s not something you usually think about!

Perhaps the campaign/brand was becoming a little old and too familiar, but a brand refresh doesn’t mean taking away the most important values of the brand and creating new ones to replace it.

The art direction of the advert is really well done, which is probably why it’s grown on me since I last watched it. I guess I’ve come to accept it a little more. To me, it is too similar to (and poorly comparable too) the iconic powerful guinness adverts, along with other metaphorical fancy drink brands that decide to send people flying through the air or trap people in bubbles.

I do understand the brand is heading towards the ‘look at us we do actually taste great’ due to the ‘Brilliantly refreshing’ strap-line, which is fine, and to be honest, hardcore research and planning will probably blow my theory out of the water (I hope!) in that sales will rise due to the brand reposition and new campaign. However, this is just a moan about how a campaign I loved has been replaced with a fancy beer advert that just doesn’t do enough for me I’m afraid! Also, as a last point, I haven’t seen any other media related to this change? No internet banners, no print ads, no competitions. Uh oh.

Are we too stressed?

From: HumanResourcesMBA.org

Advertising and society – Harvey Nichols

This is quite a random post from one thought I’ve had, so bare with me!

Everyone (at least my age) is talking about the new Harvey Nichols Christmas advert. If you haven’t seen it, here it is.

So, is it controversial? It’s showing many women going out, spontaneously staying the night at someone’s who they probably don’t know that well, if at all,  have sex or something very similar (or pass out), then leave the next day without the pleasure of the males (or females) company.

From above, you can see the advert is very much breaking the boundaries of a typical clothing, or christmas advert for that matter (to perfume ad’s it seems quote tame, but that’s for another time). It’s making one night stands a perfectly feasible activity within society, and so far I haven’t heard a serious bad word about it. I’ve heard a few moans here and there, but there is no denying it is a beautifully crafted advert that says what it needs to say about Harvey Nichols clothing so so well, whilst relating to a real life situation, making people spread the word like no other. A proper advert in my opinion.

The main reason behind this post, however, is the fact that one night stands weren’t something that came up in the radar of wide conversation (as far as I’m aware). If I went back to someone’s I didn’t know, only my close friends would know about it. I wouldn’t be defending myself in the comments of a blog because I openly shared it with everyone. However this is now happening and it’s all because of this advertisement. Something as simple as a brand justifying the behaviour can change the way society shares their personal behaviour. I for one, feel much more comfortable telling tales around this topic, and I feel like I wouldn’t be  judged in the same way as before the advert. Hell I could even go as far to say it glorifies it.

Advertising in this manner gets people talking. It taps into a part of the brain that hasn’t been subjected to the ‘same shit different day’ syndrome. No hypodermic needles, just an advert that truly entertains and,  for the target audience, is true to the last second.

I can’t wait to see how their sales have increased. Bravo to DDB London for the creation and Harvey Nichols for bravely signing it off!

Give me an Example?

Okay, so I had a spontaneous trip to Plymouth a couple of weeks ago to see Example play live. When I say spontaneous, it means I saw he was playing that evening and paid twice as much for tickets. Loving life a little too much maybe? Nah.

If you know me, you will know I have a strange obsession with the bloke. If you don’t know me, I’ve just told you.

Before I get to the possibly too cringy comments, I shall first let you know he was really, really good. I love his music and live performances because you can see he actually feels the music and has passion towards the fact he is making the room go absolutely wild. Also he’s worked his way up (as far as I know). I’m usually into a different type of music but I can let go, dance and grin ridiculously to his songs. Plus I relate to his lyrics (which is quite worrying really).

I wasn’t expecting an amazing performance, I’ve seen him at V this year and he kind of got lost within all the other artists. However, this time round he sang really really well and the focus was all him. The mic and music were perfect and his band were brilliant.  He sang, rapped, bounced and overall got the crowd seriously worked up for a good night. He even gave us two warm-up acts. Fenech Soler were one, very gooood!

Also, I got RIGHT to the front. The barrier was my best friend. Possibly his sweat too, who knows. If anyone was wondering who chucked the bra onto the stage…it was a very, very small girl next to me.

God knows why I like him so much. I mean I find him very pretty, so I could just be defending him for the stupid girly reason of “he’s well fit”. It might also be because he is truthful, however. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about him being arrogant or rude, but he’s just an average guy who doesn’t bullshit like most others do in the industry and even more so within society. His interviews and tweets are so funny because he doesn’t take himself too seriously and is just witty to be honest. Also his wave on ‘Never mind the Buzzcocks’ is just far too cute for me to even comprehend…thought I would add that in because it is definitely relevant.

So, I don’t really know why i’m doing this blog but I want to defend him! Also, yeah, i’ll admit it, I have a serious crush on him and i’m not intending of getting rid of it too soon! It’s far too fun watching the Midnight run video…

Just to show the erm, slight liking to him, my colleague just called me pretending to be Example as a star caller. NOT EVEN FUNNY.

Twitter – @ClooX

Undermining Competition?

So i’ve been looking at quite a few adverts lately in my down time, and i’ve come across brands which use advertising to undermine other brands.

Now, i’m not condemning this. I personally love adverts that tastefully gain the upper hand than their counterparts and I’ve scrubbed up a couple for you to take a look at.

This pepsi advert is obviously showing the personality of…the straw…not wanting to go inside a coke can, but would happily enter a pepsi can. This advert, although being creative, doesn’t tick the box for me. What I find ironic about this ad (and i’m not sure if this applies to everyone or just people who are observant within branding) is that the coke can isn’t a coke can, but the colour and style is enough for people to recognise it is, which kind of backlashes a little on saying pepsi is better.. but we are adding value to Coke by subcontiously knowing it is Coca Cola without even being told! The most important thing that I notice, and believe it ruins the strategy behind the advert, is that I have a love for Coke as a brand (as im sure most others do) and I think that Pepsi made a mistake in slating one of the most popular and loved brands. Who lets us know it’s Christmas first? Where can we open happiness? I find myself sticking up for Coke undoubtedly and therefore prefer the brand. Whoops!

I found another on my internet travels:

This. Is. AMAZING. All this takes is a bit of communication and a smart loyal BMW worker (or insider info on where Audi will have billboards!) and, well, it speaks for itself really.

Audi, (as much as I love them) is a tad screwed by BMW (even though I love to hate them*). Fair enough, thy decided to undermine their competition, but they didn’t think of the consequences, let alone have a strong enough advert in order to face upto any challenges! I know it isn’t very common to get adverts like this, but every corner should be covered, especially when you are within a highly competitive market.

The copy in the BMW ad is brilliant. It sums up “We’ve got the best car and you simply cannot beat it”, whilst adding creativity everybody relates to and a touch of witty intelligence from the brand. Audi deserve this bit of a bashing as they know they are within top competition…it’s not like it hadn’t happened before.