AdAwards

We’ve all seen movies or even sitcoms where an elaborate drama is set out and while intellectually it’s interesting, you sort of realize (vaguely and retrospectively) that on paper, it probably worked better. Sometimes advertising is the same way.

Rocks

The Renault Clio advertisement, features a hapless scooter rider who is initially ignored by a hot ladies driving in a fleet of Renault Clio's. He gets his own back by posing in a Clio – with good results. He gets noticed, and a smile from an attractive and sophisticated looking lady. Cut to the rear and we see that the innovative cheapskate has sliced out a billboard of the car, and is riding his scooter with the cardboard exterior facing vehicles in the left hand lane.

Here’s an elaborate scheme that works, and we enjoy watching it several times. It’s the sort of clip that would do well as a viral campaign.

Two other excellent but less elaborate executions are the cardies advertisements. The one features a guy playing ping pong, except it turns out he is playing ping pong with himself. Another version shows a trapeze artist dropping his partner at a crucial moment.

One of the reasons these concepts work is because the scene sets up exactly the emotional response appropriate for cardies: how to say sorry (or whatever the case may be).

Huh?

Please don’t shoot me for saying this, but the new BMW M3 ad is exactly the sort of ad that works on paper, but is merely an interesting intellectual exercise when rendered visually.

No doubt the premise works. Set up a James Bond/Spy/Bourne type character in a series of spy-like tests, and then culminate the tests with a drive in the BMW (the ultimate test?). Problem is, I’m not sure if it is clear what this guy is doing, how it fits together and most important: why. Why is he running in a room with a parachute?

The advertisements will probably gain adherents (excuse the pun) based on the the gritty photography. It looks slick, but sorry, it doesn’t work. It’s a bit like a Michael Bay film. It is the perfect example of: Wow! Huh?

Rubbish

Recently I heard a terrible radio spot on 94.7 Highveld FM. It made my blood boil. It basically involves a guy who is being asked to purchase something – electronics I think – and when it comes time to pay, the assistant patronizingly asks if the buyer wants a payment plan, some sort of budget credit facility. The moron answers words to this effect: “No, I’ll pay R30 000 cash.”

The voiceover othat follows claims that a loan from Absa bank will give the lender bargaining power. Really? Seems more like a license to be extravagant. I just think this sort of advertising is so ill-conceived, and so out of touch with reality (yoohoo, are we looking at the financial markets and why they are frothing at the mouth?) that it actually insults one's intelligence.

At the end of the day it’s not that difficult to develop useful concepts to promote a brand. It’s also not something only a handpicked few can do. Almost anyone who has been around enough to consume a product has also experienced the sort of advertising that motivated/influenced them in some way, to regularly undertake various transactions.

So, implicitly, we ought to know what works. But when it comes to ideas, those who dream them up may become precious about them. Creative people have a strong sense of ownership, and this can be an overriding reason why an idea is used.

Sometimes a good idea won’t work as well as an average but more practical idea. Execution is important, obviously. But when it comes to deciding which idea will work best, it is in everyone’s interest to think critically, to at least ponder the possibility of why it might not be as effective once executed.

Click on this post to view the M3 ad.