I clocked this on Saturday evening in between Harry Hill's TV Burp [well, my kids were watching it. I was reading Proust whilst playing the harp].
And while I was searching for it on good old YouTube I found this.
Besides the fact that both of these ads aren't exactly "best of breed" examples of what we do for a living, a few things occurred to me.
First things first, it's clear that people were having a much better time on Saturday nights in 1978 than they are now. Open top cars! Motorbikes! Pinball! Telephone Boxes! Cinema! Disco dancing!
Contrast that with 2011. Eating some pizza! In front of the telly!
Secondly, putting aside the point that the same heavy-handed strategy was being used 33 years later, it was a bit depressing to witness a Coke ad so poorly executed in this day and age. Where's the engagement? Where's the reward for the viewer? Where's the entertainment? Where's the bastard creative idea?
It actually made me think it wasn't actually an ad that I had just seen. More of a lecture from a giant corporation telling me what to think and do.
In fact, because it mentioned ITV1 in the ad, when I first saw it I actually thought it was part of the normal low calibre sponsorship idents guff that frequently pollutes our screens And then I remembered that Phones 4U were actually sponsoring the programme so it couldn't be that.
I bet Coke paid a hefty sum for the privilege of mentioning the channel in which their "advertising" sits. Is this fair game or a cheeky bending of the rules by ITV and Coke?
I don't really know.
But, thirdly, I do know that the existence of this spot makes an absolute mockery of Coca Cola's unwavering commitment to a "company discipline called Content Excellence" as espoused in last week's Campaign magazine.
Fourthly, I was taken aback by the ridiculous overkill of packshots and logos [in both ads, actually]. Maybe they thought that these commercials were so unmemorable that they better fill every frame with industrial quantities of their liquid in case the hard of thinking failed to spot who was paying for the advertising.
Now, as you know, here at Sell! Sell! we're all for featuring the product in the advertising but this is "client taking every opportunity to put the product in every shot" gone crazy.
If you can be arsed, take another look. At both ads. It beggars belief.
As does the fact that Coke aren't treating their audience with the intelligence and respect they deserve.
Nothing a re-write won't fix:
ReplyDeleteThat lull before the bastards arrive; nothing but soft drinks, how will I survive?
My son arrives smelling of fags; and daughter's fella clearly likes slags.
They're all content, now time for me; I'll sneak out for a joint while they're watching TV.
Saturday Night tastes better with Cannabis and ITV1
I'd say there was a big difference between the two. In the 70's Coke was something young people drank with their friends while out on the town. In 2011 it's apparently something to be bought in the Supermarket by Mum and drunk at home with the family.
ReplyDeleteWhen you've got Saturday night tellybox shows attracting 20M viewers and accounting for, like, half the tweets or Facebook updates during their broadcast, this actually makes a lot of sense. Though I agree the execution is arse.