A Perfect Storm Of Advertising Excellence, That Way

Vinnie Warren, top ad-man and creator of the Bud Wassup!?! spots, interviews the great Dave Trott over on the smashing Escape Pod blog.

It's way more interesting than anything you'll read on here today. Go over there and read it.

Stella Artois Christmas TV Ad

How the mighty have fallen. Keeping the festive theme going, here's the latest classic television commercial for Stella Artois. Stella's advertising might be an easy target at the moment but we just couldn't let this latest howler pass without commenting. A brand which once had truly great advertising which always put the product on a peerless pedestal now continues its spectacular decline from a creative perspective.
Putting aside the sheer lunacy that they're spending most of their advertising shekels trying to get more people to drink Stella because of it's impeccable green credentials [cue loud guffaw], it looks like they're now telling us that Stella Artois was originally crafted for Christmas. And they've done this with a commercial that even Coca-Cola or Werthers Bloody Original would have rejected for being so stomach-turningly twee. Hold on a minute, could it be that the story of Christmas is where the moniker of "Wife Beater" originated from? Maybe when Joseph found about Mary's "virgin" birth, Bethlehem witnessed the first bout of domestic violence. Answers on a Christmas card, please.

Oh Holy Night

I'm very Christmassy. Holly, Ivy, Noah, all that shit, I love it. However dealing with Christmas music from the last week of November makes it a challenge. South Park can always be relied on to help you through that. Here is one of my favourites, Cartman sings Oh Holy Night.

We Got That B Roll

VIA THE EXCELLENT AD CONTRARIAN

Back To Basics: Product Demonstrations

Product demonstration. Two words that seem to strike fear into the fashionable-trouser region of the modern advertising creative. But why? It it because they're seen as uncreadivv? Maybe it's because product demonstrations have become inextricably linked with really bad and unbelievable product demonstrations? Take the Vanish ads for instance - fake kitchen, shiny lady with Vanish, getting impossible stains out of white t-shirts, another lady looks on, clearly a hired moron, amazed. As a viewer you just don't believe it. But that's the bad side of product demonstrations.

Like lots of other really worthwhile techniques you can use in advertising, you shouldn't let really bad product demonstrations make you think all product demonstrations are bad.

When done well, and in the right circumstances, for the right product, product demonstrations can be very effective. And they can be interesting, entertaining and compelling too, the things that you need to help a consumer be interested, watch, and remember.

The current kings of the product demonstration are Apple. They do consistently good advertising for their products that show us things about them. Whether it's how an iPhone works, or just how thin a Mac Air is. And the thing is, they're always so unassuming and polite, we don't even know that we're watching a product demonstration. We just think 'wow that's clever'.And that's the beauty of really genuinely good advertising, you come out of thinking how good the product or service is, not how good the ad is.

The second part of their success is that they have their tone-of-voice spot on - the way they do the demonstrations - so every telly spot or print ad also contributes to how nice we feel about Apple.

As our grumpy friend the Ad Contrarian has said in the past, Apple is a great brand that people always aspire to matching, I've seen it wheeled out as a great example of brand-building many times. But their success has been built on great products, and good advertising that demonstrates those products with a strong tone-of-voice. Ad people always talk about the 1984 Apple ad as one of the great ads, but that is an ad-mans ad - an ad that makes you think 'what a great ad'. The real business-builders - the brand-builders - are the everyday ads for the products.

Product demonstrations don't have to be uninteresting, or uncreative, or unbelievable. They can be a great short-cut in communication. They can quickly and honestly dispel myths and show product advantages, they can be powerful pieces of communication that change the fortunes of business. And when you see one done well, its a sign that behind there somewhere were some advertising people who did their research into the product properly. And just as importantly they were confident enough in their own abilities to do something simple, or get out of the way of the product, and not try to over-execute some creative opus.

Here's a few examples of product demonstrations done well, if you can think of any others, please let me know...

Apple iPhone ads

Blend tec Will It Blend Website and Videos


Smart Car


Pepsi The Pepsi Challenge


Wendy's Where's The Beef


Araldite


VW Snowplough


Lurpak Baked Potato

United Breaks Guitars

Last year musician Dave Carroll and his band Sons of Maxwell took a flight with United Airlines. Upon boarding the plane they witnessed the baggage handlers throwing around one of their Taylor guitars causing substantial damage. And after a painful nine months of trying to get compensation for the $3500 guitar they were rebuffed. So they decided to write a trilogy of songs about their experience, this is the first one.

Over 6 million views on youtube can't be very good for United Airlines pr.

More on the story here.

Put The Lights On The Tree

Yep, Christmas time has finally hit Sell! Sell! towers. We've not dived in to the mistletoe and wine or decked the halls with boughs of holly yet, but we've put up our nice, big tree and started receiving some shit corporate Christmas cards from companies we've never even heard of. Anyway, to get us in the spirit we're about to start playing some Yuletide songs on the faithful office stereo. I'm not sure we've got the stomach to deal with Bob Dylan growling his way through Hark The Herald Angels Sing or O' Come All Ye Faithful just yet. Instead we've decided to kick off with something a bit more mellow. So, pop pickers, accompanied by a cockles-of-your-heart-warming piece of animation, we give you Sufjan Stevens with "Put The Lights On The Tree" from his festively fabulous "Songs For Christmas" box set. Now where were those mince pies?