Archive for VW
What Makes Great Ads Great?
Posted by: | CommentsLast year following the Super Bowl I wrote a post about what happened to Volkswagen? It was in response to a tweet from Marty St. George the CMO of jetBlue following VWs lackluster Super Bowl spot. The ad was mildly entertaining but hardly that compelling. It got me wondering about what makes great advertising, great.
As if to emphasize this even further, recently I had an interesting interaction with my 7 year old daughter. I was reading “Beezus and Ramona” to her. Despite there being a recent movie about these two precocious sisters, the reality is the books are pretty old. In this passage there was a reference to one of the most famous Alka Seltzer commercials. I read it as if from the commercial, “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing.” When we finished the passage I asked her if she’d like to see the original commercial, fairly confident we could find it on YouTube. We found it and my daughter would laugh hysterically reenacting it over the course of the next several weeks.
Husband: “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing.”
Wife: “You ate it Ralph.”
Husband: “I can’t believe I ate that whole thing.”
Wife: “Take two Alka Seltzer.”
As she laughed to herself, it dawned on me, this was a great ad. Iconic even. But why?
I think in this case it was less Ralph and more his wife. A subtlety that just worked.
As I did with the original VW post I think it’s important that we need to provide a simple rating system for the quality of ads.
I think it might look something like this. Let’s consider this a spectrum in which generally a lot of the same companies generally hover in the same area.
Legendary/Iconic is just that. It’s designated as once in a lifetime… we talk about it for generations. Think DDB’s VW “Think Small” ads, Arnold’s “Driver’s Wanted”, Alka Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”, Apple’s “1984”, Coke’s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke”.
Great means it stands out in the category and continually performs well and is stylistically imitated. For example Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ads now being imitated by T-Mobile stand out in my mind. Another example would be Target. It’s really hard to say the impact Target’s brand ads have had on the industry let alone on their partners brands. Target has been amazing at nurturing its own brand while leveraging iconic brands.
Good means it basically does its job. And let’s not forget, the company and product have to stand behind the work. Generally successful ads here are incumbent of being a part of a larger campaign. For example I would put Hyundai in this category. Individually wouldn’t say any of Hyundai’s advertising is all that memorable. As a part of their entire marketing effort they’ve obviously done a pretty stand-up job.
Honorable Mention means it’s functionally decent break-even advertising. The sort of advertising that speaks to knowing 50 percent of your advertising works but not knowing which 50 percent.
Much like wealth in our country the greatest ads occupy the top one or two percent.
When I wrote the piece about the VW ads of yore, I wrote it because that’s what we were used to from VW. We were used to Legendary or at least Great. Even when campaigns weren’t great, they flirted with great.
But what makes great ads great? In my mind, there are a few things and they largely rest on the following:
- The Idea
- Suspension of Disbelief
- Casting
- That little something or certain moment
The Idea – First and foremost the best ads are generated from a good idea. At its foundation, it should go without saying that any great ad is borne from a fundamentally good and sound idea.
Suspension of Disbelief – Just because you’re dealing with 60 seconds, 30 or even 15, doesn’t mean that the rules of suspension of disbelief don’t apply. It becomes harder to suspend disbelief when you’re presenting “real life” moments. Humor is probably the most effective way to enable people to suspend disbelief. The problem is that humor which while certainly subjective still relies on two critical things. The first is timing. The second is delivery.
Consider the Sony ads with Justin Timberlake who treats them more like an SNL skit than an ad. He’s genuinely funny and allows the absurdity of any moment to disappear.
M&M successfully uses humor to suspend disbelief. One of my favorite spots as of late is the one where M&Ms characters are in the kitchen cabinet throwing things at this guy who’s simply trying to get his pregnant wife a “snack”. He tells the M&Ms to “get in the bowl.” One of the M&Ms fires back the most common of childish comebacks, “You get in the bowl.”
Another successful use of humor is with the FedEx ad where a group of staffers are looking at a map of the world and one of them is supposed to put a pin where China is. He doesn’t know where it is and tears down the whole map to avoid being “outted”.
As such with humor, casting becomes so important. In general it’s a very little moment, a split second that makes it or breaks it and that’s usually as a result of good casting.
When you’re not using humor and presenting truly real moments the challenge becomes one of sincerity. Now you’re in a position where it has to be believable. Generally the best work in this realm comes from clearly understanding the brand. While Disney has lost some of its “magic” in my mind, its motivation is still to be thought of as truly the most magical place on earth. Or take Folgers’ spots. I’m fairly certain Folgers’ motivation in their ads is to make you cry. But in order to pull this sort of work off, it has to be sincere. Not about the coffee but about the moment.
All this being said perhaps though what is most important for great ads are two things. A collective will. And brave clients.
What Happened to Volkswagen?
Posted by: | Comments@martysg sent me a tweet following the Super Bowl.
“@slprquattro Did you see that Deutsch VW ad last night? They never shoulda dumped CP+B. Terrible.”
While I can’t necessarily say that they never should have dumped CP+B. CP+B isn’t for everyone and I get that but I can say that VW’s work in general has gone down the crapper in my humble opinion. I don’t know if the agency can shoulder all the blame though.
First off let me give overall commentary about the SB spots. I do this because it’s important to my philosophy about creative. 98% of the work sucked and I’m fine with my manliness, thank you very much. The best two spots in my mind were the Google spot and the Dorito’s “Momma” spot. The former seems generally agreed, the latter I would say is highly subjective and a matter of personal taste.
One might legitimately ask, what the hell do I know? My personal top five nor #brandbowl’s were in USA Today’s top 50. And I’m going to guess that USA Today is more representative of the country than #brandbowl or me for that matter. Bottom line is that the disparity between #brandbowl and USA Today should register pause in and of itself. There’s obviously an intellectual disconnect somewhere.
One point: We should make a distinction between great, really good and good. Great should be designated as once in a lifetime… we talk about it for years. Really good means it stands out in the category and continually performs well and perhaps is imitated. Good means it basically does its job. And let’s not forget, the company and product have to stand behind the work.
In general, I think really good broadcast requires finding the subtleties or the intangibles. Most spots have a moment to be great but miss it. Most of the SB spots missed it. Some showed hints of brilliance but most missed it by a long shot.
In VW’s case, I think that there is a clear desire to appeal more to the mainstream. But does that mean that you have to be GM? OK that might be a little harsh but in my view, advertising needs to inspire and engage, especially when your core customer is less mainstream. Furthermore, just because it’s a :30 spot does not mean that the rules of suspension of disbelief don’t still apply. And based on the most recent Forrester report it doesn’t seem ads are delivering as of late.
The reason why the VW spot was such a disappointment to me is because they have a history of greatness. And SB spots are supposed to be great or at least really good.
Now, with regards to VW, as you might gather from my (former) twitter name, @slprquattro, I’m a bit smitten with Audi/VW. Don’t worry I won’t bore you with my ownership history. I’ve also followed their agency track record, ummm a bit. VW has always flirted with brilliance going back to the days of the DDB Beatle ads.
My all time favorite was the New York Times Magazine ad after Jerry Garcia died. Whoa.
“Driver’s Wanted” debuted and put the company squarely back on the map and re-established it in America’s consciousness. DaDaDaDa was the talk of the water coolers. The “Pink Moon” spot quite literally brought Nick Drake back from the dead. I also loved the “Mr Roboto” spot and the “Singing in the Rain” spot was very cool. At the end of the day, the “Driver’s Wanted” campaign was sheer brilliance. It drove sales and clearly showed that VW and Arnold knew the customer.
More recently, VW in my opinion had so
me nice efforts with “Safe Happens” which were sobering to say the least. And “Unpimp Ze Auto” but admittedly those spots weren’t for everyone. I also liked the “Make Friends with Your Fast” effort. Perhaps less memorable than “Unpimp” and again not for everyone but nevertheless good demonstrations of the sensibilities of the audiences they were trying to reach.
The “Punch Dub” spot perhaps had potential but misses the mark (even with the punch to gramp’s gonads and the Tracy Morgan and Stevie Wonder cameo). I don’t think it’s the agency’s fault. I don’t think CP+B could have saved them either. Liz Vanzura and Kerri Martin’s impact are missed. I think VWs issues are probably embedded in a client who’s playing it safe and has forgotten about their core customer.
These days that’s the last place I’d want to be.
