This is going to cause a whole world of debate about whether it is good or not. In fact it already has. And frankly, that is the end of the debate for me. If people are talking about your ad they are engaged. Irrespective of if they love it or hate it, they have had an emotional response to a communication and are therefore the communication has had an effect.
Often we get stuck in a rather inwardly facing debate in the creative industry about the merits of certain ads. And why not? It's what we do, we should have an opinion. But I always grimace at how most people regurgitate how much they personally like or dislike an ad. This is marketing, not a game of soggy biscuit for adfolk.
The agency world consists of a bunch of late twentysomething, London-based, Guardian reading, Apple obssessed, Nathan Barley replicating fuck monkeys (I added in the last bit as that is what the rest of the country consider us to be). It's Planning 101 to learn that you are making comms that are pertinent to a target audience. And more often than not that audience sure as hell ain't us.
As Jeremy "I-wish-he-was-my-grandad" Bullmore says: Preparation H is of limited interest to a bunch of twentysomething creatives, but it is of incredible interest to someone with piles.
We should all give ourselves piles before we make judgements on the effectiveness of comms.
[Insert Piles] Dairy Milk eaters will look at this ad and say WTF?! They will then say that to a few other people, and they will chat about WTF it is for a while. Then they will chat about gorilla. Then they will forget all about it. But I bet some of them will remember Dairy Milk next time they are in the confectionary isle. [/Insert Piles]
Good work Fallon. Job done.
"This is marketing, not a game of soggy biscuit for adfolk."
This is possibly the most disturbing little simile I have read for a long time. True though.
Posted by: Mike Laurie | February 09, 2009 at 10:00 AM