How to Make a Good Commercial
Jan. 18th, 2010 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseI don't watch much traditional television. First off, the scheduled-time-slot system never appealed to me, as I hate the feeling of realizing you're missing your show and are going to be behind on the story. Even with the advent of TiVo and such, I was never really interested in paying $60 a month for a constant supply of a service that I would use maybe 5% of the time. You can imagine how pleased I was when studios started releasing shows on DVD - if I wasn't up on the latest episode of a given show, well, that was a small price to pay for being able to watch the shows I wanted at my own convenience without any ads.
Recently, however, I've started watching shows on Hulu, which, while it does have certain scheduling restrictions, is lax enough about them to be convenient. Additionally, they have the genius setup of only one commercial per break. Back in the days when I did watch network or cable television, I would just mute the commercials and go take a bathroom break or something; when there's only one ad, it hardly seems worth it, so I usually pay attention. (Another genius idea is the countdown timer at the top reassuring you how long until your show starts; no more wondering "How many more goddamn ads are they going to play?)
That said, I couldn't say I actually recall very many of their ads. Maybe I have high standards, but I find the happy-people-bopping-around-to-cheerful-pop-music style far too generic to be memorable, and usually the only ones I remember are the ones that completely fail the critical-thinking test, which isn't exactly likely to make me interested in the product. (A particularly egregious example, which (amazingly) I can't find on YouTube, involved a bunch of teenagers driving recklessly in a Volkswagen car while the Donnas' cover of "Safety Dance" played in the background. I suppose Volkswagen was trying to tell parents that their cars would protect their recklessly driving teens, but I found the ad "WTF?"-inducing on two levels - first off, that anyone would buy a teenager a brand-new car, and secondly, that showing parents what was previously a comfortably unillustrated and distant concept ("teenagers do stupid shit") would make them want to enable that behavior. If I'd had a teenager and was thinking of buying them a car, that ad would have turned me off of the market pretty instantly.)
Given the limitations of the format, I can understand why most ad agencies go for the MTV quick-edit-to-happy-music format. Telling a coherent story in thirty seconds is tough; far easier to simply try to associate your product with a generalized sense of fun/sexiness/happiness than to explain why people should be interested in it. (Additionally, research shows that simply seeing a product name repeatedly, even without any additional associations, makes people more likely to choose that product in the future, so that probably explains why some of these commercials play five different times over the course of a half-hour show.) That said, the ads that have stuck with me have universally been the story-telling types, especially particularly clever or ambitious ones. I realize that "snarky and cynical with actual critical-thinking skills" probably isn't the demographic most advertisers are aiming for, but I want to emphasize to any company executives who might be reading this that I appreciated these ads especially because they didn't insult my intelligence. That alone makes me far more interested in their product than all the bouncy-happy-pop-music in the world, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Without further ado, here are three stellar examples of intelligent, story-based advertisements that have impressed me and (miracle of miracles) made me interested in trying their product:
Example 1: Walt Whitman Wants You To Buy Blue Jeans
Given the aforementioned difficulties in telling a coherent story under the strict time limits of a commercial break, this ad takes the ambitious tack of tapping into our overarching cultural narrative. While the images that make up the montage seem rather random, the collection (along with the narrative) coheres rather well into a strong sense of cultural identity. The association of old-style black-and-white images and scratchy recordings with the Great Depression can't be ignored, but this ad wisely avoids the feeling of desperation and want that such media often portray; instead, the dynamic shots of people actively living life give a feeling of hope and inspiration. "America's been here before," it says. "We'll conquer it again. (And in the meantime, buy jeans.)"
I particularly like the way this piece stokes a sense of nationalistic pride without being heavy-handed or xenophobic. Instead, it tells us a story about our strengths as a culture - our multiculturalism, our ambition, and our desire to live. Like most grand messages of hope, the ad opens itself up to accusations of pretension (Slate's Ad Report Card columnist reports seeing the ad at the movie theater and hearing the silent thoughtfulness of an audience impressed, only to be broken by the one joker yelling from the back, "They're pants!"), but I think the nature of the product helps belay that reaction - blue jeans are one of the constants of American life, across all racial and social lines. (Admittedly, I may be more inclined to positive feelings about Levi's simply because they seem to be the only brand that makes a style of jeans that actually fit me properly.)
Example 2: Our Ad Agency Cost Us $1.3 Million
I can't find this one on YouTube, so a link will have to do. I'm a little surprised I found it online at all, given its age.
I first saw this ad during its original (and probably only) airing at the 1998 Super Bowl. I'm not sure if that was the first year that the price of an ad slot during the Super Bowl was making headlines, but it was the first year I was aware of it and made a special effort to see what companies had come up with to get their money's worth. Expensively produced ads abounded, of course, but this one is the one I've remembered the longest, and it's probably not hard to see why.
First off, it gives you the bait - a great story which seems to serve up a nice heaping dose of schadenfreude. Then comes the switch, and there's that moment of surprise when you realize you've been duped, and the ad's actual purpose shines through. Give it some more thought, and you realize exactly how clever the ad was - it was simultaneously the least expensive commercial to air during that Super Bowl and (arguably) the most memorable. Everyone had heard by then about how expensive the ads were, so even the usual audience aversion to reading text on a screen was overcome by curiosity, and the embarrassment of the "switch" moment meant that people actually remembered what product the commercial was for. Absolute genius.
Example 3: John Jameson - The Irish Beowulf
This was actually the ad that inspired this treatise (which, believe it or not, was originally intended to just be a link and a short description). An adventure story refined to its purest form, here we meet Captain John Jameson, who so prized his beloved whiskey that he went to retrieve a barrel that had fallen overboard, only to meet with trouble and turn up victorious when everyone had thought him dead. The briefness of the commercial format works to advantage here, as most of Jameson's swashbuckling feats of derring-do are left to our imagination - half the fun of stories like these comes in adding your own flourishes and embellishments, after all.
True, this piece isn't as clever as the FedEx ad, nor as inspiring as the Levi's one, but it's easily the most fun - who doesn't love a tall tale about a drink-and-life-loving Irishman? And the integration of the product name into the story means you remember what the commercial is for (always a hazard of story-based ads). I've never tried Jameson's whiskey (Brian is a hard-core Bushmill's lover), but I have to admit I'm far more tempted to pick up a bottle at the grocery store since I've seen this ad.
Recently, however, I've started watching shows on Hulu, which, while it does have certain scheduling restrictions, is lax enough about them to be convenient. Additionally, they have the genius setup of only one commercial per break. Back in the days when I did watch network or cable television, I would just mute the commercials and go take a bathroom break or something; when there's only one ad, it hardly seems worth it, so I usually pay attention. (Another genius idea is the countdown timer at the top reassuring you how long until your show starts; no more wondering "How many more goddamn ads are they going to play?)
That said, I couldn't say I actually recall very many of their ads. Maybe I have high standards, but I find the happy-people-bopping-around-to-cheerful-pop-music style far too generic to be memorable, and usually the only ones I remember are the ones that completely fail the critical-thinking test, which isn't exactly likely to make me interested in the product. (A particularly egregious example, which (amazingly) I can't find on YouTube, involved a bunch of teenagers driving recklessly in a Volkswagen car while the Donnas' cover of "Safety Dance" played in the background. I suppose Volkswagen was trying to tell parents that their cars would protect their recklessly driving teens, but I found the ad "WTF?"-inducing on two levels - first off, that anyone would buy a teenager a brand-new car, and secondly, that showing parents what was previously a comfortably unillustrated and distant concept ("teenagers do stupid shit") would make them want to enable that behavior. If I'd had a teenager and was thinking of buying them a car, that ad would have turned me off of the market pretty instantly.)
Given the limitations of the format, I can understand why most ad agencies go for the MTV quick-edit-to-happy-music format. Telling a coherent story in thirty seconds is tough; far easier to simply try to associate your product with a generalized sense of fun/sexiness/happiness than to explain why people should be interested in it. (Additionally, research shows that simply seeing a product name repeatedly, even without any additional associations, makes people more likely to choose that product in the future, so that probably explains why some of these commercials play five different times over the course of a half-hour show.) That said, the ads that have stuck with me have universally been the story-telling types, especially particularly clever or ambitious ones. I realize that "snarky and cynical with actual critical-thinking skills" probably isn't the demographic most advertisers are aiming for, but I want to emphasize to any company executives who might be reading this that I appreciated these ads especially because they didn't insult my intelligence. That alone makes me far more interested in their product than all the bouncy-happy-pop-music in the world, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Without further ado, here are three stellar examples of intelligent, story-based advertisements that have impressed me and (miracle of miracles) made me interested in trying their product:
Given the aforementioned difficulties in telling a coherent story under the strict time limits of a commercial break, this ad takes the ambitious tack of tapping into our overarching cultural narrative. While the images that make up the montage seem rather random, the collection (along with the narrative) coheres rather well into a strong sense of cultural identity. The association of old-style black-and-white images and scratchy recordings with the Great Depression can't be ignored, but this ad wisely avoids the feeling of desperation and want that such media often portray; instead, the dynamic shots of people actively living life give a feeling of hope and inspiration. "America's been here before," it says. "We'll conquer it again. (And in the meantime, buy jeans.)"
I particularly like the way this piece stokes a sense of nationalistic pride without being heavy-handed or xenophobic. Instead, it tells us a story about our strengths as a culture - our multiculturalism, our ambition, and our desire to live. Like most grand messages of hope, the ad opens itself up to accusations of pretension (Slate's Ad Report Card columnist reports seeing the ad at the movie theater and hearing the silent thoughtfulness of an audience impressed, only to be broken by the one joker yelling from the back, "They're pants!"), but I think the nature of the product helps belay that reaction - blue jeans are one of the constants of American life, across all racial and social lines. (Admittedly, I may be more inclined to positive feelings about Levi's simply because they seem to be the only brand that makes a style of jeans that actually fit me properly.)
I can't find this one on YouTube, so a link will have to do. I'm a little surprised I found it online at all, given its age.
I first saw this ad during its original (and probably only) airing at the 1998 Super Bowl. I'm not sure if that was the first year that the price of an ad slot during the Super Bowl was making headlines, but it was the first year I was aware of it and made a special effort to see what companies had come up with to get their money's worth. Expensively produced ads abounded, of course, but this one is the one I've remembered the longest, and it's probably not hard to see why.
First off, it gives you the bait - a great story which seems to serve up a nice heaping dose of schadenfreude. Then comes the switch, and there's that moment of surprise when you realize you've been duped, and the ad's actual purpose shines through. Give it some more thought, and you realize exactly how clever the ad was - it was simultaneously the least expensive commercial to air during that Super Bowl and (arguably) the most memorable. Everyone had heard by then about how expensive the ads were, so even the usual audience aversion to reading text on a screen was overcome by curiosity, and the embarrassment of the "switch" moment meant that people actually remembered what product the commercial was for. Absolute genius.
This was actually the ad that inspired this treatise (which, believe it or not, was originally intended to just be a link and a short description). An adventure story refined to its purest form, here we meet Captain John Jameson, who so prized his beloved whiskey that he went to retrieve a barrel that had fallen overboard, only to meet with trouble and turn up victorious when everyone had thought him dead. The briefness of the commercial format works to advantage here, as most of Jameson's swashbuckling feats of derring-do are left to our imagination - half the fun of stories like these comes in adding your own flourishes and embellishments, after all.
True, this piece isn't as clever as the FedEx ad, nor as inspiring as the Levi's one, but it's easily the most fun - who doesn't love a tall tale about a drink-and-life-loving Irishman? And the integration of the product name into the story means you remember what the commercial is for (always a hazard of story-based ads). I've never tried Jameson's whiskey (Brian is a hard-core Bushmill's lover), but I have to admit I'm far more tempted to pick up a bottle at the grocery store since I've seen this ad.
The saddest part...
Date: 2010-01-18 07:25 pm (UTC)CSM
Re: The saddest part...
Date: 2010-01-18 08:42 pm (UTC)Also, I live in Arizona now, so unless you're somewhere in Mexico or South America you shouldn't have to go north. :)
Re: The saddest part...
Date: 2010-01-19 12:23 am (UTC)Sorry.
Re: The saddest part...
Date: 2010-01-19 12:27 am (UTC)