3 Great Ads I Wish I Had Come Up With
In the midst of a creative drought (don’t worry, they don’t last long and only hurt a little), I decided to find some inspiration. So of course I locked myself in the house and turned all the lights off, leaving only the soothing ambient light of my monitor to keep me company. I did have a goal, and it was to find three, yes three, wildly successful ads and kind of dissect a little of what each did right. And for variety’s sake, I divvied these monster ads into three- there’s that number again- different categories: print, web (viral), and television. Alright, here we go….
Print Ad I Wish I had Come Up With
Dreamed up in the 1960’s when a German made car was still a tricky sell, Helmut Krone of Doyle Dane Bernbach revolutionized advertising, utilizing overwhelming simplicity with audience connection in a way that made viewers take notice. The ad (shown above) features a perfectly fine looking Beetle, with the word LEMON underneath, and an explanation that the ‘chrome strip on the glove compartment is blemished’ and that inspector Kurt Kroner couldn’t let the car pass. The contradictory nature of the ad stokes curiosity, and the eventual humor that readers hit was easy enough for anyone to feel a little clever afterward. The Lemon ad is a great example of knowing who the audience is, not hiding the drawbacks of the product being sold, but instead accentuating the simplicity of it all, and of course using that oh so important aspect of humor correctly.
This one is admittedly a little dated, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still influencing ads today. Think about the Force ad, it hardly even shows the car in motion, only displaying one not so exciting feature. And it was huge. Das Auto? More like Das…whatever the German word for clever advertising is.
Viral Ad I Wish I Had Come Up With
Old Spice & Terry Crews for Body Blocker
It started with the “I’m on a horse” guy and evolved into this strange concoction of stimuli, which if you think about it, is perfect for the web. The ad, with over 52 million views and counting, according to adage.com, features the right amount of absurdity and bright colors for a generation of overstimulated yet desensitized brains with minute attention spans. On the web, you’ve gotta work quickly, grabbing your audience fast and making your point, otherwise something like 4chan will come eat you. And who better to assign to this task than the guys from Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show. If you’ve ever seen that, you know what I’m talking about. Oh yeah, it’s also hilarious- just like the Old Spic ads.
Absurdity never made me want to buy a once old man deodorant so badly. The deodorant went from being just a hygienic necessity to a talking point among endless social circles. Way to go Old Spice, for being just weird enough, and for hiring Tim & Eric.
Television Ad I Wish I Had Come Up With
Sussex Safer Roads, Embrace Life
This one takes a turn for the emotional, and not in the direction of humor. Many people in the US probably haven’t seen it, but it’s mesmerizing to watch, especially the first time. Plus, it’s not an easy sell- getting people to wear their seatbelts, that’s not the most exciting topic to grab attention with. This one works because it captures the fragility of life in a, frankly, pretty beautiful manner. Family, existence, decisions, it can all come down to one second. And although this ad takes a bit longer to get the point across, it does so in a way that can knock you in the chest with its message. Back to reality…
So those are my roller coaster of emotion ads. I would summarize by saying that it’s never wrong to veer far outside the box when cultivating creativity, just make sure you can find your way back eventually. Otherwise, you might end up looking like Salvador Dali; which, I guess isn’t so bad either.
