Wednesday, April 30th 2008
Complain speaking...
The BBC have announced a list of Top 10 Controversial Ads for 2007.
Opinions on what is controversial, shocking and graphic are quite wide-ranging and different. It’s nice to see the Advertising Standards Authority seem to have a consistent grasp on what is and isn’t a valid complaint.
Graphic and controversial advertising will always have it’s place in one format or another, agencies just need to learn how and when to use it. More so than other advertising forms, a consideration for time, place and target needs to be at the forefront of the creative decision.
Miles of media inches have already been given over to a fat orange man slapping someone in the face to sell a fizzy drink – I think he pre-dated happy-slapping by a good few years. The Tango ads were a prime example of the ‘shocking before thinking’ approach of an agency on the strive for a fresh approach. Was this advertising successful? Yes, probably more than anyone could have imagined. But was it successful to the right audience? For the right reason? That was to sell more Tango, wasn’t it?
Here is the new age of advertising, does the product have to feature anymore? Do we need a man in a suit holding product telling us to ‘buy this, it’s great’? We’re now in a time of ‘I have to have that product, it’s the one with the weird/crazy/shocking/bizarre advert’.
Posted by Richard on Wednesday 30th of April 2008 at 5:24pm
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Talking of successful advertising...Did you know the world famous Guiness adverts have no effect on sales of Guiness and are seen as a waste of money by many marketing experts.
I saw a programme about it once.
Posted by Darren on Wednesday 30th of April 2008 at 5:35pm