When approached to write this article I was asked to address the question “what makes a good TV ad?”
Now that’s a particularly difficult question to answer. I could rattle off a list of ingredients from good production value, directing, lighting, acting and most importantly the Agency’s “concept” but I would think that “good” in the context of advertising would mean the overall ability to sell a product or service.
Now that’s a particularly difficult question to answer. I could rattle off a list of ingredients from good production value, directing, lighting, acting and most importantly the Agency’s “concept” but I would think that “good” in the context of advertising would mean the overall ability to sell a product or service.
So shouldn’t the real question be “what makes an ad sell a product”?
In the glory days of advertising (the 1970’s and to a lesser degree the 1980’s) I would have answered that by the ability of the ad to create an emotional link between a product and an emotional need in an audience. Those of us that are old (or should I say “Mature”) enough to remember the cigarette commercials shown in cinemas will remember how they offered the promise of being a suave international playboy or some kind of fearless adventurer canoeing down the Amazon! In the absence of such imaginative product or brand appeal the reality is that having a burning little white “stick” dangling from one’s lips must look quite ridiculous! Isn’t advertising quite amazing in how it manipulates our perceptions?
But times have changed.
A friend and client who runs his own agency asked me “when did you last see a car ad that made you want to own that car”? It’s a good question and it seems that today’s agencies, producers and directors have somewhat lost the ability to forge those emotional links with an audience or, at the very least audiences have become desensitized.
It’s not entirely the lack of creative vision and risk taking that seems to have been lost but these days with our 500 channel PVRs, Facebook, Wikipedia, information literally at the “touch of a button” and a complete bombardment of information from all sides it seems that our minds have revolted. We skip through the ads on our PVR and Tweet in the cinema while we wait for the ads to finish. We no longer wish to be emotionally immersed by force - rather we hope to have a choice in what we immerse ourselves in. The last time I checked (via friends in market research) TV ads were still the most effective form of advertising but I suspect that it’s mostly a case of brand names or products simply slipping into the subconscious while we as an audience refuse to immerse ourselves directly. So yes, they’re still extremely effective on one level, but without willed engagement they lack the power they had in the “glory days” when going to the cinema or watching TV was a special occasion that grabbed and held our attention.
So that changes the playing field. Perhaps now, a good ad is one that gets noticed? And what better way to get noticed than to cause controversy? Earlier this month, SABC, DSTV, M-Net and e.tv refused to flight the Nando’s Diversity ad, saying it was racist, xenophobic and distasteful. Not one to lie down, Nando's has had a print version of the advertisement published in the Sunday Times. The top of the ad describes the television version as "the pro-diversity advert broadcasters don't want you to see". A banner at the bottom of the advertisement reads "Unlike our broadcasters, we're giving you the right to choose”. By Sunday late morning, the video advertisement had been viewed 373 000 times. Moreover those views are a “willed engagement” by a captive audience. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch here.
Nando’s have been playing the political angle for a long time and have often relied on controversy to drive their ads. So while the future of TV advertising remains uncertain, marketers and agencies will scramble to find innovative ways to lure viewers to wilfully engage their campaigns. The good news is that with the internet as our medium and with the availability of low-cost production and post-production technology anyone can now afford to captivate an audience with an emotionally engaging audio-visual production. The playing field is now level. While the focus will be on how to create engaged viewership we should however never forget that original formula: forging an emotional link between the product or brand and the emotional needs of an audience. And for that one will always need good artists, good directors and producers and most importantly good ideas!
0 comments:
Post a Comment