Category Archives: Television

Ad Targeting for Beautiful People

Remember Sarah Ripley, the future of marketing?

She emailed me a link to this TaB commercial from the olden days (well, the ’80s).
Her observation was that with only a jingle, the commercial was very simple. No voiceover, no copy, no actors reading lines. Couldn’t be easier.

I was curious about another thing.

After I watched the ad, the jingle was stuck in my head. Don’t you just hate that?

“TaB cola has a beautiful taste
So good for beautiful people
TaB cola beautiful to you and me
‘Cause every can has less than two calories
TaB cola helps a beautiful shape
Just right for beautiful people
TaB cola tastes so good to you
Great taste low calorie TaB”

The line that stuck with me was “So good for beautiful people” and again near the end, “Just right for beautiful people.”

I got to thinking about it. You could never say that in spoken copy without sounding like a total jackass. “Enjoy TaB, the preferred drink of beautiful people.”

How strange that you can sing it, and slip it right past the judgmental left brain. Huh.

A good jingle can be very powerful. Because music is processed by the right hemisphere of the brain, you can take in a message and remember quite disturbing thoughts if you do so in lyrics. Think about songs such as the MASH Theme, Mack the Knife and any country song about adultery.

So, it was actually quite brilliant of TaB to slip in an unspoken message through song rather than announcer voiceover.

Can you think of any other jingles that do this to us?

Avery's run at 3M: Differentiate. Demonstrate. Directed Humor.

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Avery (the label folks) are taking a run at one of 3M's core products…the ubiquitous Post-It note.

I like this campaign because the ads do a good job of differentiating the Avery products from the competitors, they demonstrate their use and advantages and the humor in the ads is directed in the right direction. That is, it reinforces the message rather than just being funny for the sake of funny. It's funny when the wife wipes out the guy's fantasy football board with the leaf blower and the Avery note is still firmly attached.

Sidenote: I'm growing weary of the male=doofus theme of our present society, but I'd better get used to it. Not sure what I'm talking about, start with this post from Michele Miller's Marketing to Women blog, Wonderbranding.

I think these ads, obviously targeted at women, will be enough to get people to grab an Avery product when they are displayed alongside the 3M product in a store.

Here's one of the Avery ads…the other two will be after the jump…

 

 

 

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Kia: Telling The Truth in a More Powerful Way

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"Our story began with a bicycle, back in 1951."

It's the opening line of a Kia ad that has been airing the past few months.  I like the ad. It makes you feel good. I like the Kia models that I've driven. My wife likes the ad. She suggested that I write about it. It works at making you feel good about Kia.

The ad opens with a kid from the past. This helps us suspend disbelief when the announcer gets to the part about Kia. We're quickly ready for more because we've been instantly transported back to Mayberry. We're ready to feel good! When they tell us about the new Kia plant in Georgia, it all makes sense to us and we feel good about that too.

The interesting/curious part: there are elements of the ad that just don't add up.

True: Kia has opened their first U.S. manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia.

True: This is a good thing for Georgia, and for the U.S.

Strange: That a kid who looks like he stepped off the set of Leave it to Beaver could be riding a bike that was manufactured in South Korea in 1951. He is later seen riding it in the Georgia factory.

Stranger still: By all accounts (Kia's web site and Wikipedia), Kia was started in 1944 in Seoul. Wikipedia says they manufactured bikes, but Kia's own site says bicycle parts.

Question: Why does the ad say 1951 instead of 1944? Why an American kid and not a Korean kid?

I get it. All Marketers are Liars Tell Stories.

The story is, "Kia is a successful company that has been around a long time. We used to only manufacture our products in Asia, but now we're manufacturing cars in the United States. We hope you will like this fact and buy more of our cars."

The inconvenient facts are that it simply wouldn't be effective to show a Korean kid playing with bicycle parts. 1944 was also right in the thick of World War II. 1951, not so much.

If viewers get the idea that those bikes were made in America, so be it.

And, if Kia can avoid tying itself to WWII, instead, to a time when we were allies, what's the harm?

Also…certainly, nobody is going to check the facts are they?

What do you think?

And…was that really a Kia bicycle in the ad?