Another posting about tv – this ones all about Suzuki cars’ newest marketing partnership. They have a long-standing sponsorship association with ITV Saturday night entertainment programmes or, put more simply, shows featuring the ubiquitous Ant & Dec. And to back it up they formed an advertising link up with the duo themselves showing them driving around in their cars meeting fans etc for use as break bumper ads around the lads’ shows. I always thought that was pretty lazy thinking. Why target the same audience twice? But all that changed when Ant only went and crashed his actual car (not a Suzuki) whilst pissed and his addictions became public knowledge. Hence a year out of the public eye recovering at the Priory, which kind of created an Ant-sized hole in the Suzuki partnership strategy.
I tell you what’s bloody odd, that tv advert for power utility company SSE. It features an orang utan (!) going up and down escalators apparently signifying a fresh look at electricity supply. If I was going to ask somebody to cast a fresh pair of eyes over the attributes of the various energy companies I’d definitely pick an orange-coloured primate to do it. No I wouldn’t; it’s a frigging stupid notion. Nor would I use one of the great love songs, When I Fall in Love, by Nat King Cole as the musical soundtrack because absolutely no-one is in love with any of the energy suppliers in the UK, the grasping, expensive bar-stewards. It’s almost like they’re taking the monkey juice. If you think I’m being unkind take a look at let me know I’ve got it wrong…
I’ll tell you another weird ad; that latest one for moneysupermarket.com where there’s a blerk with a bum as big as Kim Kardashian’s, in tight shorts and high heels (and a jacket, nice shirt and tie incongrously) twerking away in front of a woman carrying two dogs and who looks like Sharon Osbourne’s Spitting Image puppet. I suspect it’s poking fun at our sexist attitudes but I actually find it quite difficult to watch. More to the point it wouldn’t encourage me to go and check out the company’s utility/insurance comparison website because, as we now know, it’d make more sense to go and chat with an ape. Confused.com? Check it out…
Finally I can remember back in the very early days of Cellnet (now O2) my great boss BMc managed to convince the then hottest female actress in the world, Joan Collins, to do a tv commercial for us based on the idea that she ‘didn’t do ads’. He taught me to aim high. Almost 30 years later I shouldn’t be surprised to see that celebrity endorsement is still a key advertising plank. And speaking of wooden, what is Kevin Bacon doing promoting mobile network EE? The same thing that Joan was doing all those years ago, earning a pile of money for 30 secs of work. But it’s sad to see an actor as fine as Harvey Keitel reprising his Winston Wolf character from one of my favourite films, Pulp Fiction, for some crappy ads for Direct Line insurance. I guess nothing changes and money still talks eh. But it’s still weird to see him doing the ads with jobbing actors and crummy pay-off lines. He looks like he’s enjoying it as much as if he had anal warts…
It’s been, ooh, ages since I did a posting on a tv commercial but I’ve been completely non-plussed by the company Taylor’s first ever ad for its coffee products. Who you ask? Good question; they are a Yorkshire-based coffee company. It’s not where you’d expected the home of a product grown in the Tropics to hail from is it but the Taylor guys started a coffee shop in the town of Harrogate back when Queen Victoria was a young girl tha’ knows and it’s been going reet belting ever since. Fair enough. But to announce their brand to the wider world they’ve commissioned an ad which is just bloody mesmerising/frigging weird. Delete as appropriate. Take a look:
What do you think; inspired, inexplicable or just plain insane? Well I’ve done some research dear readers and on the company’s website I found some words from the company’s marketing manager, ‘our Jess’, (no sniggering at the back) and she’s explained the thinking behind the commercial. She says ‘The vast majority of ads go unnoticed or forgotten, particularly in the world of coffee, where the romantic liaisons and brimming mugs are the ‘beige’ creative norm. We want to disrupt that and deliver the unexpected, to be confident and distinctive. Ultimately, we wanted to create an ad just like our product; a complex, magical and mind-blowing experience…If you could zoom into your neural synapses when coffee hits your taste buds and caffeine finds your brain, we think it’d pretty much look like this’.
Blimey love, it’s only a cup of coffee; not a line of Florida snow. But I love her post-rationalisation – I bet the brief was a lot less imaginative in its words. Nevertheless I like a company whose main PR platform is the ‘Yorkshire Rainforest Project’. That’s probably coffee company speak for Ilkley Moor. Tha’ knows.
Well first off I need to thank my fellow blogger http://iamthelostgirl.wordpress.com/ for explaining to me how to upload video clips to the postings. If all goes well I’ll try and load some to demonstrate this week’s ad watch bunch. If you’re interested in the celebrity world across the pond you should check out lg’s site too – it’s good fun.
Pasta Paulie 