Ad Strategies: X looks like Y

Looking through the annals of ad history I've found countless visual ads that make me feel a little bit excited inside. A fair few that make me feel a little sick too - sick with envy.

I have, however, noticed a few trends, the first of which I'll talk about here; X looks like Y.

Here are some classic examples:

These are described by Pete Barry as 'visual puns'. Just like Meerkat sounding like Market, or Mental Floss sounding like Dental Floss (an old Mac ad) they simple tax in on the idea that one element of the product resembles one expression of the benefit. To come up with them, it seems you just have to spend hours looking at the product and it's use, waiting for that nugget - that ad gold. Of course, at the end of the day they're still puns and everyone knows that's a low form of wit. Still, visuals works quicker than copy and somehow (don't ask me about the science of it) seem to give more of a laugh.

The visual pun: but one weapon in the copywriter's arsenal.

Keeping busy

Last week I sent off my application to the Watford course. Waiting for a reply was like torture (for a neurotic like me), but they decided to invite me to an interview on Dec 16th. This is good news!

In the couple of days spent waiting, I busied myself with some drawing. My friend Louis wanted some artwork designing for his website, so I came up with a nice banner and logo. You can visit his great Techno/Electro blog 'Louis Louis' right here. I also made a little image for stickers/tee-shirts he might be printing. Who knew I could draw so well using Illustrator alone?!

There's lots to be done in preparation for the interview. Learning all the agencies names, creatives, clients, past campaigns. Not to mention improving my portfolio. I'm also trying desperately hard not to think about the Dragon's Den style presentation I'll have to do...

Pressure's on.

Worshiping The Sun

One of the best ways to take on your competition is to tackle it head first.

Traditional newspapers face the onslaught of iphones, blackberries and other new media.

So they do this...

(Agency: Glue, London)

Sullivan on Simplicity

I've mentioned him before... it's the author of the fantastic 'Hey Whipple, Squeeze This', Luke Sullivan, giving the definitive lesson in the art of the ad.

Luke Sullivan from Mediastash.tv on Vimeo.

Straplines and the holy grail

In a recent blog post by Dave Trott over at Brand Republic he discusses including the name of the product or brand in the strapline or ad itself. How, of late, it seems to have become a rather uncool or unsophisticated thing to do. But his point is that linking the message to a brand is something that somehow has to be done - if T-Mobile's flash mobs just sell 'mobile phones' and not T-Mobile mobile phones, then they are doing the competitor's advertising for them!

In the subsequent discussion to the blog post, we hit on some classic straps which contain the name... 'Heinz Meanz Beanz', 'Ooh Ahh Daily Star'. I suggested the following two which have achieved the holy grail of all straplines... to enter common parlance.

Whenever someone overdoes something, hits the golf ball too far, lifts a table exceedingly well or whatever, people often say 'Someone's had their Weetabix'...

That's a strap that will outlive any campaign they happen to run.

It's good that they've gone back to it.

'Shoulda gone to specsavers' is another which if not said out loud, plays in your thoughts whenever you see bad glasses.

Dave is certainly on to something here.

Google Autocomplete Meme

If you're like me and spend way too much time on the internet, you'll probably have seen this sort of thing quite a bit:

You can get a whole bunch on AutocompleteMe.com

They COULD be a naturally occurring phenomenon... but then why put a result that has 14,000 views above one that has 1,500,000?

The answer is that everyone of these humorous little screenshots acts as an ad for Google.

Each one gets handed round virally, and people go to the site to try find their own. It's a neat idea - they probably took the whole site to pieces and looked at each bit thinking: how can we make this more interesting/attractive. Obviously with Google's simplicity there wasn't much room for innovation, but they managed it.

Subtle advertising indeed (whether intentional or not).

Rory Sutherland - Lateral solutions