ad of the week • Tags • Page 20 of 24 •

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Can Breakfast Be Two-Gunsy?

by Oresti Patricios (@orestaki) The line between humour and cringe can sometimes be a delicate one – and ideas that look good on the drawing-board can end up falling flat on their metaphorical faces. The Wimpy Breakfast campaign that has been created by DraftFCB is a case in point – it could have been incredibly cringeworthy, because it’s really quite silly. Yet it hits the mark.

The real star is the copy, which is bright and inventive; creating new phrases and terminology that might just make it into the mainstream. The mood of the ad is 100% South African, and the main character is a comedic talent, who plays the opposite of the guy who woke up “on the wrong side of the bed”.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – A Wallet for all Reasons

by Oresti Patricios (@orestaki) For the middle-to-upper classes, who have several accounts, true convenience would be having everything in one place: on their smartphones. The latest ad from MTN, announcing the ‘MTN Wallet’ seems to be aimed at this segment.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Golden Plunger Makes a Splash

Once again, humour rises to the top of the pile for my nomination for ‘Ad of the Week’. Yellow Pages and agency 360eight have launched a new campaign with a splash, and here’s hoping for more in the same vein.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Mnandi-licious

A no-nonsense fast food product that caters to the Everyman, the King Pie brand could retain its crown with a new ad that is fun, watchable and plays strongly to local culture. In terms of advertising, King Pie has been absent from television screens for quite a while.

A part of the South African fast food landscape since the dawn of democracy (which makes the brand 20 years old), King Pie’s ads haven’t always been this great. Previous attempts included a few “candid camera” style scenarios that didn’t quite hit the mark. But I think that this television ad is right on the money: it’s funny, it’s relevant, and it has a clever twist.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Satirical ads sell the Times

Newspapers have come under increasing pressure recently. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), circulation figures are falling year-on-year for most dailies and weeklies. The exception is, of course, the so-called ‘vernacular press’, with titles like Isolezwe holding firm despite economic pressure.

English and Afrikaans papers have to increasingly compete with digital, and at this stage many of them are in a fight for their lives. Lowe CT, agency for Independent Newspaper’s Cape Times, has produced a spunky radio ad campaign that does a great job (using humour) to market its brand.

Imagine getting people like Helen Zille, Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema to read news articles about themselves. Well, of course, that’s not going to happen, but with the help of impersonators, you can create the desired effect.

The choice of news article is key, and part of the humour is in hearing these voices referring to themselves in the third person. That, and the fact that these impersonators are really top-notch.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – you keep your eyes on the road

Mercedes Benz has developed yet another pioneering, high-tech innovation, aimed at improving road safety. Studies show that around one quarter of all serious motorway accidents are attributable to sleepy drivers in need of a rest, meaning that drowsiness causes more road accidents than drinking and driving.

This latest piece of computing wizardry works on several levels to analyse a driver’s behaviour in order to detect if they are getting sleepy at the wheel, and then sound an alarm that brings their attention back to reality.

Of course, just showing this technology would probably induce sleep in today’s low attention-span TV audience, so ad agency Net#work BBDO came up with an amusing take on two ‘Walter Mitty’ type characters. The first features a good looking executive type, who catches his own reflection in the mirror while driving. He’s clearly in love with himself, as each time he looks in the mirror, his gaze lingers a little longer.

The music, a Sinatra/Perry Como-style song (created for the ad by Pulse Music New York) that harks back to the sultry lounge-lizard era, is a ballad about “You’ve either got it or not,” – something that this driver seems to think is the case.

As his hand reaches up to run his fingers through his hair, and you’re about to snarl “Keep your eye on the road,” a loud beeping snaps him back to reality. It’s a reality that is a bit of a shock, because now we see that he is, in fact, balding, and maybe slightly older than the ‘mind’s eye’ picture that we previously had of him. The beeping sound was, of course, the Mercedes Benz Attention Assist technology, that picked up the fact that the driver wasn’t paying enough attention to the road, and quickly brought him back to reality.

The byline is: “‘When your mind wanders, ATTENTION ASSIST brings it back.”

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Miracle on the Hudson

If this advert doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, or at the very least a lump to your throat, perhaps you need to check yourself in for some psychological observation. It’s rare that an advert gives me a sucker punch, but the new television for Nedgroup did just that. It took my breath away and reminded me of what a powerful story can do to communicate brand values.

Brandlab, with production company Giant Films produced the fantastic high-drama recreation of a story that captured the world’s attention a couple of years ago. It is the story of a dramatic event that made global headlines on January 15 2009, when Captain Chesley B “Sully” Sullenberger made an emergency landing of his Airbus A320-214 in the Hudson River, in New York. The ad celebrates this veteran pilot’s heroic and professional actions in the face of extreme danger, actions based on rational thinking and experience that saved the lives of 155 people.

The message of the commercial is: “In the right hands, anything is possible.”

Filmed in New York City, the ad starts with aerial footage over the city, and follows the flight path of the plane. Cut to Capt. Sullenberger, on location on the banks of the Hudson. “It was an ordinary winter’s day,” he tells us. Cut to various scenes of typical wintry New York activity: taxi drivers getting into their cars; kids crossing the street with their teacher; a dancer rehearsing. A plane takes off, and air traffic controllers speak to the pilot of Flight 1549.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – When Vampires Attack!

We’ve passed the winter solstice, which means that summer is not too far off. For most South Africans it’s the season of fun in the sun. There’s so much to look forward to: longer daylight hours, braais, swimming… and then there’s the mosquitoes. Well, everything good must have a downside, or so they say.

But the reality is that those whiney bloodsucking vampires are incredibly annoying! Somehow they always find the most annoying place to bite me – like on my knuckle, my ear or my elbow. The worst part, though, is the whining sound as they start to dive-bomb, about twenty minutes after I turn out the light… or just as I’m about to drift off to sleep.

Tabard has established itself very solidly over the years as a household name in South Africa, and several other African countries, due in part to its easy application and not-too-unpleasant scent. But mostly because of its effective ability to banish the blood-sucking scourge that’s the mosquito.

Given that that the Tabard brand is familiar and well entrenched – owners the Acorn Group say it is Africa’s “most trusted insect repellent” – what’s important to the brand is that it remains relevant.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – “The Chef”

Amstel Lager’s main brand differentiator has been the promise that it is “slow-brewed”, which allegedly produces a better tasting product. This beer has always been a little more expensive than the other mainstream brands, and has traditionally occupied a prestige space that is somewhere between the imported and the local brands.

The concept of taking time to achieve true quality has been re-interpreted in the latest campaign, which tells realistic life stories of ordinary people who have to pay their dues to achieve their goals.

Humans are storytelling animals: telling a story has been proven to be the best way to engage an audience, be it in a presentation, a speech or a commercial. This campaign has used that to draw in its audience and make a very definite impression.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – the foodie revolution

There was a time when food in South Africa was fairly simple and straight-forward. We were the land of tripe and polony. Gourmet wasn’t a commonplace word, and fancy food was all about special Sunday roasts or hotel buffets, or if you were of another class, the stuff people ate in restaurants like those in the Carlton Hotel or The Mount Nelson. Masterful chefs were the preserve of a small elite – not the every man and woman.

Fortunately times have changed and gourmet foods, products and processes have become much more democratised thanks to television and the interwebs. As the media discovered that human beings love to watch other humans cooking, all things gourmet have seeped into our popular culture.