Embrace Life: Using love to get your point across

This ad, created by the Sussex Safer Road Partnership in England, is designed, like many other road safety campaigns, to encourage viewers to remind to wear their seat belts. Normally road safety ads are designed to shock with its footage. This ad does the opposite: it is beautifully filmed and uses love to send the message. Its power comes by reminding you to keep the focus on what is important: the family that depends on you. A universal value that in this case reaches us on a level we wish all advertising could. It provokes a strong emotional response in all those who have seen it, through a strong emphasis on positive messaging and imagery. This innovative and moving approach is what makes it memorable.

This ad is also remarkable as it can be used across the world: the storytelling doesn´t use a specific language and the use of a family makes it compelling to people from all ages. The power of a story and its images.

Hooked anti-smoking ads

This poster, part of the “Get Unhooked” campaign launched by the British Government to encourage the public to quit smoking, shows smokers’ faces being hooked with fish hooks to illustrate how they were “hooked” on cigarettes.

This campaign generated record objections from the public complaining that the images were offensive and scary especially for children. However, the Department of Health said that this campaign had been highly effective, as the number of people who had contacted the Department during that campaign had risen exponentially.

This ad was designed to make smokers realize that their addiction to smoking is controlling them and it is necessary to confront this addiction if they really want to break the habit. By using the hook metaphor, it is true that they are using elements that contain violence and disturbing images, but at the same time is effective to impact the conscience of smokers with the right tools, who otherwise wouldn´t receive the message with the same clarity. I consider the ad appropriate because the final goal is to protect people from the damaging effects of smoking.

Shock advertisement in ad campaigns

Benetton, the Italian retailer, started using shock advertisements in its campaigns during the 90’s which lead to public outrages and consumer complaints. Benetton turned to the crudest reality to start a new “dialogue” with its consumers that had never seen before in corporate history.

This image of a black soldier who, taken from behind with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, grabs a human bone rises questions about the genocides that took place in Africa, racism, colonialism… The only wording it contains is the slogan and firm name “United Colors of Benetton”. It doesn´t contain any request to buy a Benetton product and the image is not related to any product produced or marketed by Benetton. There is no connection between the ad and the company and its products. It can be argued that by shocking the spectator the company was trying to get attention of the public and keep the name “Benetton” in people´s minds.

With this campaign, Benetton marked the beginning of a new era of advertisement in which conflict and pain were taken to the extreme. While it is true that portraying a more “real world” was welcome, we have to wonder if rising awareness of significant social issues such as war has to be done by clothing retailer.

Starbucks: How to link a very popular song with your product

In order to push sales of the ready-to-drink coffee category, Starbucks needed to create more awareness of the different varieties the company had launched. An ad for the DoubleShot product was created featuring a guy named “Glen”, who drinks a can in the morning to “bring on the day”. In the ad, members of the band Survivor sing about Glen´s career ambitions to the tune of their hit song “Eye of the tiger”. This song was the popular anthem that fueled movie´s boxer Rocky Balboa to become a champion again in the 1982 feature film, “Rocky III”. This song forms part of the popular culture of North America and it is usually used to motivate and crank up teams and fans in all kind of sports games.

The ad was very popular and had a high success among men and women. The key ingredient to that popularity was the music, as the ad is very simple and clear. By linking a very popular element of the culture, a song, which shares the same characteristics and sensations with such a different product like a Doubleshot, people associate both products. It is a very smart strategy.

The Visa Aquarium commercial

Visa has created a visually pleasing commercial narrated by Morgan Freeman in which he asks us when the last time was when we went to the aquarium with our daughter. The target is obviously addressed to parents between 30 and 40 with credit cards.

How to advertise a financial service such as a credit card, something that has become a routine? How can you enhance the brand equity of a company when all competitors are offering almost the same conditions and there is almost no differentiation? Through the transformation of a dull activity such as a payment into the opposite: an exciting journey. Even on a Tuesday afternoon, with a little imagination, you can escape of your routine by going to a place like an aquarium. It only takes imagination. Visa decided to use a stunning, visually exquisite commercial, with oniric images, a haunting melody by the Moody Blues and the powerful and inspiring voice of Morgan Freeman. Al these elements combined perfectly to create the sensation that, thanks to Visa, it is easier to enjoy and explore our everyday life. In fact, it ends with Morgan Freeman saying “More people go explore with Visa”. With this ad, Visa has created some associations that otherwise would be impossible to link with this service.

Targeting an untapped demography in the financial industry

With this campaign Citigroup targets this largely untapped demography in the financial services industry addressing the needs of women who seek advice over their personal finances. The campaign is directed toward the affluent population of North America specifically between the ages of 25 and 45. We can read in the ad the following statement: “Whether you are investing for child´s college tuition, caring for aging parents or investing for your own retirement, you’ve got what it takes to be financially confident”. The slogan, “Dividends are a girl’s best friends” plays with the lyrics of the famous song replacing the word Diamonds with Dividends. The ad is appealing to a new femininity and echoes the independence of women in the present time.

In my opinion, this campaign is not only addressed to the affluent classes of the big metropolitan cities of North America but to the women that for part of the medium classes of the rest of the country. The scope is much larger. It´s simply encouraging women, a segment which decision power in a lot of households to educate more themselves so they can invest in more volatile markets and increase the value at risk.

A smart marketing action taken by Citigroup which will benefit of the advantage of the first mover in a segment that traditionally has been ignored by the industry.

“Fate”: a mini-movie ad by Nike

This Nike ad follows the journeys of two top athletes from their first steps to playing in the NFL by tracing their lives from young students through middle and high school, college to finally their careers as NFL players. At the end of the ad, both of them are competing in an NFL game. The ad tries to show how throughout their lives fate determined they should be playing football and they were determined to confront in the field. The use of music also enhances that feeling by using the very popular Ennio Morricone’s tune from the spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. In less than one minute, a sort of mini movie is displayed with a crescendo effect deriving into a powerful ending. It is not coincidence that the filmmaker David Fincher is behind the camera in this ad.

As we all know, Nike is positioned as a premium brand, selling expensive sportwear. Its marketing strategy is centered on its brand image and sponsorships agreements with athletes and teams. All their ads reflect athletic pursuits and challenges. In this case, the ad captures perfectly what is the essence of a football game. By linking the brand to a popular sport and players through a cool and powerful ad, Nike successfully positions itself as must-wear brand, no matter what the price is.