Advertising | What's The Big Idea?

The Return of Kool-Aid Man

Today I’d like to give a tip of my hat to Kool-Aid man.

The Kool-Aid man has recently made a comeback in the first two spots from Kool-Aid’s “Smile, it’s Kool-Aid” campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
This time around, the giant red pitcher is promoting Kool-Aid Liquid, the brands new liquid drink mix. The campaign is targeted towards moms.

The new CGI incarnation of Kool-Aid man doesn’t sing any annoying songs and his voice is much less creepy. He does, however, burst through his own front door in an amusing bit of self-referential humor.

According to PR Newswire, the campaign will include a mobile app that allows users to add Kool-Aid man into their own photos. This app, as well as a newly designed website and Facebook page are being designed by VSA Partners of Chicago.
Check out this 15 second spot in which Kool-Aid explains, “People get freaked out when you drink from your own head” and this 30 second spot where we get a glimpse of his everyday routine.

Kool-Aid man has come a long way from his days of appearing on command like some kind of drink mix genie and singing jingles with a voice that rivals the vocal prowess of Rebecca Black

Newcastle’s “No Bollocks” Campagin

Newcastle’s “No Bollocks” campaign is quite possibly my favorite currently-running ad campaign for a beer brand.

Commercials such as the Great Times spot and the Handcrafted spot are doing the exact opposite of what most beer companies are doing. They are being real.

The campaign, created by Droga5, really goes against the grain of traditional beer advertising with this spot that’s not making any promises, except of course, that Newcastle’s brown ale is a quality beer.

As someone who is currently looking for internships, I found this spot particularly funny.

Newcastle’s in-bar executions are also honest to a fault, which is a trait that I have always personally found endearing.

The brand has also taken the campaign to social media where you are invited to complain about their ads…

…or to personalize your page with your very own No Bollocks cover photo.

The campaign has elicited allot of positive feedback from folks on sites such as Reddit and Twitter.

The rest of the No Bollocks spots can be viewed on Newcastle’s Youtube page.

If the No Bollocks campaign has won you over and you’d like to purchase some Newcastle brown ale for yourself, you just might be lucky enough to score a coupon. Honest.

Grey Poupon Mustard Relaunches Classic “Pardon Me” Campaign.

Mustard Merchants Grey Poupon have recently relaunched their famous “Pardon Me” campaign.

An ad from the late 1980’s promoting Grey Poupon squeeze

The new ad features a new take on the original “Pardon Me” spot from 1981 and debuted last Sunday during the Academy Awards. The main goal of the campaign has been to establish Grey Poupon’s positioning as a brand for high class people with good taste.

The ad is also meant to appeal to fans of a certain character known for his good taste. This years Oscars celebrated the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. The Rolls Royce’s in the ad are decked out with gadgets and weapons (such as a caviar oil slick) that resemble a car that would have been designed for Bond.

The two minute long spot has created a significant amount of buzz in the social media realm. According to Networked Insights, the brand received four times its usual social media conversations following the airing of the new spot. Speaking of social media, the brand’s Facebook page takes its positioning to the extreme. One must qualify to be a fan of the brand of mustard based on their “good taste”. After applying for a “membership” in their “Society of Good Taste”, an algorithm searches a user’s page for proper grammar and preference for art and literature in order decide if a user is classy enough for a membership. Grey Poupon also utilizes Pinterest as its primary website.

The “Pardon Me” campaign has been essential to Grey Poupon’s branding over the last three decades. The Big Idea is that Grey Poupon is consumed by those who have good taste in condiments because they have good taste in general. Is the advertising overly arrogant? Possibly. Has it been monumental to the success of Grey Poupon? “But of course”.

Check out the “Lost Footage” spot below.

The Lost Footage spot

Here is the original 1981 spot.

Pardon Me spot

Advertising in the Skateboarding Industry

Advertisements are a very important component of the professional skateboarding industry. Ads that are featured in skateboard magazines or on skateboarding websites have several purposes. They let consumers know which companies are sponsoring which professional skaters. They create buzz for upcoming skate videos, and most importantly, they promote new products.

Skateboarding is one of the few advertising markets that is primarily print based. In a world in which Newsweek no longer prints its issues, skateboard magazines like Thrasher are thriving. Two things that most skateboard ads usually share in common are minimal copy and the fact that their target looks at them for longer than the average consumer. It isn’t uncommon for amateur skaters and other fans of skateboarding to decorate their room with ads cut from their favorite magazines. Brands like Axe and Ray Ban have had successful print campaigns in recent years, yet it is lesser known brands like Supra Footwear and Deathwish Skateboard decks whose ads are adorning the walls of their target consumers.

Many modern ads for products within the skateboarding industry follow a similar formula. An ad typically shows one of a companies sponsored riders doing a trick while utilizing the product being advertised. Others simply feature a prominent product shot and a logo.

Skate ads are almost always done in-house by a small team of designers. They usually follow a fairly simply formula, and yet, according to this infographic, they seem to work.

Could this model be applied to other industries? Imagine a Nike ad feature a photo sequence of a popular NBA player performing an impressive dunk in an empty court. There could be something to be learned from an advertising market in which its companies perform their intended goals so well with so few resources.

So what’s the big idea?

The World’s Most Successful Big Idea Campaigns

Upcoming posts from this blog will feature Big Ideas. Below are a list of successful ad campaigns from over the years and the agencies behind them. Much like the ideas themselves, I have kept this list short and sweet. Check out this post by D. Drew Design for a more comprehensive look.

Avis: “We Try Harder” by Doyle, Dane, Bernbach

Nike: “Just Do It.” by Wieden & Kennedy

Volkswagen: “Think Small” by Doyle, Dane, Bernbach

DeBeers: “A Diamond is Forever” by N.W. Ayer & Son

California Milk Processor Board: “Got Milk?” by Goodby Silverstein

These phrases have entered the cultural lexicon and are, in some cases, rarely even associated with the client who originally commissioned the campaign. Their longevity and widespread success serves as a standard by which any existing or potential advertising can be measured. These are the Big Ideas.