Filed under: Player's Corner 2.0 | Tags: advertising, assets, campaign, irony, media, outdoor, video, witt
When working with Spanx to create and launch the brand Assets, a Target Senior VP called the work “arresting”. She went on to say it would stop consumers, force them to look and then consider buying the products.
I later heard this same term tossed around by executives at Quicktrip to describe their campaign for sticky buns, while defending the headline “Life’s Too Short for Oatmeal.”
How fast does a consumer’s brain need to work to reverse this logic and conclude Oatmeal will extend your life where sticky buns may not. Perhaps that’s the joke of the message? However, unlike funny ads like Crispin Porter’s “Wake up with the King” campaign, this seems dry and humorless.
During the recent Vancouver Games, in a McDonald’s campaign, the messaging read, “You don’t have to be an Olympic Athlete to eat like one”. Again, reverse this logic and conclude, “Olympic athletes do not eat McDonald’s.”
I believe the campaigns above communicate in an ironic, almost cynical fashion to consumers. Where this may connect to adults who immediately understand the irony of good health in relation bad choices, it becomes dangerous for children who do not.
So are these ads funny? Do they work? What is the purpose of these campaigns? Let me know what you think.
-Brett Player
