Squarespace, Mailchimp and other top creative ads of the week

I curate clutter-breaking creative ads and ideas that help address a business problem or opportunity (well, mostly). Occasionally I comment on the business aspects of the ad industry. Here are some ads which caught my eye this week:

Squarespace: designed to sell

Squarespace is a website builder and hosting provider with small and medium enterprises as its core audience. It helps them host content and sell their products or services. A new spot ‘showcases the endless possibilities for what can be sold online using Squarespace. It’s a visual treat, with each frame art directed in a manner that avoids a typical stock image visuals of self defence, audio classes and so on.

Archer Roose: Talking Wine

Wine consumption is usually associated with staid, understated and refined settings. Ads pertaining to brands in this category have showcased super-premium, luxury cues. In an bid to portray such settings as ‘stuffy’, a new ad for Archer Roose swings the other way with outlandish and bizarre visual references – all in a bid to make wine drinking fun. It definitely breaks the category code – with a high chance of offending the wine connoisseurs though.

Agency: Colossus

Chicken Licken: Rock my soul

As I have said before a common technique in advertising is to exaggerate the benefit of a product in a manner that it creates intrigue. A ‘so what?’ question is usually asked of a base benefit which can then subsequently lead to interesting ideas. In this spot from South Africa, a spicy product’s unexpected ‘benefits’ is told through a humorous story.

Vodafone Ireland: Red Family

‘We go through a lot to connect with our family’ is a maxim many would concur with. I wondered how that would be connected to a brand promise of Vodafone Red in Ireland which promotes its RED Family plan – which gives ‘rewards’ to customers who hold between 3 and 6 mobile, and now broadband accounts. A price off is packaged as a ‘reward’ and the situation that dramatises how ‘go through a lot’ brings the laughs.

Agency: Grey, London

Britannia Nutrichoice: feel the fit

Just as ‘a cola is a cola is a cola’ the same can be said of a biscuit. Even with interesting ingredients it is difficult to dramatise a meaningful differentiation. A new set of ads for Britannia Nutrichoice dramatise ingredients like pumpkin seeds, chia and such like with a ‘feeling’ of being fit. The casting is spot on as actor Ranveer is at his flamboyant best and used a ‘representation’ of that ‘feeling fit’ mindset. It’s nice when brands take the benefits way too seriously.

Agency: Mullen Lintas

Amazon Business: Rome in a day

With Amazon Business and its quick deliveries (exaggerated of course), the saying ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ can even be proven wrong. Nice leap that brings a smile and drives home the point.

Agency: Joint

BetMGM: Jamie Foxx Goes All-in

‘All the sports betting in one place’ provides a platform for various sports scenarios to be enacted in an albeit unlikely place – the casino, which goes well with the parent brand.

Agency: 72andSunny

Intuit Mailchimp: turn clustomers into customers

Brand owners market to a demographic group knowing well that all in that group may not show similar behaviours towards the category or the brand. I loved how such pain points of brand owners is so creatively and succinctly captured by Mailchimp by coining the clever phrase ‘clustomers’. Rest of the ad writes itself.

Agency: Wink Creative

Tide: pile up

Apparently it will soon be football season in the US and a pile up of clothes that need washing is inevitable. That nuance is well brought out in this spot for Tide which exaggerates the after effects of a pile up and how Tide comes to the rescue.

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Samsung: voice focus

‘Shut out the world’ is theme commonly seen in noise cancelling headphones and AirPods. A new spot for a feature called Voice Focus (am assuming it reduces background noise) is brought alive on similar lines in a new spot.