Near 113 million people are likely to watch the 2023 Super Bowl. While there may be several other sports tournaments & properties which attract great fan following and prestige associated with them, the Super Bowl is unique because of its close association with advertising. It is seen as a great opportunity to create awareness, affinity, drive sales and imbue a brand with ‘cool quotient’ just by association. The ad meant to be aired on the…
In the archives section of this blog, you will see posts from January 2008. So this is the 15th anniversary of this blog. I am grateful to you, dear reader, for motivating me to write consistently over all these years. In fact, my blogging journey started a year or so before 2008 when I dabbled in two blogs: one dedicated to news about Apple (I was thrilled with the name – Mac Love Not War)…
Creating clutter-breaking advertising is tough. A majority of the ads are simply ignored – a fate worse than being noticed and disliked. Given the fuzzy briefs, opaque approval process and other ills of advertising, this is not surprising. My weekly compilation of clutter-breaking creative ads is a small tribute to such marketing & advertising teams who manage to get their ads noticed, recalled and liked. Tops Supermarket: underrated gifts I loved advertising from Thailand. Am…
It is said in a lighter vein that Super Bowl is more of an advertising festival than a sporting one. It has a unique place among media properties as it not only attracts top advertising dollars as investments but garners global media coverage like no other. Also, unlike any other sports brand, there are a whole host of promotional activities around the ad itself – be it in the form of teasers, PR and social…
Every week I attempt to share clutter-breaking creative ads. The common thread across all such ads are that they are single-minded, entertaining (or make for a compelling watch if having a serious message) and anchored on a relevant idea. Here are a few recent including a select from few meant for this year’s Super Bowl: Tourism New Zealand: travelling under social influence At the time of writing, temporary border measures are in place in New…
Every day we come across hundreds of commercial messages. Only a handful are memorable. Here are a few compelling creative ads which caught my eye, the week ending 16th February, 2018: GE’s new corporate ad, a couple of Valentine’s Day ads and more. 1. GE: What Matters For many years, GE’s tag line used to be ‘We bring good things to life’. It was a fair summation of the diverse business interests of the company.…
Every day we come across hundreds of commercial messages. Only a handful are memorable. Here are the top creative ads which caught my eye, the week ending 9th February, 2018: Tide’s Super Bowl ads, Apple’s 3-minute film for Chinese New Year and more. 1. Tide: Super Bowl 2018 As is evident over the last few years, the Super Bowl is not just a sporting event, but an advertising event too. Given the astronomical cost of…
Every day we come across hundreds of commercial messages. Only a handful are memorable. Here are the top creative ads which caught my eye, the week ending 2nd February, 2018: Alibaba’s ‘The power of small’, Amazon Alexa and more. 1. Alibaba: The power of small Established in 1999, China’s Alibaba Group has been in the news in business publications largely over the years. Its founder Jack Ma is seen as an inspirational business leader and…
While I try to make a compilation of smart creative ideas I come across every week, one doesn’t always get rich pickings. There are weeks when I don’t really come across remarkable ads. Last week was one such and so I missed my weekly roundup. This week, I came across a few good creative ads and here are some I’d like to share: 1. Skittles: Super Bowl Over the years, the Super Bowl has become…
Over the years, there’s been a pattern to the Super Bowl ads – bizarre plot lines, big production values, jaw-dropping computer graphics, humour (slapstick or intelligent), elements designed to be cute and so on. Rik Haslam, Executive Creative Director at RAPP categorises them as Super Satire, Super Serious and Super Silly stories. There is likely to be a pressure to do whatever everyone else is doing – ‘most of the spots look like what we think a Super Bowl spot is supposed to look like’, as this article says. This year too, there have been the regulars – big-scale production values, tear jerkers featuring puppies and so on.