As Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) tells us in This is Spinal Tap, “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid.” In advertising and marketing I feel it’s a fine line between genius and disastrous.
I love and appreciate brave advertising and marketing campaigns – such as the Old Spice campaign I’ve written about before. A company aware of a shortcoming and embracing it to create a unique identity, (“With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.”), is deserving of praise.
Riskier still, and difficult to pull off, is mentioning or showing your competitor’s product in your ad. Recently Burger King introduced a breakfast sandwich that looks an awful lot like McDonald’s, market-dominating Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich. BK embraced this fact and attempted to own it. The TV spot featured the King character breaking into McDonald’s headquarters and stealing the blueprints for their sandwich, then rolling out a BK copy cat. The voiceover says, “It’s not that original, but it is super affordable...” (They sell the sandwich for $1.) Pretty honest and clever. (Though it may be time to hang up the drive through statue-inspired King character.)
But during recent World Cup games I witnessed what I would consider the advertising blunder of the year.
My kids are very athletic, mostly soccer, but also biking and swimming and other sports. We mostly hydrate them with water, but every once in awhile we pick up a sports drink, almost always Gatorade. But one of the things I am always aware of is that Gatorade can be high in calories and carbohydrates. Fine for the kids who are running around, but not ideal for me, a guy with a more spectator-ish relationship to the sports.
Along comes a commercial featuring a beauty shot of Gatorade, “G.” The copy announces that the drink has 50 calories per 8 ounce serving. I thought, “Hey, that’s not too bad.” Then the bottle gets knocked out of the frame by a different Gatorade drink, “G2” and the graphic explains this drink has 20 calories per 8 ounce serving. “Even better!” And I recently saw that product in the supermarket. I’ll make a note.
Then that bottle gets knocked out of frame by another Gatorade product, Propel water. It only has 10 calories per 8 ounce serving! And I think to myself, “Well, I’ve had the water before and didn’t really like it, but it’s good to know that Gatorade offers a fairly wide array of products with varying calorie content. “
And then the ad goes south.
The Propel water is knocked out of frame by a blue Powerade bottle. It has zero calories per 8 ounce serving. Well, that’s all fine and good, but they’ve spent about 25 of the 30 seconds showing me Gatorade. And they’ve sold me on how there are always options with Gatorade. Oops.
I give Powerade credit for not being afraid to show their competition, but perhaps they should have spent less time with the Gatorade on screen? Or not shot the product so beautifully? Or maybe mocked the competition for having too many choices and then presenting the fact that their product is always the lowest calorie sports drink?
Worse still is the fact that the Gatorade bottles they show are not 8 ounce bottles. They are 20 ounce bottles. So now I erroneously associate the low calorie content with the larger bottle. If you must show me Gatorade, at least show me the service size you are talking about. Otherwise you are giving your competitor a “serving size bump.” (You know how that works, “Only 5 calories per serving! How many servings in this candy bar? Oh, well, 531.)
A nice try, but Powerade’s new calorie count ads are, in sports terms, a swing and a miss.
I love and appreciate brave advertising and marketing campaigns – such as the Old Spice campaign I’ve written about before. A company aware of a shortcoming and embracing it to create a unique identity, (“With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.”), is deserving of praise.
Riskier still, and difficult to pull off, is mentioning or showing your competitor’s product in your ad. Recently Burger King introduced a breakfast sandwich that looks an awful lot like McDonald’s, market-dominating Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich. BK embraced this fact and attempted to own it. The TV spot featured the King character breaking into McDonald’s headquarters and stealing the blueprints for their sandwich, then rolling out a BK copy cat. The voiceover says, “It’s not that original, but it is super affordable...” (They sell the sandwich for $1.) Pretty honest and clever. (Though it may be time to hang up the drive through statue-inspired King character.)
But during recent World Cup games I witnessed what I would consider the advertising blunder of the year.
My kids are very athletic, mostly soccer, but also biking and swimming and other sports. We mostly hydrate them with water, but every once in awhile we pick up a sports drink, almost always Gatorade. But one of the things I am always aware of is that Gatorade can be high in calories and carbohydrates. Fine for the kids who are running around, but not ideal for me, a guy with a more spectator-ish relationship to the sports.
Along comes a commercial featuring a beauty shot of Gatorade, “G.” The copy announces that the drink has 50 calories per 8 ounce serving. I thought, “Hey, that’s not too bad.” Then the bottle gets knocked out of the frame by a different Gatorade drink, “G2” and the graphic explains this drink has 20 calories per 8 ounce serving. “Even better!” And I recently saw that product in the supermarket. I’ll make a note.
Then that bottle gets knocked out of frame by another Gatorade product, Propel water. It only has 10 calories per 8 ounce serving! And I think to myself, “Well, I’ve had the water before and didn’t really like it, but it’s good to know that Gatorade offers a fairly wide array of products with varying calorie content. “
And then the ad goes south.
The Propel water is knocked out of frame by a blue Powerade bottle. It has zero calories per 8 ounce serving. Well, that’s all fine and good, but they’ve spent about 25 of the 30 seconds showing me Gatorade. And they’ve sold me on how there are always options with Gatorade. Oops.
I give Powerade credit for not being afraid to show their competition, but perhaps they should have spent less time with the Gatorade on screen? Or not shot the product so beautifully? Or maybe mocked the competition for having too many choices and then presenting the fact that their product is always the lowest calorie sports drink?
Worse still is the fact that the Gatorade bottles they show are not 8 ounce bottles. They are 20 ounce bottles. So now I erroneously associate the low calorie content with the larger bottle. If you must show me Gatorade, at least show me the service size you are talking about. Otherwise you are giving your competitor a “serving size bump.” (You know how that works, “Only 5 calories per serving! How many servings in this candy bar? Oh, well, 531.)
A nice try, but Powerade’s new calorie count ads are, in sports terms, a swing and a miss.
3 comments:
Assolutamente d'accordo con lei. L'idea di un buon supporto.
Assolutamente d'accordo con lei. In questo nulla in vi e credo che questa sia una buona idea. Pienamente d'accordo con lei.
There are many interesting here. Hope to see some more in future
For sure, great contribution. Appreciate your sharing these kinds of products. I really recognize it
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