Like many people in this
world I am a complete and utter sucker for an awkward dance. I cringed in
Napoleon Dynamite, I swooned in 10 things I hate about you and I shook my
groovethang in The Inbetweeners. It
just gets your heart racing and smacks a smile on your face.
The latest Engen/ Wimpy
advert follows quite a basic storyline. Boy sees girl, boy dances, girl smiles;
boy and girl go on date. Incredibly simple and entertaining.
The act of actually
advertising Engen/Wimpy quickstores seems completely pointless to me as the main
selling point 90% of the time is that there’s nowhere else to go. Somehow this
advert had me wanting to shake my booty on down to milkshake town and go fall
in love at the Engen. Admittedly if I hung around in a petrol station with a
giant milkshake I’m more likely to be arrested for loitering than courted but
hey, worth a try right?
This is a great example of
how a product with basically no benefits advertises well. I mean what are they
saying other than get your warm fuzzies at your nearest Engen?
There are little pieces of
magic that save this advert from being the complete and utter steaming turd it
should be (the concept is overdone, there’s no insight, the tagline “love the
journey” encourages dry heaving). That Cape Town hipster actor with his scrawny
body and wispy facial hair, fantastic casting, he looks like the kind of d-bag
who complains about the differences between lattes and flat whites. You can’t
help but love someone like that, especially when he’s making a fool of himself.
It’s that facial expression when you can tell he thinks he looks cool- sold. Then there’s the song, a George
Harrison cover, such cheese so condensed. It’s just enough to tow the line
between ironic and disgusting, the Rod Stewart of adverts, I love it.
On the other side of the
spectrum we have another South African TV advert which is attempting to give us
the warm fuzzies but in the worst kind of way Everyone is already going to be
super harsh on McDonalds advertising, what with them being the beef devils that
they are. Their latest adverts features “real footage” of a group of orphans
going to get free McFlurrys and then taking them to an old age home to share.
Urgh, too far. You have to choose
Maccy D’s: old folks or orphans, you can’t have both. And if you do have both
at least give them each their own McFlurry
This visual over a (sounds
like Parlotones?) cover of Forever Young had me Hulking with rage at the
screen. I have nothing wrong with bad companies advertising, and I do
appreciate the fact that they’re not targeting kids in this advert, but don’t pretend you’re a good guy. Or at least be
more subtle about it. It’s like people that take photos of themselves doing
charity work and then upload them to Facebook. It makes me feel like you’re
only doing good when people are watching. And you’re not even doing that much
good, I mean you gave away twenty free McFlurry’s, not even one for every
person in the ad? Pfft, stingebobs. It could have been cute if they had the
kids trying to balance all the McFlurrys, like the old Clicks milk advert,
before they got to the old people. Having all the starving children staring
down their treats and drooling on the screen- not cute, heartbreaking. Also the
tagline “Everyone can do with a little happiness”, Coca Cola much?
McDonalds could take some
tips from Engen. We, the consumers, love the warm fuzzies but it’s the little
things that make us smile. It’s tripping, dancing, smiling all the basic actions
that make me seal clap and smile with happiness. If you’re selling your product
purely on an emotion it is either has to be a good simple advert or extremely
clever. Both are equally as hard to achieve and very offensive watching when
done wrong.
The most worrying thing is
that this advert has already scooped Best of McDonald's
TV for 2012/13 by some of the top McDonald's Creative Directors from around the
world. I say aim higher Maccy D’s, cheap shots will get you nowhere with us.
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