Brand: Juicy Fruit Gum (Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (It is the first ad entitled ‘Gum-Chewing Killer Ant’)
Target: Gum-Chewing Pet Lovers
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
A man in a bathrobe picks up a frisbee and whistles, saying “Here, boy! Fetch,” as he throws the frisbee. A giant ant, acting very much like a black Labrador, catches the frisbee in its mandibles in mid-flight and brings it back to the owner. The man pulls out a stick of Juicy Fruit Gum and as the ant displays interest, holds it up, getting the ant to stand and jump for it. When he does not ultimately give the Juicy Fruit gum to the ant, the ant snaps at him and the owner scolds it saying, “BAD!” The ant cringes for a moment as a dog would, then rears up and knocks the owner across the yard, screaming. The man jumps in his car to escape the enraged giant ant which proceeds to pull the door off the car and drag him down an ant hole. The spot ends with the words, “Gotta Have Sweet?” and then another screen saying “Gotta Have” with the Juicy Fruit package below.

What Works:
The animation in this spot is spectacular, giving the giant ant hungry for Juicy Fruit a very real and believable presence and personality. The surprise (the ant taking the place of the dog) gets the attention and is arguably ‘Tivo-proof’ for the adolescent and young male target audience who will be arrested even at fast forward speeds. The brand gets good visibility with the introduction of the gum in the first half of the spot. The product is the hero here (which is a good thing because the man doesn’t put up much of a fight) and does not get lost in the humor.
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What Doesn’t:
This advertising blog often cautions brands about the dangers of both humor and pets and this spot has both. Our primary concern is that the brand will get lost in a spot that is far more memorable for the supporting characters and story line. “What gum was that?” is the imaginable question after an office co-worker describes the spot and we are not certain that the answer will be ‘Juicy Fruit.’ This is also ultimately image advertising as the ‘Gotta have it’ proposition for the brand is generic to the category.

So the effectiveness of the spot ultimately rests with the distinctiveness and continuity of the campaign it sits on. If Juicy Fruit can sustain a years-long campaign with spots as well-executed and distinctive as this one – which look and feel much the same way, this spot works. If the brand is erratic or the executions do not reinforce each other, the money will have been wasted. Altoids is a great example of a brand able to take quirky, distinctive but potentially overwhelming spots and link them to a campaign which reinforced the brand. Wrigley must do the same with this Juicy Fruit spot.

Branding Bottom Line:
Juicy Fruit convinces us to stick to AKC breeds.

Brand: Tylenol (McNeil/Johnson & Johnson)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (It is the second-to-last ad entitled ‘Pain Pill Holes’)
Target: People in Pain
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
The spot opens with a black and white shot of a circle being cut which quickly pans back to six circles. We hear the sound of a laser tracing these circles. When the circles are cut, fizzing water rushes through them. We hear an announcer say, “Holes,” as the camera zooms through the hole and then slowly back out to display the Tylenol gelcap as the voiceover continues: “The advanced technology behind Tylenol Rapid Release Gels. Laser-drilled design for Rapid Release.” The shot backs off so that we can see the animated Tylenol gelcap fizzing under water. Then the spot cuts to a red screen and the words “Stop. Think.” appear followed by the “Extra Strength Tylenol Rapid Release Gels” logo.
What Works:
The product demo at the core of this spot is elegant and efficient. The concept of rapid release is clearly demonstrated with simple but engaging animation. Simplicity is also the virtue of the entire spot, as it focuses the message of this product improvement around the seemingly simple technical advance that enabled it. An extremely well-executed spot.
What Doesn’t:
Billion-dollar brands like Tylenol are masters of the small move. Every incremental improvement in product form, from Gel-caps, to Gel-tabs is cause for a full launch package including advertising and promotions that would do a new brand proud. In fact, this package is so well executed that it is very easy to miss the fact that the spot has no end benefit for the consumer. This is not accidental. Certainly the brand would have preferred to say something like ‘faster acting’ or ‘relieves pain faster.’ They did not do this for one of two reasons: either testing showed that gelcaps with those holes did not give test subjest faster pain relief or the brand did not want to wait for the completion of the regulatory studies and the FDA approval for these claims. Whatever the reason, the brand cannot tell consumers directly that there is any benefit to rapid release holes. Instead, this spot relies on an implied claim. Tylenol is counting on the association consumers will make between ‘rapid release’ and ‘rapid action’ and believe that quicker release will mean quicker relief.

This sleight-of-hand mars a slick spot and robs the ad of the meaning it ought to have for the consumer. Tylenol has spent billions of dollars becoming the most trusted consumer pain reliever and admirably handled a tampering scandal a generation ago. Producing advertising which attempts to get the consumer to make a logical leap that the brand cannot promise is misleading and beneath the high standards of the brand.

Branding Bottom Line:
Tylenol drills holes to drain our wallet.

Brand: Olay Quench (Procter & Gamble)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (link is to Ad-Rag which requires a small fee to view)
Target: Urban Women
Rating: *
Reviewer: David

Description:
The spot begins with a hand turning on the distinctive red switch of a boiler. We see steam escaping from a pipe and then see a radiator. We hear the radiator knocking as steam fills it. The ad cuts to a woman’s face as the knocks of the radiator are spelled out with Morse Code dots. The voiceover says, “It’s Winter. Whether you hear it or not, your skin is sending out an S.O.S.” The visuals change rapidly, alternating between shots of radiators and of women’s legs and dots and dashes. “Answer it with Olay Quench.” The spot cuts to a product shot of Olay Quench body lotion. “Actually helps stop the cycle of dry winter skin before it starts. Guaranteed,” the spot alternates again between radiators and legs. This time the legs and their owners look happier. “Olay Quench. This winter, love is in your hand.”

What Works:
This is a simple, straightforward problem/solution ad that does its workmanlike best to use the symbol of the archaic steam radiator to stand for all of the skincare issues of winter. (Although it should be noted that this Advertising Blog saw the spot air in the first days of Spring.) The spot has good production values and in typical Procter & Gamble fashion, the Olay Quench bottle shows up less than halfway through the spot.

What Doesn’t:
As conceived, this spot is solid but not exceptional and probably not worth commenting on. However, the choice of metaphor in this spot is an error and it illustrates one of the classic errors that brands can make working with advertising agencies.

The problem with this spot is that Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble has let some urban creative insert a decidedly urban metaphor in the middle of a commercial that needs to reach a wider audience. This advertising blog understands the metaphor because your advertising critic lives in Manhattan in a 100-year old co-op where the ancient steam radiator system clangs to life annually in October foreshadowing the coming of Winter. It is such a timeless ritual for urbanites that images of these radiators and the distinctive clanging sound are inextricably linked to the changing of seasons.

But for the suburbanite or rural dweller in houses constructed in the last thirty years, those radiators have no special meaning. The noise is just – noise. And the spot loses much of its power for people who do not have a direct connection to the central metaphor. Given that that young urban women are more likely to use higher-end, specialty beauty products, P&G cannot claim that it is risking the heartland to go after Olay’s young urban base. And it would be a mistake in any case to use a broad medium to reach such a narrow target.

What has happened instead is that an urban creative had a very good idea which unfortunately did not apply to the world outside pre-war apartment buildings and some very old houses. And for the majority of people with baseboard heating, the spot does not connect.

Advertising is all about the details. And it is the responsibility of the brand to make sure that the spot translates for the entire target audience it seeks to reach.

Branding Bottom Line:
Olay gives us just what we wanted. More clanging pipes.

Brand: Major League Baseball/Partnership for a Drug-Free America
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Teenage boys
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
A basketball, baseball, volleyball and football sit on a benchtop. A voiceover says, “Steroids can really damage your body.” The football begins to deflate and shrivels up. “They can cause tendons to tear, and bones to stop growing” the voiceover continues as the volleyball deflates. “Damage kidneys, destroy the liver – even cause heart attacks and strokes,” and the baseball shrivels. The football deflates as the voiceover concludes, “Not to mention something else they can do to a guy’s body.” The spot switches to a visual of the Drugfree.org logo and Partnership for a Drug-Free America as the voiceover says “Find out more about the dangers of using steroids – visit drugfree.org.”

What Works:
This is a simple, visually powerful and well-executed spot. The deflating balls get to the heart of what might actually scare a teenage boy into avoiding steroids. Not the risk of stroke, heart attack or even torn tendons will do it. But withered testicles just might. The stark set for this spot draws attention to the message and the simple action of the balls deflating one after another.

What Doesn’t:
This spot is excellent and has no major deficiencies but the campaign loses points for being too little, too late. Major League Baseball’s response to the very obvious signs of steroid use in the league has been almost as effective as an ostrich burying its head in the sand at the first hint of danger, hoping to make itself a smaller target. One look at the pre- and post- steroid Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi or Barry Bonds will tell you that the League paid attention to its short-term financial interest (all of the excitement created by the swift fall of slugging records) at the expense of its credibility and stature. Now they find themselves in a messy, awkward situation. What do they do with the records of confessed steroid abusers? An asterisk seems unfare to players like Roger Maris who did no wrong themselves but earned one. The more just response – removing the records altogether in the manner of stripping a medal from an Olympic athlete testing positive for doping – will shame the League even further. And then there is the question of what to do about Barry Bonds. Major League Baseball’s awkward, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” dance with Bonds has come to a swift end with the publication of “Game of Shadows” by Lance Williams (read an excerpt on Sports Illustrated Website here.)

Now Major League Baseball must face the reality of its own failures. By failing to create an effective, world-class testing mechanism early on (including taking and retaining blood samples for future testing), MLB created an atmosphere that ensured that the most competitive athletes would use steroids . While the athletes actions are inexcusable, the actions of MLB in this respect border on criminal.

This Public Service announcement is a tacit acknowledgement of the wider-reaching social consequences of the steroid culture that Major League Baseball allowed to flourish. The legacy of steroids in professional sports is steroids in high school and college athletics and a teenage culture of sports-related substance abuse. While MLB may be able to rid the sport of the drug habit with strict testing, the problem among teens will be much harder to eradicate. So while this is an excellent spot, it is also a sad commentary on our national pastime.

Branding Bottom Line:
Major League Baseball starts to do the right thing – and reminds us of the mess they have made.

Brand: Pepsi
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Happy People
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
Jimmy Fallon from Saturday Night Live drinks a can of Pepsi and starts dancing. He is joined by indy actress Parker Posey and they continue dancing and performing ‘Crouching Tiger’ -type stunts as they move through the streets of downtown Manhattan.

What Works:
The Pepsi bottle gets a lot of visibility (although not as much as the can in the Jay Mohr spots does.) Jimmy Fallon is a good choice for this spot as he is one of the few comic actors who actually looks natural in the middle of this silliness. Parker Posey also manages to carry it off even though she does not seem like the natural choice opposite Fallon.

What Doesn’t:
What is the branding purpose of this spot? Does it connect Pepsi with some strong emotional benefit that the brand is already linked to? Happiness? Goofiness? None of these seem like core brand attributes for Pepsi. This advertising blog will allow that brands with strong emotional connections like Pepsi and Coke might want to run advertising purely to enhance those linkages. But we cannot discern a relevant thread that ties this advertising to other Pepsi campaigns or brand attributes.

Then you have to ask why the brand is spending the money for a celebrity spot shot outdoors in a city with special effects. The answer seems to be ‘to get people to notice it.’ They may notice, but they probably will not remember Pepsi or be more likely to drink it.

Branding Bottom Line:
Pepsi and Coke would probably still cost 25 cents without all of this silly advertising.

Brand: National Car Rental
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (it is the fifth spot) or Click Here (it is the seventh spot)
Target: Small to midsize businesses
Rating: *
Reviewer: David

Description:
These seven :15 second spots all feature short funny situations, many of which are embarrasing or just plain mean. All start with the caption “The Quickest ____” where the blank is everything from Game of Charades (a hairy guy starts to stand up and play and someone guesses “Planet of the Apes” correctly) to Job Interview (a woman knocks over a hand-built sailing ship as she shakes her prospective boss’s hand). After the setup, we see another screen saying “The Quickest Way to Rent from National.” Then we see a car leaving a National Car Rental lot as the voiceover says, “With the Emerald Club, you can bypass the counter, choose your own car and get an e-receipt. National. Green means go.”

What Works:
These spots are all funny and the pace is brisk. The brevity is helpful and keeps our attention. The campaign is very consistent and National Car Rental fans will certainly recognize it.

What Doesn’t:
As our loyal readers know, this advertising blog believes humor is a very tricky tool for advertisers. Used properly, it can reinforce the brand positioning and create a memorable spot tied to a memorable brand. More commonly, very good humor overshadows the commercial message and wastes the money spent. This campaign is a good example of the second case. All of these spots are funny, but the link between ‘quick disaster’ and ‘quick car rental’ is shallow and flimsy. There is no branding in the first half of the spot.

The brand positioning for National is also questionable in this spot. National must be talking to its own customer base, because it is advertising a standard category benefit (Emerald Club direct-to-car is a clone of Hertz #1 Club gold and similar programs from other agencies). There is no superiority claim made here, which is an odd strategy for a brand which is not in the top three in its category. If Emerald is indeed speaking to frequent Emerald renters, trying to keep them loyal then television would seem to be a foolishly expensive medium given the relatively small number of targets and the fact that Emerald can already reach them through direct mail, during a rental or in other more efficient ways.

Finally, it should be said that some of these spots are just mean. That does not reflect well on a brand which is in no way linked to a counter-culture.

Branding Bottom Line
National Car Rental takes the wrong lesson from Desperate Housewives

Brand: Staples
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (it is the last spot at the bottom of the list)
Target: Small to midsize businesses
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description
A small Chinese Army faces an invading Mongolian horde. Just as they are about to be overrun, their leader signals a soldier holding an ornately carved wooden box who opens it. Inside is an ‘easy’ button which the soldier presses. Suddenly, the Great Wall of China sprouts up through the ground. Unfortunately, the leader has been trapped on the wrong side of the wall, separated from his men. He say something in Mandarin which is translated as “Dang!” The spot cuts to a shot of the ‘easy’ button against a white background as a female voiceover says, “The world may not come with an Easy button, but your business does. It’s called Staples.”

What Works
This spot certainly breaks through with fast action, great cinematography, special effects and a nice end-joke. The Staples Easy button campaign has been running long enough to have some collective weight behind it and is familiar to much of the target audience. This spot is very different from other spots in the campaign but fits the general pattern.

What Doesn’t
This spot has three significant problems, one of which is a favorite of this advertising blog.

1. Positioning Ownability - The most significant problem with this spot is the same as for the Easy button campaign in general. It promotes a category benefit. Organizing an office, making a business simpler to supply and run is something that office supply stores all do. If there is anything unique in the service Staples provides, we don’t learn about it from these spots.
2. Positioning Linkage – More so than the rest of the campaign, this spot has a very tenuous link to the positioning against business problems. How does the Mongolian invasion relate to your business supply needs? In the real world Staples (via the metaphorical Easy button) won’t help against Mongols but will help your business. This is a very tenuous link. This commercial really relies on impressive visuals, special effects and humor.
3. Waste of Money – This spot was expensive to produce, given the location, panoramic shots and special effects. None of this money worked very hard to build the brand positioning. In fact, the spot is more distracting than earlier spots in this campaign which focus on the office environment. In this case, more bought less.

Branding Bottom Line
Staples raises the Great Wall while we’re searching for a toner cartridge.

Brand: Accenture (consulting services)
Execution: TV & Print
Link: Click Here
Target: C-Level Fortune 1000 Executives
Rating: ** (TV) /**** (Print)
Reviewer: David

Description
Accenture takes a successful print campaign and brings it to television – in a huge way. The campaign has 9 spots. Each spot features Tiger Woods playing golf. Most of them show him making impossible shots using skills that are then compared to skills that Accenture can help companies build through consulting or outsourcing.

What Works
This advertising blog has long been a fan of the print campaign that launched this television campaign. One execution in particular (shown above) has Tiger holding the visor of his cap to look at the lay of the green as he is putting. It is a perfect metaphor for focus and one that the golf-aware CEOs who comprise Accenture’s target audience will understand perfectly at a glance. Targeted print advertising is also a great way to reach these key targets for consulting business.

The television campaign has some funny and memorable moments. It also shows how great athletes, like great businesses do not function on ability alone. In one spot, Tiger’s mental calculations are revealed as he shoots for the green. When the shot bounces off the cup and lands two feet away Tiger exclaims, “I forgot to account for the rotation of the Earth!” It is one of the best moment of the campaigns as it simultaneously makes us laugh and reinforces the branding message for Accenture.

What Doesn’t Work
If this advertising blog believes these spots are so well executed, why do we give the television campaign such low marks? For two reasons:

1. Star Brand drowns out Consulting Brand – Some advertisers seem to forget that when they hire a celebrity to endorse their brand, they are really bringing a second brand into the advertising. The ‘endorser brand’ is effective only when a lasting linkage can be made between the two brands. Accenture is the only business services company using Tiger as a spokesperson. But the reason they are using Tiger is because Accenture customers play golf in large numbers. Which means they also watch golf and other sports. In this capacity (as sports enthusiasts) the more relevant brand linkage for Tiger Woods is Nike. Try as they might, Accenture won’t drive Nike out of the mind of these people – even those CEO’s. There is simply not enough branding to make these spots good for anyone but Tiger Woods.
2. Wasting Money on Wide Distribution Media - We are not sure who invented the idea of business to business companies advertising to hundreds of millions of consumers in order to reach a few thousand, but we are pretty sure that person was not spending his own money. The waste behind these commercials is staggering when you consider that Accenture probably knows the name and home address of every person in the U.S. who might potentially hire them as consultants. The standard response to this is that television allows image-building and enhances the reputation of the advertiser. Really? We would welcome the cold hard quantitative analysts at Accenture to prove that this campaign does anything more than improve top-of-mind brand recognition among their target audience. Given the efficiency of print advertising, conferences, events, word of mouth and other techniques for reaching small, targeted audiences, this expenditure on television shows a shocking disregard for efficiency.

Branding Bottom Line
No wonder those consultants charge so much … it’s the advertising.

Brand: American Express
Execution: TV (Academy Awards 2006)
Link: Click Here
Target: Individuals
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description
This 2:00 minute spot shows M. Night Shyamalan, the director of “The Sixth Sense” and “The Village” sitting in a restaurant. As he watches the patrons, strange and stranger things begin to happen. We can see his vision infiltrate the actions of the people around him. Then a waitress interrupts his thoughts and breaks the spell. The voiceover – in his voice says, “My life is about finding time to dream. That’s why my card is American Express.”

What Works
American Express has been willing to take chances to breakthrough (some successful, some unfortunate like Andy Roddick’s mojo). This spot represents a huge risk with its long length (four times the length of the average network television spot), expensive talent and limited branding.

This advertising blog believes that with this execution, the American Express ‘My life, my card’ campaign has finally broken through. The selling proposition is tricky and indirect. But the campaign has created a memorable visual style and linked the individuality of each subject to the essential unique difference of the Amex card – flexibility.

It was not clear that this breakthrough would occur with earlier executions. The Kate Winslett and Ellen DeGeneres spots were beautifully produced and involving. But the connection to American Express seemed a little less compelling. It is not the bulk or the production value of the M. Night Shyamalan execution that tips the campaign but rather the accumulated weight and uniqueness of the campaign.

The spot itself is dazzling. The production is so quiet as to be almost still, but vibrates with the inner energy of the characters at the tables surrounding Shyamalan. It is an authentic look into his imagination.

What Doesn’t Work
A single exposure to this commercial might do Mr. Shyamalan much more good than American Express, as was true for Ellen DeGeneres and Kate Winslett. This campaign will only be effective for the regular television viewer.

Branding Bottom Line
American Express meets the Twilight Zone. It works.