Brand: Propel (PepsiCo)
Execution: TV
Target: Professionals
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
A monster made of junk runs through the streets of a city, to the tune of “Under Pressure” by Queen.  As the monster moves through the urban landscape its components, which include an unhappy boss, a tow-truck, taxicab and office furniture fall off one by one to reveal a solitary man jogging.  A female voiceover says, “Fit has a feeling - and a water: Propel Fitness Water.”

What Works:
This ad features spectacular visual effects which make it worth watching.  The stress monster does indeed look real and its decomposition into parts is transfixing.

The ad is also carefully targeted.  Instead of featuring a professional athlete who might attract teenage boys and young adults, the mainstay of parent brand Gatorade, this ad shows a professional adult male who one would think appeals to working women and men.  Propel is intended to compete with Glaceau’s Vitamin Water which has a similar target.  The spot is crafted to avoid competing with Gatorade.

What Doesn’t:
This spot is an excellent example means overwhelming the ends.  In other words, the visual effects are so spectacular that the brand message is lost.  In fact, this advertising blog reviewer watched the spot three times in the course of normal viewing and could not remember the name of the advertiser until the end of the spot - this in spite of having the active desire to review the spot for this blog.  Pity the consumer who has no such motivation.  The metaphor for this spot (having all of these external concerns weighing on you when you’re just trying to work out and get away from them) is also a little strained.

Finally, nothing unique about the brand comes through in this spot.  While the brand positioning does not need to be ‘features and benefit’ oriented, we don’t see a strong and unique emotional positioning here either.

Branding Bottom Line:
Great effects in that stress monster spot - what was that brand again?

Brand: Doritos (Frito-Lay/PepsiCo)
Execution: TV (Live the Flavor, Checkout Girl) Super Bowl
Target: Young Snackers
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
The winner and runner-up  of a submit-your-own-ad contest by Doritos, both of which aired on the Super Bowl.  The first spot, “Live The Flavor” by Dale Backus and Wes Phillips has a driving, Doritos-munching guy starstruck by a woman who is also eating a big bag of Doritos.  With an Aria from ‘La Traviata’ playing in the background, the man and woman make eye contact, causing the man to wreck his car and the woman to fall on her face.  The words “Spicy, Cheesy, Crunchy, Bold and Smooth” are interjected to descibe the both the Doritos and the action.

The second spot, “Checkout Girl” by Kristen Dehnert has a man purchasing groceries at a supermarket. As she scans a bag of Doritos she says, “I like these - nacho cheese - old school.”  After scanning the next bag she says, “Fiery Habanero - YEAH - those are HOT!” becoming much more animated.  Then “Oh - Salsa Verrrrrde,” and she purs at the guy who purs back.  “Blazin’ Buffalo and Ranch?  Giddy-up!” Then we see a bag of Doritos exploding against a black background and the www.snackstrong.com URL.  The spot ends with the woman, hair disheveled rising up to her intercom mike and saying, “I’m going to need a cleanup on register 6.

What Works:
Bob Garfield’s negative take on these spots aside, these spots are remarkable for both strategy and execution.  Both are on-strategy for the Doritos brand whose brand character is bold and unconventional and whose brand strategy is to be an enabler of social connections.  Both are also extremely well produced, with good pacing, engaging storylines and good visuals.

What is extraordinary about these spots is that they were both produced by amateurs rather than advertising agencies.  While marketers can argue whether these spots were the most effective of the Super Bowl, nobody will argue that they certainly were not the worst spots of the Super Bowl (this advertising blog would put them in the top 10) - and that in itself is remarkable.  This Super Bowl represents a distinct step forward for consumer-generated media where the best consumer efforts are very hard to distinguish from professional efforts.

Consumer-generated media is a tricky proposition and we would not advise brands to begin handing the keys to the media plan over to consumer wily-nily.  And we also can see that the creeping professionalism of the consumer-generated spots can make these more like visual resumes for aspiring filmmakers than spontaneous engagement from he brand faithful.  But they have several advantages over traditional agency advertising.  They are less expensive to produce, they follow creative lines that agencies would often not venture down and they have ancillary benefits like PR exposure and a sweepstakes effect.

What Doesn’t:
Viewed purely as professional advertising, both of these spots would be good but not great.  It seems possible that people outside the advertising community could create effective ads that are vastly different from traditional advertising - the same way a blog is different in tone and substance from a print news column.  The problem here could be in the judging process.  Did Doritos allow itself to be open to truly revolutionary work?  As we only saw the finalists for this competition we cannot say.  Certainly most brands want to save themselves from a Chevy Tahoe fiasco, but more openness might be better in spite of the risk to the brand.  Doritos might have played it a bit too safe.

Branding Bottom Line:
A zesty effort from Doritos has us craving more.

Brand: Mountain Dew Code Red (Pepsico)
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Male Dew Drinkers
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
Four people play the carnival game that has you shooting water into a clown’s mouth to inflate and burst a balloon on his head. A teen/young 20’s looking guy pops his balloon first. “That’s a winner” the bored, red-headed attendant says. The guy looks at the shelf and sees a 20-oz bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red nestled between the legs of a stuffed animal. “Oh - I’ll take the Code Red,” he says sounding slightly surprised. “That’s not a prize, it’s mine,” the attendant says flatly. “But it’s with the prizes,” the guy insists. “Not happening!” the attendant says as he scoots off the booth and reaches for a water gun. “I’m not lookin’ for trouble,” the guy drawls as he steps away from his friend with another water gun. “Well, you found it,” says the attendant as the screen shot moves from a rectangular box to widescreen format and we hear the familiar whistle from the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” in the background. As the two men draw their water pistols we see a stream of water going into the guys mouth and then the attendants. Their heads begin to inflate to comical size. Then in a moment the attendants head bursts with a wash of water and it is over. We see the guy’s hand grab the Mountain Dew Code Red. He drinks a long swig and then we see the attendant as he says, “Well, that got ugly,” as water runs out of his ears. The spot ends with a graphic of the dynamic Mountain Dew Code Red graphic.

What Works:
This is a funny and visually compelling spot that has enough storyline appeal to be watched several times. The inflating heads are a very clever device and the spot plays it well enough to be surprising, entertaining and memorable. The branding in this spot is also good as the Code Red bottle is introduced early in the spot and makes several appearances before the logo shot at the end. The unexpected twist in this spot (when the heads of the two guys expand balloon-like as they are being shot full of water) makes this execution very memorable. The use of the spaghetti western music and widescreen-effect perfectly serves up this satiric spot.

What Doesn’t:
Although the branding is good in this spot, the brand positioning is hard to unravel. Code Red seems to be differentiating itself based upon the take-no-prisoners attitude of the brand users, personified in this spot by both the game-playing guy and the game booth attendant. However it is not at all clear if this brand user attitude is specific enough and sufficiently differentiated to be ownable. This advertising blog believes that this spot may create a lot of buzz of the type where the spot’s story is told (or the visual effect is described) but the brand gets lost. Not because the branding is bad, but because the branding is not tied to user imagery that is undeniably owned by Mountain Dew Code Red. This may improve as the campaign progresses, but for the moment it impairs the spots ability to build the Code Red brand.

Branding Bottom Line:
Soda is fine, but that head-inflating trick rocks.

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: Pepsi-Cola
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: At-Home Soft Drink Consumers (2 Liter bottle buyers)/Soft Drinks with Food
Rating: ***
Reviewer: Paul Koulogeorge
Reviewer Profile: Paul is Vice President of Marketing for EB Games, former Director of Marketing at Coca-Cola and former marketing strategist with Kraft. Click Here for more info on Paul.

Description:
Set at the deli poultry counter, two rotisserie chickens leap up to fight each other in the ritualistic moves of Japanese sumo wrestlers. The sur-realisic Sumo is rendered with high-end animation. After a tough fight scene the winning bird is the one selected by a surprised deli customer. The spot ends with a shot of the deli board saying “Pepsi, Food, Good.”

What Works:
On the surface this looks like a very fun, highly animated spot that uses humor to show why even chickens love Pepsi. In reality the spot is very subtle in atacking Coca-Cola and trying to match a key Coke consumer differentiator. HOW? Coca-Cola has always had one advantage over Pepsi: taste-tests and consumer surveys have always shown that Coca-Cola tastes better with food than Pepsi. While the famous Pepsi challenge showed that consumers will initially pick the sweeter taste of Pepsi, when the same people have to sit down for a meal (where the vast majority of soft drinks are consumed), they prefer the less sweet taste of Coca-Cola. That is why 75% of the restaurants in America serve Coca-Cola not Pepsi-Cola. McDonalds,
Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway, etc… all serve Coca-Cola. So Pepsi-Cola has a problem positioning their product with food. Historically Pepsi has relied on three avenues to compete with Coca-Cola in advertising. The Taste test, celebrity endorsement and humor. Pepsi knows that the taste test is largely played out and picking appropriate celebrities is tough since Britney Spears or Cindy Crawford aren’t associated with eating or fine meals (and so few of these people actually drink soft drinks). As a result, Pepsi goes for humor in this spot, which is a good choice. The ad is memorable and funny. The chickens are spot on and the execution has such a unique feeling that it seems destined to become an iconic commercial.

What Doesn’t:
If the ad is memorable and funny, what could be wrong? The biggest problem is making the connection strong enough between Pepsi and “food.” At the end of the spot we see a deli food board that says “Pepsi Food Good” and the last image is of the rotisserie chicken hugging a 2 liter of Pepsi. A chicken hugging a 2 liter bottle doesn’t really come across as a ringing endorsement (you definitely don’t identify with the chicken in this case) and you can’t tell if it is the winning chicken or the losing chicken? Also, what does “PEPSI, FOOD, GOOD” mean? It isn’t a sentence and “good” isn’t really much of an endorsement. Why not Great or Better? Or why not go after the gold standard of a beverage with
food….Coca-Cola?

Branding Bottom Line:
Inspired creative without a brilliant strategy is still worth a few stars.