… then you need to have a look at this …
How gorgeous is that eh?
I tell you, if the little boy’s face didn’t melt your heart when he found out who his girlfriend was, then you’re dead or someone who has gone through too many divorces.
Andy.
Ahem.
Anyway, it’s so nice to see an ad that has real emotion in it … of course that’s because the film is a slice of real life, not the usual contrived advertising shite … but it shows that in the battle for the consumers heart, mind and wallet – human emotion can be far more powerful than any Hollywood blockbuster style of commercial.
As Lee Hill said, agencies shouldn’t just focus on eye candy they should be looking for heart candy as well.
With that in mind, here’s one of my favourite ads EVER …
Yes it’s for Leukaemia and is ‘staged’ rather than real life … but it’s just so beautifully done that it gets to me everytime I watch it, and let me tell you I’ve watched it a hell of a lot of times over the years.
OK so as we all know I’m a sucker for triumph over adversity [though tragically the little boy in the ad died afterwards] however what I like about it – and why I think it works so well – is because of what Andy calls, ‘pace and grace’.
You see the current trend in advertising seems to be about creating either ‘shock & awe’ or ‘sponsored joke’ however with this commercial you get a story – one with a beginning, middle and end – so the end result is that you’ve felt you’ve gone on a journey and ended up sharing something important rather than just the feeling a brand is trying to get more money out of you.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s still just a television ad … but when 60 seconds of film can create that amount of emotion [both within the commercial and from the viewer] you realise television advertising isn’t dead, just the art of creating it is.
[And I know some people will say things like SONY Foam [the best of all Fallon’s SONY ads], Schweppes Balloon or even SONY HD are still keeping the ‘craft’ of television advertising alive … but I don’t necessarily agree because whilst I think they’re great ads [I would say that though wouldn’t I!] they still seem to be more of a visual idea stretched over 30-60 seconds rather than a story that you end up learning/taking something away from. Actually that isn’t quite what I meant, but it’s late – I’m tired – so I’m hoping you know what I mean or someone can tell me what I actually was trying to say. Ta]