Vintage adverts!

Just looking back at adverts 50, 40 even 20 years ago and you really can see what a fast-changing industry advertising is. I have become a little fascinated with vintage advertisements and honestly, some of them are pieces of art!

Now a days, I would never dream of putting any of the posters on billboards you see on bus stops or billboards in my house, but I truly think these are worthy of an artistic accreditation!

Here are two of my particular favourites:

Can you believe this is for toilet roll! It looks angelic and the height of luxury. Of course, people who buy the product won't receive this beautiful lifestyle, however the product will make them feel like they have a tiny part of it. I think it's beautiful and extremely eye catching without being too in-your-face!

I looked at this advert for such a long time as I love the detailing in each shoe! I think it's an awesome example of appealing to female emotion and delight and taps into that feeling you get when you try on a beautiful pair of shoes! 

I think modern day advertisers could take a leaf out of our ancestor's books when it comes to the beauty within advertising!

Steph

Mysterious Ape

You may, or may not have seen Southern Electric's new advertising campaign. If not here's a few of their outdoor advertisements:

Consumers are hitting social media to express their confusion and humour at the ads. Some people even thought the adverts were a mistake! You can read some of the tweets here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/everyone-is-confused-by-the-sad-looking-ape-in-these-energy

As SSE responded to questions of the relevance of the ad to their organisation/ consumers taking the piss out of an ape at a music concert/ country side/ over wind turbines, they said the outdoor ads were to continue the story of their TV ad about "looking at energy through fresh eyes"

Here's the ad:

To be fair, I actually like the ad and come to think of it I think I have seen it on TV before, however I think SSE/ adam&eveDDB need to learn from the following mistakes made in this campaign:
1) Consumers don't always have a high recall rate Even if people have seen the ad, it may not be in the forefront of their mind and the character doesn't automatically spring to mind and therefore the link between the TV and outdoor advertising cannot always be made. 2) You cannot 'create' a character's novelty or likeability It is only through consumer word-of-mouth and other earned media sources that characters are known, loved and remembered.... take compare the meerkat, it was the brand who created the character, but the consumers who developed his legacy 3) Don't just PRESUME that the consumer will have seen the TV ad Not only is it slightly arrogant to think that your marketing methods are going to have that kind of reach, but if your whole campaign is resting up on it then you're bound to fall at the first hurdle. 4) Don't create an ad that appears completely out of context on it's own I'm all for integrated marketing communications and with better planning and a more intelligent outdoor advertising message, the whole campaign could have been a success. Yet, the current outdoor ads are as described on twitter "a bit crap", it's almost as though their entire budget went on the TV ad, so they got the work experience boy to create the outdoor ads
All in all, at least SSE got huge PR out of this! And their ads have gone viral..... maybe not for the reasons they had hoped......

Steph