TV advertising is in a state of flux.
While revenues are generally on the slide, a number of major firms (Virgin Mobile, Amazon, Microsoft and Zappos among them) are turning their attention back to traditional TV advertising, a medium that, according to the Television Bureau of North America, “remains the best method for advertisers to reach the critical and hard to reach 18-34 year-old demographic.”
If an alien species wanted to research the human race and its culture, aspirations and technological development, then television commercials wouldn’t be a bad place to start. How we live and the values we aspire to are reflected back to us in utopian hyper-reality.
Meanwhile, the growing slickness of production values, sometimes equal to those of films, would give considerable insight into how rapidly technologies have emerged and become widely available.
The boundary between good and bad adverts is admittedly nebulous. Some are trite, and nauseatingly so, but it’s almost a circular spectrum, as others are actually so bad they’re enjoyable.
A useful indicator of a television commercial’s effectiveness is its crossover appeal as a viral, but popular doesn’t necessarily always equate with effective, as some of the most irritating ads lodge in your brain anyhow
Some are thought-provoking or capture the cultural zeitgeist, but others aim for profundity but achieve only pretention. Sometimes you enjoy a commercial despite yourself, begrudgingly admiring an ad for a product you strongly dislike.
A useful indicator of a television commercial’s effectiveness is its crossover appeal as a viral, with the most popular commercials garnering thousands or millions of YouTube hits. But popular doesn’t necessarily always equate with effective, as some of the most irritating ads lodge in your brain anyhow.
The Best...
Cilit Bang
The advertising formula for cleaning products hasn’t changed for decades, and Cilit Bang bears all the hallmarks – unnervingly enthusiastic presenter who you’ve never heard of (Barry Scott), before-and-after split-screen cleaning demonstrations, and the all important memorable slogan (bang – and the dirt is gone!).
Cillit Bang manages to separate itself from the pack though, mainly due to the self-conscious cliché contained within these ads.
“Hi, I’m Barry Scott, asking whether you have problems with rust, limescale, ground-in dirt,”” says the presenter, whose patter resembles an American infomercial presenter.
Scott is, in fact, entirely fictitious, but just about subtle enough for some bloggers to wonder who he was and to make an unfashionable product ironically cool. That you spend the duration of the ad racking your brains as to where you might have seen Barry Scott before, and look forward to the next time you see it just to make sure your eyes and ears aren’t deceiving you, only enhances the appeal and effectiveness of this ad.
