All right. Having shown you some awful examples of outdoor advertising, here is probably the best use of outdoor advertising in the last 10 years in Australia. Yellowglen, by Mildara Blass (now Fosters).
It showcases the simplicity of a great campaign. What is the essential element of sparkling wine? Bubbles. What is the aspirational quality of the sparkling wine experience? Glamour. Let’s dress glamorous women in evening dresses made of champagne bubbles. Oh. And make sure they look like they’re having a good time. Number one brand in Australia. Contrast this with the terrible Killawarra (Southcorp) campaign slated below.
Incidentally, if you’re interested in what makes a good outdoor campaign, Adshel have lots of guff on their excellent website.
I really love the Yellowglen ads…it’s such a simple concept that works so well.
Often the case. I was just looking over some of the other examples, and it’s interesting to read what you have written in terms of analysis.
I was the editor of a trade magazine for Australia/NewZealand, and the publisher/advertising agent who I worked for always used to talk to me about adverts. What works/what doesn’t work in terms of layout/ads/catching attention/selling the product.
A lot of what he mentioned, and which I learn’t, is exactly what you are pointing out in the adverts here.
It’s all about simplicity. I think nowadays, people have tried to be just that little bit clever. There is something in advertising on occassion, that indicates that those marketing the product have lost touch with the real world. The same can often be said for University settings, eg, lecturer’s and students can get so engrossed in philosophising and analysis, that they lose track of what EVERYDAY people in the population will pick up in a text/advert/film. Of course, with this knowledge, programs and other things can take advantage of the untrained eye. But what is more worrying at times, is they work outside the ‘untrained eye’s’ line of sight.
Making an advert too clever, complicated often works against the point being put across. Yes, that is fantastic for the University student who wants to analyse the cultural references but marketing is only aiming to sell.
Simple, eyecatching and easy to remember. Don’t clutter it up with extra text or fancy images, or witty educated remarks that simply won’t be appreciated in this format.
Reminds me after all that, of what Marge Simpson says to Lisa and Bart about Springfield being ‘a part of us all’. She didn’t dress it up with a fancy,flashy, witty deeply meaningful comment. She just repeated the words three times like an echo. And yes, it works. Afterall, I remember the words too!
100% agree. And the cause of this in advertising is a system that contains big budgets and advertising agencies whose core expertise is convincing clients to accept an idea. One reason that clients should develop a keen interest in market research. Properly constructed research will help design AND critique strategy. Good research is an excellent bullshit detector.
In the university context I expect the similarity is (sounds harsh) the size of the intellectual egos.
Alas, there are far too many “Intellectual ego’s” in that system!