From the Talkative Talker

Funny Ads

2009-07-18T12:28:00.007-04:00

So I know that my blogs are being posted closer and closer to each other. But this is one moment that I have to talk about.

So picture it me and three other people sitting around watching an episode of Man vs. Food. In the middle of the great episode the commercials come on, this is usually the time when all of us usually start discussing things, but we shut up when we got absorbed by the Ally Bank Truck Commercial.

Now I was not paying complete attention when I first started watching the commercial so I did miss the start but I was cracking up when the kid could not get his truck back from the guy. That was completely hilarious. The ad was made by Bartle Bogle Hegarty Ltd. I reviewed some of the other people's opinions of the ad on Advertising Weekly. I was surprise to see mixed reactions about the actually clip. I thought it was funny and that it did prove a point about how unfair and mean banks can be sometimes. The opposite opinions said that the commercial was horrible because it showed bullying to children and seeing their hurt faces was not funny. Right after that came the American Airlines "Team Building" Commercial. By that time I was paying full attention to the television.

I loved this one because I knew instantly what they poor guy was going through being stuck at a team building workshop. Those things are painfully boring and down right torturous. So having American Airlines to help you escape from that would be a lovely idea. I have to applaud the TM Advertising agency for a job well done. As the holders of the American Airlines account, their integrated marketing mix and keeping to the consistency of their tagline, "We know why you fly" has been stellar. I was just looking at the TM Advertising agency's website and I review the case study and I was impressed on how the whole campaign works to focus on the conveying a message international that the American Airlines company understands the reasons why people fly and cater to those reasons. That is especially cruical in an economic state where people are worried about a recession to focus on the features and the benefits instead of the prices. The final commercial to show in that line up was the Minute Maid spot.

This spot was a good play on words and made its point of remembering to always be in the moment. The Doner Advertising agency did a great job of making a common joke into an unforgetable moment.

Google, Facebook, and Greyhound...Oh My!

2009-07-18T09:54:00.008-04:00

One of my favorite pastimes would have to be listening to NPR (National Public Radio). I started listening to NPR at a young age when my father would drive my brother and I around. From Car Talk to A Prairie Home Companion to Morning Edition, I am a lover of all the programs on the station.

So it comes as no surprise that even though I find myself listening to less radio and more to my iPod, I still have given up on NPR. While listening to my weekly NPR Pop Culture podcast I came across an interesting story. Margot Adler narrated a piece were she discussed how she noticed that the Facebook ads that were being shown to her were geared to an older demographic. And when she left out the age portion on her Facebook profile she started to get different ads on her Facebook pages based on more of her interests.

Now that got me thinking about some products and services that would benefit from this feature on Facebook. One of them would have to Greyhound. I just used Greyhound to visit a friend of mine in Atlanta. Their service was more affordable than riding an airplane and seeing that I am a college student with limited funds, affordability is the rule. If Greyhound would place more ads on Facebook I am sure they would see more sales from college students that are looking for the affordable weekend getaway.

The ironic thing about writing this post was that I mentioned it to my Atlanta friend this morning, and she told me about a similar story that was on NPR too. But with this story the whole premise was the major increase of revenue that Google has received. Laura Sydell discusses that Google's new funds come from its customized ads for its search engine users. Every time an user searches for something using Google it customizes the ads that the user sees so that the coincide with the user's search. So I typed in "bus transportation deals" and I was surpised not see an ad for Greyhound.

Don Omar and AT&T

2009-07-18T09:09:00.007-04:00

Ok, so I can not speak Spanish fluently, but as a native South Floridian I am lover of Reggaeton music. So I was surprise to see Don Omar singing in the a new commercial for AT&T. Now the South Beach Miami club beats and the parade of beautiful woman did help keep me focus on the commercial. I also was impressed that I was able to notice the code switching in the commercial. The primary message of the commercial was in all Spanish including the jingle hat Don Omar sings which is called "Tirame al Celu.". With the exception of one key term AT&T, this usage of code switching has an aspirational effect on the target market.

I know that my Reggaeton-loving, Spanish speaking friends will gravitate to this commercial. And even though I could not understand all of the commercial I did understand that the LG Neon was at an affordable price. And even with the price being marked down the phone was sill cool enough be original and trendy in the club scene.

Evian Babies

2009-07-10T09:57:00.005-04:00

I came across this ad from a friend of mine that is always online at work. I first thought that it was just a funny computerized video from a person with a little bit too much free time. But I was drawn into the clip very quickly with the music and the tricks of this infants on the old school skates. As a lover of "good" hip-hop music I have to say that the babies jamming to Rapper's Delight was captivating.
Will skating Babies get me to buy Evian water? Hmm... You will have wait until the next post.