Guinness launched their new TV advert tonight on UK tv.
Before it had seen the light of day it was being discussed online, talked about on the radio and was even on the second page of the London evening papers. At half past eight we were to be treated to a £10m ($20m) tv spectacular squeezed into the traditional 30 second slot.
Having just seen it, my reaction was to think what I might have missed.
The concept is good and involves an Argentinian village playing host to a giant domino rally, starting with a multitude of dominos (reported to have taken 2 experts 3 days to assemble), moving onto books, mattresses, flaming hay bails and even cars. The finale was a giant pint of Guinness made of books with white pages that toppled open to act as a rsising head.
Quite honestly I am mystified as to what cost so much money.
However, it's not my intention to critique the advert itself; it's a great piece of footage and no doubt better than I could have produced.
What I do find suprising is the very 'traditional' 30 second format that they have chosen to go for. Who spends anywhere near that kind of budget anymore on producing a tv advert? I would want to question the comparative results that could have been acheived with this money on other channels such as online.
One of the reasons for the ongoing success of the Sony Bravia series or the Dairy Milk gorilla ad was the strategic use of online creating a genuine viral buzz. These ads are of high quality and are quirky and unique enough to grab the consumer's attention; not an easy thing to do. Importantly it was a chance to validate the ad and understand its potential success, or failure, before spending a large tv media budget.
'Guinness White Horses' this is not, but it's going to generate awareness and buzz, just perhaps not as much as £10m might have done in other ways. Part of me things there must be more to come on this, follow-ups, YouTube formats, spoofs etc.
Let's see.
Ps. A great example of a spoof follow-up can be seen here with a WonderBra version of the Gorilla advert; very clever hijacking of a marketing campaign. "Two cups of joy". (Read the background here - sorry its the Daily Mail!).
:~Dax~:
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