http://www.adweek.com/aw/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003550048
This is a link to an article I found on a Dove ad that was shown during the Academy Awards this year.
In sticking with advertising, I thought this article was a good way to talk about the readings we had to do for this week.
This article is a critique of the new Dove commercial and campaign. They, like many other companies this year have been opening up the advertising bracket to include normal people like you and me.
Doritos did it during the Super bowl as well as a car company. The companies are realizing that the public has not been happy with the commercials lately, so they thought they would leave it up to the public to create there own.
The ad was a big hit, as many of these ads are simply for the reason that generally ‘normal’ people create what normal people want. By giving one of us free reigns to create a national commercial, it most likely is going to be something much simpler than a team of marketing professionals would be able to come up with because we know what we want.
In McQuails reader this week, Chapter 27 titled “Meaning and Ideology” Judith Williamson says that “For even the ‘obvious’ function of advertising- ‘to sell things to us’- involves a meaning process. Advertisements must take into account not only the inherent qualities and attributes of the products they are trying to sell, but also the way in which they can make those properties mean something to us.”
So, the overall point of advertisements is for them to mean something to us. What better way to ensure they mean something to us, than to have ‘us’ create them?
I think that in the next few years or so you are going to see a lot more companies coming up with this idea of letting the ‘normal’ people create our own ads.
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7 comments:
I think this will be an interesting trend to follow. I imagine though, when these "normal" people are creating their own homemade advertisements, their motivation is not entirely a pure love for the product and want for straight forward marketing, but a desire to get on television. So in the back of their minds, aren't they going to follow a formula for existing ads they think compnaies like Dove are likely to pick up? Maybe we'll get some innovators, but I think these amatuer advertisers will probably reproduce what they've been watching on tv since they were children.
I'm also curious to see if these new ads will have any effect on sales. Often advertisers are selling us a message and the product is almost secondary to that message. So if these "normal" people ads are supposed to be less glossy and more straight forward...will sales go down? If Dove is just selling me soap and Ivory offers me a happy, healthy joyous home life with their ad...which one am I going to buy...hmm...?
I also saw this story following the Super Bowl and I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Obviously we know what we like as consumers but do we really know how to correctly reach us? In other words -- I know what type of advertising makes me take action, but I'm not sure why the advertising works. Am I really supposed to believe that me, as a consumer and advertising layperson, really knows more than those professionals who have been trained in advertising?
While I think it's an interesting idea, I often wonder if the American public really is better at creating advertisements than a trained professional. Plus, I think there is a lot of subjectivity with successful advertising; what works on me might not work on you. Professional advertisers know how to appeal to the lowest common demoninator. I'm not sure my next door neighbor would be able to do that.
I'm not sure why we can't use random consumers as advertising consultants, but I'm not sure over time, these laypeople could sustain advertising success over time.
I think the idea of so-called “normal people” ads is an interesting concept and one that has great appeal to a wide audience. However, I think it entirely depends on the product that they are selling. The Doritos commercial was something of a given. Lots of people eat them. The Dove commercial showed an everyday women showering, again, a given. What if the commercial were for a Ferrari or for high-end electronics? I would have to agree with Amanda here that only trained advertising professionals would be able to market those products to the correct individuals. I do not think if I saw a commercial for a Ferrari done by an everyday person that I would begin the think that this was something that was accessible to me.
I hadn’t heard about this particular contest that Dove was holding. However, I do remember the first of the campaigns using “real” women. These real women we plastered on billboards and commercials in their underwear for all to see (and they seemed very proud of it). I like the idea of using the “real” person in advertising, but I’m not sure how the general public feels about it. After the original advertisements a few years ago I also remember Dove getting remarks that they will be known as the “fat woman’s” soap if they continue to use the “real” woman model (what sense this makes, I’m still not sure). There was a scare for a while that Dove would be considered a fat person’s soap and therefore sales rates would drop. I assume this is not the case since they are continuing with the advertisements. Also, I have seen new Dove commercials supporting their new line “Pro-Age” instead of anti-age creams. There are a series of older, strategically posed naked women who are proud of they way they look. Hopefully, now Dove won’t be worrying about being an “old person’s” soap. The tactic of using real people in advertising is tricky. I feel as though the company must be secure enough in itself before going with a “real person” ad. If Dove and Doritos are the only companies using this method, who’s to say that it would work for an up and coming company. Personally, I think that in today’s society people prefer want to see that “perfection”; the ideal of what they could be instead of what they are.
To answer a question Kim asked in her blog about sales, I think "normal people ads" will eventually increase them, just because of the publicity surrounding the contest. (Although I have no data to prove it) I think more people will start buying a product they had the opportunity to create an ad for. I also think “normal people ads” will increase the ratings of commercials that feature “normal people ads” (again possibly boosting future sales) because prior to this do-it-yourself opportunity, professional ads were viewed on television only if a person was watching TV. Now many people will go out of their way to watch something one of their friends did, or an everyday consumer did, regardless of the topic, because of curiosity. Also, consumers know in the back of their mind, that the consumer generated ads are not created by the company selling the product itself, (no product loyalty) so the ad might be slightly less biased than one the company created themselves.
Furthermore, when a company like Dove starts a contest for "normal people" to create ads, interested contestants most likely have to log onto the website and read about the contest rules and regulations. This encourages consumer interaction with Dove even without a commercial, and gets the public involved in a process that previously only involved professional ad creators.
Not only are normal people logging onto the website to see if they can win the create an ad contest, but the corporation is making the normal person feel that their opinion is important by asking them to create an ad.
This consumer ad creation also works out well for the company, because they don’t have to pay an ad agency to create an ad for them. They just have to pay a prize or reward to the winner, which I guarantee is probably cheaper than paying a professional to do it.
Adding onto that, when a person is given the "hands-on" opportunity to get involved in advertisement creation, more people are going to pay attention. Let me give you an example. Think back to the classes you took from elementary school to college. Which were the classes you liked or learned the most from? For me it's the classes where I got to participate in doing something. Making something. A class that featured a hands on approach. I think companies like Dove are engaging in the same type of principle to get consumers interested in the product.
Besides all this, previous bloggers in the class mentioned that they would like to study the trend on ad consumption through home-made advertisements. I agree this would be very interesting to follow because now that good advertisements can be created by any old person, it’s possible that we may not need professional advertisers. So, what is going to happen to the professional advertising agencies? Will there be a place for them in the future?
I know other classmates have commented on this, but I think professional ads will eventually fizzle out, just as newspapers have been on the outs in journalism, because consumers are reading the attempts at citizen journalism and news blogs online, instead of reading the morning newspaper.
So now selling us stuff may follow the same trend and not require (as many) professionals.
I thought the user generate Doritos ad was one of the best spots from the Super Bowl. It was entertaining, plus it sold the product. But, I wasn't totally convinced that it was user generated. I heard the rumors that the spot only cost $12 to produce and I believe that as much as the Easter Bunny coming to my house in a few weeks. They both sound good in concept, but in reality, they don't exist.
I don't think we'll start to see a trend to user generated spots because there is too much money and ego in the industry to let "normal people" start producing ads.
But most of all, the real underlying motivation of user generated spots is to drive revenue. Advertisers are smart to address the trend of youtube, myspace and a more technological savy consumer then in years past. After recognizing this fact, they then figure out how they can make it work for them. Take the Doritos spot for instance. Yeah it was a good spot that was entertainign and sold the product, but it also earned a lot of extra attention than any other user generated spot and you can't really put a dollar value on the reach of this ad.
With the case of Dove, the article states that 1,200 submissions were received online. And that's just the people that went through the submission process. Think of all the folks who logged onto the website and checked out the contest, but never submitted. Bottomline is, it drove traffic to the website and widened exposure which, in turn, drives profits.
So if user generated spots are to continue it will be at the benefit of advertisers pockets and not for the empowermnet of the people.
This is great info to know.
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