Crossing the pond for this week's instalment of what has now become a car advertising blog. The following ads were produced by David and Goliath, a creative agency which opened shop in the US with offices in LA but now have secondary bases in London and Frankfurt. Both of these ads are for the dubiously named KIA Optima; one of them works well within the confines of its own nature and the other droops off into not much. See if you can guess which is which.
The tagline 'One Epic Ride' is apt; the action shows the car in a light which does exactly what it says on the tin. But with such a large budget to play with I imagine it's all to easy to go for the big flashy execution rather than teasing out a more conceptually creative ad, and after all this is an American ad. But, and I say 'but' again, it's nice to see agencies run away with themselves capturing a spirit of giddy, simplistic excitement which is what's most important when you're trying to hook the potentially car-buying-family-life's-pecking-my-head,-I-wish-I'd-carried-on-surfing-male. Plus the wheels are cool.
This one was also given 5 stars by y'all YouTubers in the US. Well it's beautifully cinematographic, any suggestions for a shorter word welcome, in a similar way to the first its fantastical story aims to capture the imagination and I think it does it in a more emotive way by using the boy. Details I love: the Narnia style wardrobe right at the start, the Space 1999 style rocket ship at 0:15 and the kids model town at 0:19. Particularly I like the fact that certain fragments of the lad's dream are present in the bedroom reality; nice attention to detail showing reality inspires dreams, which is the central theme highlighted by the end VO.
And it's exactly the summarising VO which irks me most about this ad: 'No one ever dreamt of driving a mid-size sedan, until now.' I think there are a number of things which don't wash:
1) The technical language jars against the fantastical tone set by the video, maybe that's due to the.. 2) The American voice...okay not specifically because he's American, it's the sound of his voice...please don't make me go into detail regarding varieties of American accent...like, totally don't go there. 3) 'Until now' which makes me question who's having the dream. Is the boy dreaming of being a grown up so he can drive his dad's car?! Because let me tell you and this is the truth... no boys ever dream about driving mid size sedans. OR has this man's wonderfully surreal, adventure dream simply reverted horribly into his actual reality?
Friday 17 June 2011
Thursday 2 June 2011
Okay so I'm doing another one, And What?
Here then is what I promise to be the concluding chapter of my impromptu mini-series on car ads. Has this piqued interest in car ads been caused by some murky subconscious lust or a result of the simple abundance of car ads? Well perhaps the former but to simplify it into saying there are a lot of car ads wouldn't be fair. There have been some visually remarkable cars ads recently.
This next one has been on TV a while now, so you and I have had ample chance to see it. Despite this it's not one I immediately sat up and took notice of, if anything I maybe ignored it at first thinking 'Oh here we go again, another tenuous link effort to piggy back on Star Wars.' But on examination I rather like it, and judging by the hit rating on Youtube so do quite a lot of you.
This has to be one of, if not my favourite adoption of the Star Wars franchise. The videography is spot-on, contributing enough dramatic irony to make most parents chuckle. Target audience laughing? For the right reason? Win.
My enduring feeling is the ad stands up so well to repeat watches; almost every scene makes you laugh but there are those subtler elements as well. Among my favourite: the mother's part bemused, part concerned facial expression at 0:26, the slow-zoom onto the baby doll's face at 0:19 and mini-darth's stumbling rebuff of his father's return at 0:37. There are a few more but I won't spoil it too much. Small in size but large in performance, the charms of this budding star not only make the ad unequivocally clear this is a family car.
Whether the timing of this ad is relevant is my only qualm; can you remember when the last Star Wars film was released? In a galaxy far, far away...long, long ago...that's for sure. Never the less Star Wars is an entity ALL children should be relentlessly exposed to, forever. This ad makes Curry's gratuitous, tasteless exploitation of two of cinema's finest... R2D2 and C3PO... look like the fail it was and rightly so.
This next one has been on TV a while now, so you and I have had ample chance to see it. Despite this it's not one I immediately sat up and took notice of, if anything I maybe ignored it at first thinking 'Oh here we go again, another tenuous link effort to piggy back on Star Wars.' But on examination I rather like it, and judging by the hit rating on Youtube so do quite a lot of you.
This has to be one of, if not my favourite adoption of the Star Wars franchise. The videography is spot-on, contributing enough dramatic irony to make most parents chuckle. Target audience laughing? For the right reason? Win.
My enduring feeling is the ad stands up so well to repeat watches; almost every scene makes you laugh but there are those subtler elements as well. Among my favourite: the mother's part bemused, part concerned facial expression at 0:26, the slow-zoom onto the baby doll's face at 0:19 and mini-darth's stumbling rebuff of his father's return at 0:37. There are a few more but I won't spoil it too much. Small in size but large in performance, the charms of this budding star not only make the ad unequivocally clear this is a family car.
Whether the timing of this ad is relevant is my only qualm; can you remember when the last Star Wars film was released? In a galaxy far, far away...long, long ago...that's for sure. Never the less Star Wars is an entity ALL children should be relentlessly exposed to, forever. This ad makes Curry's gratuitous, tasteless exploitation of two of cinema's finest... R2D2 and C3PO... look like the fail it was and rightly so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)