Semi-hard

                                                                              

Okay so I was having a drunken altercation last night, at home with a friend over the 'WeBuyAnyCar' ads. And I was ranting about the crass nature of such a shouty ad but had to concede it was obviously effective in that it stuck in your memory; I couldn't remember the argument against such ads but now I do.

'It's better to pay for one great TV spot that makes you famous than to have to pay for 10 that make you infamous.'

The cheek of it is, and why clever advertisers get their back up is that every now and again 'hard-sell' ads are completely necessary. Not just to stand out in and amongst all the 'soft-sell' ads but to shift the balance of audience expectation. You see ten 'soft-sell' ads and you become savvy to and bored of their approach; it's the 'WeBuyAnyCar.com' type of ads that open up appreciation space for the truly clever, well crafted ads we love.

At the end of the day a well-timed 'hard-sell' approach can turn out to be a clever piece of marketing (in the short-term, please God) if not a clever ad. I just wish it wasn't so bloody catchy.