Advertising has become a sort of art form in this day in age. Not only do you have to simply sell a product, an advertiser has a daunting task of anticipating what a person may think and how they may react to such a commercial and if the viewer will even appreciate the product or totally reject the idea. There are many different factors that tie into how to create an advertisment and most of these factors stem from the potential customer the advertiser is trying to reach. So, for this blog I will feature a post that involves a favorite commercial that I have seen or a truly astounding failure in advertising and report what I think was done right and what was done wrong. For the second post, I will give my two cents on what makes a good advertisment and what rules every advertiser should abide by in order to be successful. Now that is not to say that these rules are set in stone or even rules that you would find in a textbook, just more of my educated opinion and observation, so I encourage my readers to take these rules and see how well they can apply to the real world and if there are any suggestion please feel free to post what you will; suggestions for a commercial to review, a rule that you may have, or a comment on something I may have already looked at a addressed, please feel free. Just my only request is to keep these comments gentlemanly sound and polite, I will not deal with trolls of any kind. Happy hunting for new commercials and see you soon.
This blog promotes better advertisements on television. I will analyze and find what makes a good ad and what makes a bad ad and allow you, the viewer, to decide for yourself how effective these ads are to you. Feedback is encouraged, and I provide names and links to commercials to watch and be amazed by.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sony PlayStation 3 "Michael"
The best commercial that I have seen to date is Sony's PlayStation 3 commercial "Michael". This commercial does something that we do not see in too many commercials today. It tells a story with an atmosphere that easily sucks the viewer in and makes the viewer a part of this world. In this world is all of PlayStation's iconic characters all talking about this one player who made a difference in their lives. Of course these characters are not real, but when one plays a game it is fun to pretend that what you as the player is doing within the game's universe is significant, that you are actually saving the world or helping others, etc. This commercial really plays into this fantasy and brings up familiar feelings that players may have had while playing these games. Tough decisions that had to be made, difficult missions that needed to be completed, times when the only person that was fit for the job was the first person who volunteered to be humanities hero. I say all of this from personal experience and can definitely see where Sony was trying to go with this commercial and it is brilliant. Sony's marketing team knew exactly who they wanted to advertise to and really understood the mind of a gamer, especially the mind of a gamer that has played PlayStation games.
Now this commercial may not be for everyone. This commercial was specifically aimed at gamers and in some ways a nod to those who already owned a PlayStation 3 so the commercial may be lost on new potential customers. However, it can be argued that the intentions of this commercial are only to attract exhisting gamers from other consols, which it would be hard not to appreciate this commercials story telling and style no matter what side of the consol debate you reside on.
The other problem that is present within this commercial is the commercials running time. With a running time of over two minutes this commercial is unlikely to be shown on television except on specific channels that have video game based shows such as Spike TV or G4 TV. This limits the population of people who would get to see this commercial thus limiting the number of people they can sway as a whole. However, it can be argued that because of its length the commercial could have been intended to be a YouTube style commercial and go viral for people to pass around on the Internet to be enjoyed rather than caught on tv.
Bottom line, this commercial is fantastic. It gets to the point and sells the product from beginning to end and invites the viewer to participate in a world of a companies own creation. Sony's marketing team saw a unique oportunity to reach new customers in a unique way that most other companies would not be able to pull off with the same success. My hats off to them and their good work.
But this is only my opinion. I invite you to tell me what you think about this commercial and why its good or bad. Have fun.
http://youtu.be/mdWkKKSckNk
Now this commercial may not be for everyone. This commercial was specifically aimed at gamers and in some ways a nod to those who already owned a PlayStation 3 so the commercial may be lost on new potential customers. However, it can be argued that the intentions of this commercial are only to attract exhisting gamers from other consols, which it would be hard not to appreciate this commercials story telling and style no matter what side of the consol debate you reside on.
The other problem that is present within this commercial is the commercials running time. With a running time of over two minutes this commercial is unlikely to be shown on television except on specific channels that have video game based shows such as Spike TV or G4 TV. This limits the population of people who would get to see this commercial thus limiting the number of people they can sway as a whole. However, it can be argued that because of its length the commercial could have been intended to be a YouTube style commercial and go viral for people to pass around on the Internet to be enjoyed rather than caught on tv.
Bottom line, this commercial is fantastic. It gets to the point and sells the product from beginning to end and invites the viewer to participate in a world of a companies own creation. Sony's marketing team saw a unique oportunity to reach new customers in a unique way that most other companies would not be able to pull off with the same success. My hats off to them and their good work.
But this is only my opinion. I invite you to tell me what you think about this commercial and why its good or bad. Have fun.
http://youtu.be/mdWkKKSckNk
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