That Marmite ad: you either think it’s the best ad of last year or you’re not quite sure.
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Readers without Alzheimer’s might recall my post about Marmite ‘Rescue’ from last year.
I said I quite liked it.
Here it is:
Congrats to everyone involved but I must confess to being a little surprised at such a big win. And now I’m wondering why it never came up at all during the Creative Circle evening last week. Did no one enter it? That seems odd. Did the judges not award it? Even odder considering its BTAAs win.
Personally, I thought Sainsbury’s or John Lewis or Honda ‘Hands’ might have had a stronger shout.
Do you think it’s the best ad of last year (and therefore that I’m some kind of a tasteless berk)?
Personally my favourite of the year was Guinness ‘Sapeurs’. Whilst it’s definitely not ‘Surfer’ or ‘Noitulove’, it’s beautifully crafted from the first second to the last and it’s the first ad I’ve seen that properly brings meaning to the ‘Made of more’ strategy. And it’s soooooo much better than that US basketball ad.
I think Marmite was by far the best ad of last year.
(Hi, Ben here. I’d just like to point out that this Robbie M. is not the one that works at A&E. Thanks.)
It’s OK. But Love/hate was an insight that rang true about the product. The insight here is what – that people are so ambivalent about Marmite that they forget about it and leave it in a cupboard? Which I suppose is quite brave for a client to admit that their product is neither loved or hated. Executionally it feels a bit done, but then the general public like the X-factor so they don’t give a shit about unoriginality. I wouldn’t look to award shows to highlight original thinking though.
OK, well I’ve watched it again and my feelings remain less than substantial in either direction (oh, the irony).
It seems to be the familiar old spoof thing attached to an odd new direction for the strategy: surely if you LOVED it you wouldn’t relegate it to the back of a cupboard.
Then a family gets a second-hand jar of marmite with old bits of butter and crumbs for the previous family? I really like Marmite, but I don’t want an old jar that’s been kept in someone else’s cupboard for ages (YES, I KNOW IT’S A ‘JOKE’).
I thought it really stood out last night. People in the actual real world don’t give a shit about the ‘strategy’ and whether it has teetered off the fact that you wouldn’t forget it, as you either love it or hate it. At CC the jury got rather hung up about ‘parodies being easy’. Good ones aren’t easy and this one is definitely good.
Compared to the usual saccharine fare that wins golds, it actually looked quite edgy.
But was it the best ad of the year?
And very interesting to see such divided opinion on two juries.
Just goes to show… something…
Would I like to have this in my book along with the award it comes with to get more money and potentially move to a better agency?
Yes.
Is it something I wish I’d done/came up with?
No.
I think that’s the ambivalence I have with it.
Who gives a fuck what the talentless fucks on juries these days think?
If someone like Webster or Trott were on the jury and liked (or didn’t like) your ad at least that meant something.
Nowadays if some bearded bellendy Head of Conceptual Ideation from a poncy Brand Consultancy Brand Digispace popup startup in Shoreditch likes your ad it probably means it’s shite.
Mark is right. The Sapeurs ad is certainly not in the same league as either of those Guinness classics.
Personally I’m fed up with ads that feature an ostensibly cool person/some cool people and then just slap their logo/pack shot at the end. It’s borrowed interest.
Of course, planners will try to retrofit some gas about how it brings to life their meaningless bullshit strategy. Made of More? What the fuck is that?! Good things come to those who wait. Got it. Great.
“But Dave Trott is a dinosaur! He’s old and doesn’t understand digital wankspace in the cloudsphere!” I hear you @Sam.
I’m with you on that, Wigan PR.
It’s a beautiful and fascinating (very) short film, but what the fuck it has to do with Guinness I have no idea.
Please bring back GTCTTWW. There are so many great ads left in that endline.
As the Guinness ad that Mark laments above (the basketball one) is exactly like an ice cream ad from India, it does kind of prove the ‘insight’ to be generic on toast with a side helping of generic.
The best ad of the year for me was the Lego movie. 90 mins of product demo. Awesome.
I think the sole purpose of planners/strategists is to take the corporate cock as far down their throats as humanly possible without gagging. Stroking the egos of CMO’s at big companies so they can show off at the next boozefest and tell their peers about how many likes the cat that shits in the box with their logo on it has gotten. Meanwhile average joe has a bamboozled look on his face after watching the ad and continues to buy the product anyway, because it’s still a solid product. “Sales are up! Our ad is great!” shouts the planner/strategist. “Well done! Have our facebook like!” shouts the client. “Save your creativity for anything but advertising!” writes Ben Kay on his blog.
The question I have is this: if it’s this bad (and it is), why do 99% of creatives keep putting up with this shit? Can’t we just all collectively quit? Have the equivalent of what was the Writer’s Strike in the states? Or are we too comfortable in our open plan offices with the free biscuits and tea to actually give a shit?
Thanks to Wigan PR for the inspiration for this rant.
When did I write that?
I don’t think creativity is a finite resource that runs out once you’ve applied it to too many things in one day. There’s plenty to go around.
I imagine the lack of quitting/rioting has something to do with this being a relatively comfortable and interesting way of earning a living. Sure, there’s better out there, but the vast majority of the options are a lot worse (or harder to get into).
Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of work this year (at Creative Circle, anyway; I didn’t go to the BTAAs). Nothing GREAT, but plenty of very good.
Anyway, we can all choose to continue or resign whenever we want. Hooray for democracy (or something).
I agree Ben. Lots of good. No great. Nothing we’ll be talking about next year. Especially the borrowed interest of Sappeurs.
I rather liked the Channel 4 links stuff. I couldn’t work out whether it was spot on or a little exploitative. But it certainly made me think.
I quite like this job. And moaning is just part of it. Always has been. I am a little over-refreshed at the moment – what other job can give you that on a Thursday?
That Guinness ad is terrible.
I like the Marmite ad, it’s pretty funny and at least it isn’t another UK visual wankfest.
What amazes me though, if you look at all the work from BTAA, is how devoid of humour, dialogue and general fun it is. Laboured and worthy, a lot of it.
I wonder whether that’s why it’s so hard to get anything out back in blighty?
Everyone’s so desperate to do a “big ad”.
And the public couldn’t give a fuck about big ads.
They want something to make them laugh as they sit in front of X Factor, next to the woman they wish they’d never married, eating sausages.
It’s enough to make you leave the country.
Oh, hang on, I did.
“Sure, there’s better out there, but the vast majority of the options are a lot worse (or harder to get into).” Gold.
If all this is true; everything is bland mediocrity, surely this is the best time to write something that stands out. So write it.