Actually, the Compare the Meerkat ads have got to be one of the best ad campaigns ever. They’ve taken a pretty boring product/service, and brought it right into the public consciousness. That the word ‘Simples’ has now entered the Oxford English Dictionary shows just how much it has captured people’s attention.
The ads are very funny, clever and well made, imo. Loving the latest one:
‘Bogdan did a sponsored silence and we shaved Piotr’. 😆
And now there’s even merchandising?!?! Genius.
To me, those involved in creating this campaign, and making it work, are as deserving of accolades as film-makers, musicians, and any other creative types. Why not, just because a work is in the commercial realm rather than being presented as ‘art’?
That they irritate and annoy snobby up-their-own-arse pseudo-intellectuals desperately trying to be ‘above’ such things is a bonus, as far as I’m concerned.
Is this a marker, a low tide mark in the English language?
Is this a linguistic flag waved by the dumbed down?
Quite the opposite, I’d say.
Is this an example of the pervasive nature of televisual advertising’s success?
Undoubtedly. You don’t have to watch it though, do you?
Is it a call to others, a method of attracting potential peers?
Or does it just say: “I think adverts for compare the market car insurance are hilarious”?
I don’t get it, it sounds retarded. STOP IT!
Maybe it’s just something as simples as people appreciating something funny, imaginative and uplifting?
he’s right you know. Just ‘cos it’s successful and pervasive doesn’t mean it’s not good or creative. It’s a very clever bit of marketing. It’ll wear out though, quickly.
As a result of this thread, I’ve just remebered my mum has a Homepride Fred string dispenser. I’m having that…
And therein contradict yourself. And now there’s even merchandising?!?! Genius.
Merchandising based soley on advertising has, as you point out, been around before most of the people on this forum were born. It’s neither genius nor creative, merely following a well worn path.
I have no doubt there are secret marketing schools hidden around the country in dark caves but I very much doubt the people who attend are taught smart stuff, it’s just nasty stuff.
The meerkat advertising theme is based entirely on the lowest common denominator, just like virtually all advertising campaigns are. You can’t convince clever people to buy your product with nice images but you sure as hell can get stupid people inline.
And a very bold move by the marketing team. I mean, can you imagine putting that one in front of the board? “We’re going to use a blind man taking pictures in our next ad. Yes, yes, I know it sounds like the biggest pile of bullshit you’ve ever heard of but hear me out. There are almost 2 million people in Britain with serious loss of sight, that’s a lot of cameras we’re not selling. Let’s wheel out some blind chap and pay him a **** fortune to say he likes taking photographs he’ll never see. Stick him with some pretty girls and we’ll have an advert to convince the blind buggers they need our phones.
How so? That Homepride, Robertsons, PG Tips etc etc have had successful spin-off merchandising stuff is testament to the creative brilliance of their ad people, in creating iconic brands. Same with CTM. Take a boring product, create a brilliant ad campaign, even create demand for merchandising- if they intended all that from the start, that’s genius! I don’t even own a car, I can’t even drive ffs, but I want to Compare the Market, simply because of those ads.
I would love some of the little characters off the Lloyds’ ads. That is a simply beautiful campaign, that one.
The Pot Noodle ads too; brilliant.
Welshmen ‘mining’ pot Noodle, with Welsh accents and everything. Tidy.
The meerkat advertising theme is based entirely on the lowest common denominator, just like virtually all advertising campaigns are. You can’t convince clever people to buy your product with nice images but you sure as hell can get stupid people inline.
You suggested that producing merchandise based entirely on a marketing campaign was genius despite your mum having a 30 year old example of precisely that. I’m doubting the term genius when it’s been done many times before.
I doubt you’re stupid unless of course you buy stuff because you like the pretty pictures you see in adverts. You…don’t do that do you?
Yeah but Kev surely it’s a positive cultural stereotype, no? Celebrating the hard working men of Wales, and the contribution they have made to Britain. I thought it was quite a subtle dig at Thatcher/ism, personally…
I’m doubting the term genius when it’s been done many times before.
The ‘genius’ is in the fact that ads for such a mundane product have spawned merchandising. And the success of the ads in installing that brand into the public consciousness.
I doubt you’re stupid unless of course you buy stuff because you like the pretty pictures you see in adverts. You…don’t do that do you?
Oh yes, because I am incredibly stupid. Kev will tell you.
Now take a shufti at the Shake’n’Vac ads if you want to see truly irritating dumbed-down advertising. The CTM ads really are genius by comparison. I’m totally with Elf on this, I think the meercats are a very clever piece of marketing, tapping into the love of an amazingly appealing animal that the public already love. They make me laff every time, while not actually leaping for the computer to access their website.
“Yeah but Kev surely it’s a positive cultural stereotype, no? Celebrating the hard working men of Wales, and the contribution they have made to Britain. I thought it was quite a subtle dig at Thatcher/ism, personally…”
not in my opinion. it’s a pot noodle advert dreamed up by some **** in an ad company that have no idea of Wales or Welshness, or even “working men” in general.
You do realise that if we deny the evolution of language, no matter what the source,and try to capture it as a historical entity. Never changing, preserved as a museum piece to define a Britain past (false utopia), that we will be copying the French!
I remember some marketing woman cold calling me on my doorstep one time. She presented me with a load of pictures of very well known adverts that didn’t actually show the product and asked me to identify the product.
I failed terribly. In so many cases the advertising was more succesful than the product. I knew the advert, I could sing the jingle but could I remember which actual beer or cleaning product was being sold? Nope. I suspect she’d chosen those specific advertising campaigns on purpose to highlight that very point. But she worked in marketing so who knows, she was screwing with my head no matter what she was up to.
The Meercat stuff is pretty close to that. You have to think about what they’re actually advertising. The wassuuppp advert for which I truely believe someone should have been shot is another good example. And those frigging stupid gorilla on the drums adverts, what was the chocolate bar again?
Unless it *is* insanely clever and so subliminal that we don’t even realise the product is being planted into our heads but I’ve never developed a taste for dairy milks, budweiser or insurance comparison sites. Again, it may be something that only works on stupid people, like convincing someone that one football team from a city that plays in red shirts is in some way superior to another football team from the same city that plays in blue shirts.