Commercials That Make Me Laugh

Laughter is one of the most effective marketing tools available to us. We know it as human beings-- There's nothing like a good laugh. Here are a few of my favorite funny commercials.

First up, Orbit Gum's "Lint Licker." You know you've made a great commercial when you hear people quoting your ad.

Next, BGH Air Conditioner's "Dads in Briefs." You take a truth that's relevant to your product and turn it into a horrifyingly hilarious ad. Personally, I like the shot with the dog the best.

Bet you remember this one: The CitiBank "Identity Theft" series. Why no banks thought of this before, I'll never know. But they're kicking themselves now.

And to top it all off, I had to include "Teenage Girl" from Allstate Insurance. These commercials get me every time.

Anyone else have some favorite funny commercials? There are so many out there that just fall short. Humor is hard to get right. You have to know who you're talking to. But if you do it right, there's a good chance your audience will be googling your ad five years after it runs.

Be on the lookout for next week's post on my favorite oddvertising commercials.

My Thoughts on the 2012 NSAC Competition

Note: I realize this post is excessively long, but I encourage everyone who’s interested in AdTeam/Advertising/NSAC/my life (hi, friends) to read on.

The National Student Advertising Competition is an annual competition for college students in the advertising industry. Each year, a big-name brand sponsors the competition and challenges students to create an integrated advertising campaign to help grow their brand. Past sponsors have included JCPenney, State Farm, Coca-Cola, and AOL. This year’s sponsor was the Japanese carmaker Nissan. Nissan asked students from around the nation to create a campaign to help build top-of-mind awareness among African American, Hispanic, and Chinese millennials (ages 18-29). This competition is the most real-to-life experience an advertising student can gain during their college career (apart from internships). They have to dig in to research, find that key insight, and turn that insight into a big idea. Each team creates a 32-page plans book including research highlights, campaign objectives, creative executions, promotions and sponsorships, social media strategies, and a media plan. The teams then have to present their campaign to a panel of judges at the regional competition. Teams who win their district continue on to the national competition, where sixteen teams present their ideas in hopes of taking home the winning title.

I’ve competed at NSAC for the last two years, and I can say there’s no experience quite like it. It’s made me a better person, and it’s definitely made me a better marketer. Along with experience of applying what you’ve learned during school to create a campaign, you also get to learn about the tides of the industry. You feel the pride in coming up with a great idea, the anxiety of presenting it, and in many cases you feel the sting of the client’s rejection. Think Hunger Games: There can only be one winner.

This year, Drury’s team found a one-of-a-kind insight. You know, the ones that are so simple and undeniable that you can’t believe someone hasn’t realized it before. Like Dove’s “real beauty comes in all shapes and sizes”. This bit of research grew into a solid, wonderfully creative campaign. It made sense. And we knew it would make sense to the audience. Most of the time in the ad world, you come to a client with two ideas: One that you know they’ll be comfortable with and one that you know will push them outside their comfort zone. Usually, you know the latter is the right choice to help grow their brand, and usually, they pick the former. Well, our team didn’t want to ignore this insight. We decided it was worth it to take the risk, to show Nissan something they wouldn’t be completely comfortable with, because we knew that this insight and this idea would do what they asked: increase top-of-mind awareness and grow their brand.

That’s why we were so surprised when we started watching the District 9 presentations. The majority of schools competing decided to continue with Nissan’s current Innovation for All campaign. It was like watching the same idea over, and over, and over again. If Nissan came to us with a problem, why would they want us to solve it with the same campaign they’ve been running—the campaign that obviously hasn’t helped them (and is the reason they sponsored this competition to begin with)? And the hardest part was that these were the teams that won the competition.

I believe that it is our job as marketers to present the client with new ideas—with ideas that will break through the clutter with relevant messaging. Ideas that will resonate with the target and create goodwill toward the company. It’s not our job to be people pleasers. It’s our job to find out what’s real to the audience, what means something to them, what’s something that hasn’t been tapped into or talked about, and it’s our job to help our clients.

There are good clients and bad clients. Good clients love their brand and will do everything they can to help it grow. Bad clients just want more money, faster. But that’s not the way the world works. People don’t buy cars on a snap decision. There is not a commercial in the world that could convince someone to buy a car after one viewing. Buying a car is an emotional process. You either have to convince the audience that you have something different to offer or that you, as a company, are different. And you’re not going to do either by claiming that touch-start technology, headroom, and color customization are “innovative features”.

Rejection stings, but it’s a feeling that everyone in the advertising industry should get used to. There will come a day when you’ll have a great idea, an idea you believe in, and an idea that makes sense from every angle you look at it. And that idea is going to be ignored by the client because it isn’t what they want to hear. When that happens, you have to remember that you did your job and you did what was right. And if you can look back and think, “I wouldn’t change a thing,” you smile at yourself and be proud for standing up for the right idea.

NSAC is an incredible experience, and one that’s invaluable to advertising graduates, no matter the outcome. It teaches you the importance of novel research, the rarity of a big idea, and how to handle the ups and downs of the ad world.

So to Nissan and NSAC 2012, I say:

I wouldn’t change a thing.