Advertising competes for our attention. We tend to ignore it as we have more important issues occupying our minds. Add to it the general clutter of media and we have to appreciate creative ads which get noticed and stay memorable. My weekly compilation of clutter breaking creative ads is a small tribute to such efforts. Here are a few creative ideas which caught my eye this past week:
BunBun Paprika: Bollywood Badass
I find ads from Thailand endearing (am sure they too have a share of boring advertising) primarily because they don’t take the business of advertising too seriously. Very often, the ads are made hugely entertaining and refer to the business of ‘selling’ the brand in a self-deprecating manner. A new ad for a snack brand with ‘hot & spicy’ as its benefit exaggerates the feature using a hilarious spoof on Bollywood films – or stereotypes of Bollywood films, shall we say?
Agency: Wolf BKK
Whoscall: Know The Unknown Calls Effect
Services such as TrueCaller help us to identify and report or block spam callers. A similar service from Thailand, Whoscall takes comedy route (a bold call in itself for the category) and shows what happens when the spam callers themselves are able to identify dodgy calls or otherwise. The chain reaction of events makes for interesting viewing and beings out the benefits of the service well.
Agency: SOUR, Bangkok
Central App: ‘dear valued customer’
The penny truly drops in this ad only in the last frame – when it is revealed that all of the action thus far was only a dramatisation of a routine purchase on an e-commerce app, often done in the convenience of home. Loved the bizarre take on a seemingly straightforward proposition of ‘shopping – your way’.
Agency: Wolf Bangkok
Paramount Plus: a mountain of entertainment
I really did not find the ad to be extraordinary but just loved the way a distinct brand asset – in this case, Paramount’s all-too-familiar ‘mountain’ which is etched in the memory of Hollywood film fans, is used. According to Logaster, ‘the 24 stars that form a circle over the mountain stand for 24 actors who signed their contracts with the film studio first’. The idea of ‘mountain of entertainment‘ also fits in well with wide variety of genres in such a streaming service.
Agency: New Commercial Arts
Amazon Prime: get into my cart
Apparently, ‘Get outta my dreams, get into my car’ is a Billy Ocean hit from the 80s. It is funnily twisted as ‘Get out of my dreams. Get into my cart’ to suit the announcement of Prime Day featuring John Batiste in this jingle-led commercial which has some corny lyrics to tie in with features of the sale.
timeTo: draw the line – Cannes
In 2018, timeTo was launched by AA, WACL and NABS with the express aim of ending sexual harassment in the advertising and marketing industry.
“In 2021, research commissioned by timeTo found that in a survey of 1,250 people, half (49%) expected sexual harassment to rise as the industry returns to office working. Nine out of 10 (89%) added that sexual harassment is an issue the industry still needs to tackle.
Source
Such concerns are expected to remain as the ad industry returns to in-person events such as Cannes. ‘A new campaign from timeTo calls upon the industry to take cognisance of concerns for safety and protect the attendees from sexual harassment. ‘This film addresses findings from our research, where we found that working away from home, alcohol and evening events created situations where the risk of sexual harassment increased‘ says the description over at YouTube.
Agency: Lucky Generals
Agency: Lucky Generals
Which one was your favourite? Do comment in.
