Excuse me to anyone who has seen this print ad. It is for V. I have read it more times then I care to admit too and it makes NO SENSE. Please help me understand this;
" Who needs…A physical when you’ve got airport security. Abstinence when you’ve got red hair. To smoke when you’ve got pollution. Stalkers when you’ve got telemarketers. Guinnea pigs when you’ve got G.E food. Sleeping pills when you’ve got talkback. Bribery when you’ve got window washers. Cholesterol when you’ve got the Atkins diet. A guilt trip when you’ve got charity collectors. Germ warfare when you’ve got air conditioning.
Who needs sugar when you’ve got Guarana."
That’s the whole ad, including the lack of question marks. What the fuck is it trying to say? Red heads don’t get sex? Or shouldn’t? You are better to be stalked then have a telemarketer phone you? It is better to take drugs to sleep then listen to people prattle on on the radio? In what way is roadside window washing comparable to bribery? How is a physical comparable to airport security?
Is this ad telling me that guarana is better then sugar or worse?
I hope this ad makes sense to someone or that is one wasted advertising budget!
Well, some of them are vaguely comprehensible I suppose. The groping that you may undergo at the hands of the airport security staff could be said to be like a physical examination. And if there’s enough gunk already in the air from pollution then I suppose the suggestion is that you don’t need to smoke to foul up your lungs. But the red-haired one…I’m not so sure.
It wouldn’t make me race out and buy the product, that’s for sure. But then no ad would. I’ve tasted V once and I think it’s revolting.
I would say it is a great piece of marketing to Generation X or Y or whatever Generation they were aiming at. Most people(especially gen x and y) think they are too smart for advertising to work on them. Advertisers come up with ads like this one because they think it works on Gen x and y people who(gen x and y) think that ads do not work on them(Did that make sense?)
I bet the marketers think they will get these reactions-
-I do not understand this ad. I will buy a bottle of V.
-This ad is cool. I will buy a bottle of V.
-This ad is odd. I will buy a bottle of V.
-Does this ad make sense to you? No? Let’s discuss it over a bottle of V.
In the UK, having ginger (red) hair is considered a bad thing - and used as an insult to those with red/strawberry blonde hair. Which could be what they’re after…
What was wrong with the ads in which Garden Gnomes steal a Morris Minor? That was a great ad…
I have to confess I’m not much of a V drinker… I switched to Kratingdaeng when I started nightfill work, and find it does a better job of keeping me alert in the wee hours without dissolving my teeth or making it impossible to sleep when I get home.
I think the point is that the former items are all superfluous elements we’ve labeled and worry about when they’re pretty much already here and part of daily lives, or rather, unnecessary redundancies of fear. Obviously, they’re reaching and being overly dramatic—it’s advertising.
I think the tagline says, “hey, you can’t really do much about the rest of this cr@p except get frustrated and b!tch about it on a blog/forum, but here’s a little something you can control which gets the job done better, you crazy-cool GenerationWhateverWannabe.”
or maybe, “It’s not good for you, it’s guarana!”
As blinkingblinking pointed out, this obfuscating oddness gets it way more play than a straight ad.
Guarana contains a mild stimulant similar to caffeine and a lot of energy drinks have it. I guess they’re saying, “who needs a sugar high when you can get a guarana high?”
I think you’re right. I’ve often heard that one school of thought for advertising isn’t necessarily to get you to want to buy the product, but merely to get you to remember the name. That is, when you get to the store, and are looking at a bunch of drinks, when you see a name you’re more familiar with, you’re more likely to purchase it. This is a philosophy similar to all the signs for political candidates come election time… no discussion of their politics (maybe party affiliation, but that’s it); since they’re targetting the independants or those who aren’t educated on the issues, they’re more likely to vote for someone simply because they recognize the name.
If that’s they’re goal, they’ve obviously acheived it with you, because not only do you remember the name of their product, and increased the awareness of it for others (I, for one, was no aware of this before reading this thread).
I’ve heard disparaging remarks on British shows, but I thought it was “all in good fun” stuff. Is there any kind of reality to this feeling?
How hypocritical is that, anyway? One of the more stereotypical images is of a freckled ginger boy in a school cap, shorts, and knee socks. It just says, “British”.
Reminds me of how a buddy and I as teenagers were playing miniature golf, and ahead of us was a woman with two junior-high boys in just that style of clothing, without the caps. They were surprised that we could pick them out as British. In Ventura, CA, a beach town with a surf point that’s actually name-checked in a Beach Boys song. Yeah, they didn’t stand out or anything.