Marketing Inspiration #41.2: Advertisers Watching Ads
Your weekly dose of data-driven marketing insights - Advertisers Watching Ads
Marketing Inspiration on Advertisers Watching Ads - our show where brands watch other brands’ ads and discuss what they liked - and often, what they didn’t! - in partnership with Contagious.
Ads about food need to be fun and engaging. With brands like McDonald’s, KFC, and Heinz often taking centre stage on AWA, who else can compete for audiences’ attention? This week, we’re looking back at ads about different kinds of food, from crisps to “heavenly fish.” What did they get right and what didn’t quite work?
“If you dig a little deeper, you might ask: are you taking in local people, taking advantage of them for profit… and positioning it as if you’re helping this community?” - Rory McEntee, Former Brand & Marketing Director, Gymbox
A curious annual phenomenon is at the heart of Regal Springs’ Heaven Fish ad, which showcases fish falling from the sky in Yoro, Honduras. The brand is a highly sustainable fish farming organisation, but their claims of significant improvements to locals’ livelihoods raised some eyebrows when we first watched the ad on AWA. Thanks to the beautifully shot clip, this ad made it into our top 3 of 2023, missing out on “Ad of the Year” to Maybelline’s powerful Through Their Eyes campaign. See what you think:
“It’s a very smart and self aware strategy: it gives an evergreen nature to the campaign, but taking whatever is happening in the culture to bring that and refresh the campaign over and over again.” - Colin Chow, Global Managing Partner at TwentyFirstCenturyBrand
“You either love it or you hate it” has long been the popular slogan for Marmite, but their Baby Scan ad played on that with a new twist. Research shows that babies in the womb can taste what their mothers eat via the amniotic fluid, so Marmite decided to show their presumed facial reactions in an ad that mixes humour with a heartwarming theme. Tune in to this episode of AWA to see how brands play with gentle, non polarising humour, and what our guests had to say about Marmite’s take.
“The objective here is to connect with a generation of individuals who don’t watch advertising. It’s like the anti-ad, enabling the audience to take control and be part of the brand.” - Kate Mackie, Global Integrated GTM Lead | Partner at EY
Doritos have “owned” the triangle shape and took that to address the anti-ad generation with their Triangle Tracker activation. Getting potential consumers to become involved with the brand by chasing triangles sounds fun, but it’s also not necessarily that effective. In this episode, we questioned how much of the case study was “too good to be true.” As David Esrati put it: “we all sound fantastic when we make a case study.” Watch it to see what you think:
Many thanks to all of our guests:
Danielle Sims (Client & Partnerships Director at Automated Creative), Rory McEntee (Former Brand & Marketing Director at Gymbox), David Byrne (Brand Strategy at grehairworks!), Adam Conley (Vice President, Portfolio Strategy & Human Insights, NA, at The Coca-Cola Company), Saira Rahman (Senior Manager, Brand & Title Marketing, at Paramount+), Colin Chow (Global Managing Partner at TwentyFirstCenturyBrand), Diksha Idnani (Marketing Leader), Kate Mackie (Global Integrated GTM Lead | Partner at EY), and David Esrati (Chief Creative Officer at The Next Wave).
Do you want to share your thoughts about these ads or suggest a new one for us to debate? Email us on hello@automatedcreative.net.
Enjoying our newsletter? Subscribe so you never miss a new one: