Clever advertising

This week gave us a couple of very clever ads. The first seemed to be unintentionally awkward and funny, the second was very expensive and made no sense. I submit that both were very successful in achieving their end goal.

Let’s start with British Gas’ sponsorship of 18-year-old Olympic swimmer Tom Daley.

Perfect placement for maximum exposure if you ask me.

The incredibly clever placement of the British Gas logo had the internet buzzing and giggling. Yes it’s funny in that, insert fart joke here, kind of way and that’s precisely what makes it so clever and ultimately successful. Had the logo appeared only on the jacket of Tom Daley’s warm up suit, no one would be talking about British Gas, but place the logo on the back of his speedo and you have advertising gold. Talk about bang for your buck.

Speaking of bang for your buck, the folks behind the new advertising campaign for Chanel Number 5, a fragrance so iconic it really doesn’t need to advertise anymore, paid Brad Pitt $7,000,000 to stand in front of a backdrop in a studio somewhere for 30 seconds and read the most nonsensical copy that had absolutely nothing to do with the brand.

Seeing as all of the late night talk shows, the entertainment “news” shows and the blogosphere (including this humble little slice of the web) is talking about the puzzling ad, I would say that its money well spent. By creating possibly the worst ad I have ever seen, Chanel has successfully created their most talked about ad campaign in decades.

After all, the goal of advertising is to get as many people talking about your brand as possible. With these kind of outside the box ideas, both British Gas and Chanel have done just that. Though personally I prefer a little more truth with my advertising like the ad slogans from the movie Crazy People.