Curated by Stuart Fogarty stuart@admaticallycom for AFAO'Meara Advertising, Streamabout The Video Agency and Admatic Ireland.
All comments will be posted - promise!
One of the real benefits of online Advertising is that Ads get shared. And they get shared with relevance....unlike TV spots which can't be shared...obviously. Relevance, because the person who shares them, shares them with someone else whom they think, will like the Ad for whatever reason. Nothing more powerful than a friend sharing something with you and which will normally prompt a conversation, a response. The most shared Ad of 2013, is The Dove "Real Beauty" sketches having been passed around over 4 million times. Interesting though, one YouTube posting alone has over 58 million views and this is a 3 minute Ad. That's pretty excellent.
And interestingly it's aimed at women who are more likely to share video btw. But it deserves it because it's really a great piece of storytelling, simply shot (which is the essence of the campaign - tell it like it is) and it's real. The key to great advertising is simplicity and in particular, empathy. If you can empathise with your audience, you're there. This does that. In spades.
Dove, the Unilever brand, is extending its "real beauty" campaign which launched in 2004 and came to prominence in 2007 at The Cannes Festival.
It's a campaign aimed in part, at the true illustration of women in advertising and in editorial - campaigning against "air brushing". It also seemed to align itself with a campaign against young women identifying with those images and consequently leading to eating disorders amongst teenage girls. What they've done is to distribute a piece of software ('Photoshop Action') on Social Media sites. Whilst downloading the software pretends to offer better filter images (in an 'Instagram' kind of way) for the photograph, in fact, it reverts the photograph to its original - warts and all. It is aimed at Art Directors and creatives in Ad Agencies who create advertising featuring beautifully retouched women. And it makes a point. Needless to say, Ad Agencies aren't happy with the download because it doesn't do what it promised to do. They've hit back at Unilever claiming that the original Dove campaign itself, was photoshopped and they also point to other Unilever campaigns (such as for 'Axe' and 'Fair&Lovely' brands) which features.....beautifully retouched women. Or so they say. Basically, you can't have it both ways.... But the idea of using a download in this way, is clever. Or controversial. It depends on whatever way you look.
