Out-of-Box Experience

If you happen to follow the relevant Twitter accounts or peruse Buzzfeed from time to time then you will know that at the absolute very end of 2014 the disputable Queen of Pop, Madonna, released a new album. If you're a fan of Madonna I'm sure this is wonderful news and if you're not a fan of Madonna then this is also wonderful news because her marketing is truly something to behold. 

As we all know Madonna is not one to shy away from controversy, she doesn't really seem to care what the public think of her which is admirable at times. On top of this we know that Madonna really does think quite highly of herself indeed (take her nickname of Madge for example) and both these factors come to play with the launch of her new album.

                                                                Tying her shoes wrong

Her highness has taken to Twitter to recreate the above album artwork with famous faces. Now that doesn't sound so bad granted, but these famous faces are the likes of civil rights leaders, Princess Diana and even Jesus. Madonna's justification for this series of Tweets is that all the people featured can be categorised as 'Rebel Hearts' which in a huge twist of events is also the name of her album. As it is Madonna's own image she is replacing, it can be argued that she is comparing herself to these people preaching that she is 'just as great as these people'. I'm sorry Madonna but freedom fighters and Jesus are not on the same level as someone who has sung some songs for half a century. What's more is that she is using the images of these philanthropists and martyrs to promote and ultimately sell her album, I wonder how Prince Charles feels about Diana's image being used for capitalistic gain? Most of the 'Rebel Hearts' that Madonna has chosen died for the cause they believed in, is she willing to die for conical bras and leg warmers? That's what I want to know.

Madonna isn't alone in using the revolutionary dead to push her own agenda, Sainsbury's did the same over Christmas with their advert which depicted the 1914 Christmas day trenches football match. Now out of the battle of the Christmas adverts I do think Sainsbury's came top, I can imagine the advertising execs at John Lewis seeing the advert and pounding their fists screaming 'A PENGUIN?! IT'S THE CENTENARY AND WE CHOSE A FLIPPING PENGUIN?!'.

Whilst the Sainsbury's ad in no way glorifies WW1 or presents its products as the way to end the war it does still use a bloody, horrendous event of human tragedy in the history of the world to ultimately advertise its services. I do think somehow the Sainsbury's ad is better than Madonna's attempts, perhaps because it shows that as humans we are fundamentally good even in the worst of times and perhaps because the proceeds from the sales of the chocolate bar featured in the ad went entirely to the British Legion. But also perhaps because I can't stand Madonna's public persona and I wish she'd stop. 

The world of internal supermarket motivational posters has been rocked this week with Sainsburys accidentally displaying a poster intended for staff only on the shop floor.

The poster suggests that each employee gets every customer to spend 50p more (presumably by smuggling a Yorkie into their basket). A picture of the poster was then tweeted to Sainsburys and a desperate social media employee tried to find out the location which an entertainingly stubborn member of the public refused to give him. Sainsburys then released a statement on the matter saying that 'We often make store targets fun and achievable for our colleagues'. Now the word I'm picking up on here is fun. Sainsburys appear to be encouraging their employees to play a game of Buckaroo with their customers, seeing how many more products they can pile upon shoppers before they twig and, unlike the Buckaroo donkey, politely decline.

                                      The offending poster

Before Sainsburys had so much as picked up a broom to sweep the blunder under the rug Lidl responded in a magnificent manner issuing their own poster which urged their employees to help each customer save 'as many 50ps as possible'. Lidl is a company that doesn't have much of a brand presence so this is a fantastic way for it to stand out as surprisingly none of Sainsburys other competitors cashed in on this gaffe. The internet is full of companies twitter feeds having a little dig at each other over things like this but I think Lidl have been smart to do this as a physical manifestation as opposed to on the internet. It makes them somehow seem a bit more credible maybe because they're not being keyboard warriors.

                                               Lidl's cheeky reply

Lidl have also recently launched their own TV ad campaign in which unsuspecting members of the public sample their product then exclaim in amazement when it's revealed that what they thought was organic produce which supported a small business is actually a product from a multimillion pound company. 

I like the idea of the advert as it removes any prejudice the audience and the participants would have about Lidl and demonstrates that their high quality products don't come with a high quality price tag. The advert shows that Lidl can contend with those other big wig supermarket chains as each of the duped members of the general public claim they will then shop at Lidl.

However there's one detail to this advert that I can't quite get over and that's that it's basically saying that in order to get people to shop at Lidl they need to be tricked. It's like their marketing department know that people won't willingly set foot inside their shops (unless they're German) and so need to be shown how good their products are. If there's anything German's are good at it's being the best at things (engineering and sausages amongst other things) and Lidl's ad campaigns should utilise this.

If I were to ask you what first springs to mind when I say 'Andrex' what would it be? I sincerely hope that for the majority of people it would be adorable little Labrador puppies scampering along and slavering over pieces of toilet paper. For both Andrex's marketing team and a small portion of you though it'll be poo and wee (sorry for lowering the tone there).

Their most recent campaign opens with a bunch of blushing and awkwardly tittering teachers umming and ahhing about a question they've just been posed. This then cuts to school children who are supposedly 'Andrex users' providing answers such as 'as clean as gold pants' 'as a washed potato'  and 'clean as a shiny dolphin'. What hilarious and adorable children they are, ho ho ho. The end of the advert displays the text 'Andrex wants everyone to feel as clean as...'and then something cute a child has said and follows that with the running puppy which is always the best bit of every Andrex advert.

According to the Andrex website the logic behind asking this question is that 'It's funny how kids can express the feelings of Andrex much more freely than adults. As we get older the subject just seems awkward.' There's a reason why it's awkward Andrex and that's because if a grown adult doesn't feel clean after going to the toilet then there is something wrong and I doubt it's anything to do with them using your competitors product. They have tried to execute the discussion of poo in a cute and subtle way but neither of those attributes can be applied to poo. This advert really is just children saying funny things and if that's your bag then let me take the time to direct you to this video which has nothing to do with poo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca4ty7tz9x0

Whilst I don't like the delivery of the advert I do like the fact that Andrex is publicly acknowledging the function it's product serves. They're not embarrassed by the fact that the only product they produce somebody will literally wipe their bum with. Their website has something to say about this as well as they claim 'We're going to talk about clean bottoms more openly... If you think about it, why wouldn't we? It's what we do and we do it really well' Now if I worked for Andrex then I think I'd try to slyly sneak in as many synonyms for poo as possibly in their copy but that's just me and my childish mind, I really think they missed a trick with the two 'do's' in that sentence. Andrex is evidence that in order for a consumer to be confident in their product then the company has to be confident in their product.

When it comes to car adverts there seems to be three main types. You've got the swish 'you can't afford this so we'll make it quite abstract' one which might feature animals or mist and usually includes a lot of black. There's also the ones where it appears to be advertising clown cars with the amount of people they pack inside but here's the twist it actually turns out to unbelievably be a family car. The third kind are the ones that are targeted at the hip youth market and are largely nonsensical and show the car driving around with a loud catchy song playing in the background.

Toyota's Aygo is the most recent car to be put before the youth market and it's current marketing campaign is just as fun and hip as the car itself is, it's produced by Saatchi and Saatchi London and the current advert features 'internet prankster' Rahat dressed as a car seat. Now I can hear you sat there saying 'but why is he dressed as a car seat? Is he going to a really terrible fancy dress party?' well he's causing tomfoolery and subjecting the poor people of France to fear and confusion all for the means of entertainment and maybe to get you to buy a car.

You might think from my tone that I'm not a fan of this particular campaign but you'd be wrong. I can personally testify that there is nothing 'youths' like to do more than procrastinate by watching YouTube videos and I have watched my fair share of cat videos, people falling over videos, animals talking like humans and so many more. The prank that Rahat pulls in the ad is the exact kind of thing that people like me waste our time watching online along with those videos of people ordering ice cream from McDonalds Drive Thru then doing weird things with the ice cream. Rahat has over 3 million subscribers on YouTube made up of people all over the world and the Aygo advert is one that could work in any single one of those countries. It also feature's on Rahat's channel so most of those 3 million subscribers have seen the ad which just serves to extend Aygo's super fun super colourful super hip fingers beyond the UK. It's a solid advert that confidently singles out it's audience and leaves promise for a series of similar adverts featuring other 'YouTubers' but I don't think they'll ever have cats doing driving an Aygo though.

My only small, tiny, minuscule gripe is the tag line which reads 'Go fun yourself'. Now, I'm not sure about you but the phrase 'go fun yourself' sounds eerily similar to a different phrase which most certainly does not suggest any fun will be had. Also in my mind the word 'Aygo' is so so similar to 'Argo' and if any of you have seen the film you'll know there's a certain line that is repeated throughout as an ongoing joke, and I apologise in advance if you become offended by this, but it goes 'Argo f#%$ yourself'. There must be literally a thousand other lines they could have come up, 'Go Fun Yourself' feels like something they feel is all provocative and risky but is in reality just down right bad and I'm not sure if it counts as a parody or plagarism. It's as if they went 'Young people think swearing is edgy but we can't swear but you know what we can do? We can insinuate swearing', all of a sudden Toyota seems like the parent that is trying too hard and says 'swag' too much.

Having recently moved back home I've had a lot more time to plonk myself in front of the television and watch endless amounts of awful daytime programmes. As a result of this I've noticed a trend in the ad breaks that particularly niggles at my nerve endings and it is all to do with yoghurts. From Muller's corners and greek style to Canada's Liberte yoghurt (for the life of me I can't get the accent to work) and biffidus digestivum containing Activia it appears that all yoghurts are marketed at women. 

Now I understand that brands and products need to have a target audience in order for them to be successful but the inner feminist in me (she comes out every now and then) asks why food needs to be gendered. Yoghurts seem to be a product that are promoted as an aid to weight loss with most boasting that they contain little or no fat, it is their aid to weight loss that must be the reason why the product is so consistently targeted at women who stereotypically care more about their appearance than men. This is plainly seen in Activia's adverts which feature Gok Wan, a man who has made his living on making women look good and restoring body confidence, the association being that eating this yoghurt will get rid of any body woes that you may have. Whilst targeting yoghurts at women in reality doesn't exclude men from eating them (my dad has a muller corner every night after dinner without fail) it does suggest that the product isn't made for them. Yoghurt isn't a tampon, it's okay for men to have them too.

Gok Wan convincing women that Activia can solve all your self-confidence problems

Asides from weight loss, rather bizarrely there seems to be a tendency to associate yoghurt with sex. I'm not sure how food can ever be categorised as sexy, this baffles me hugely. Nobody looks at a baked bean and thinks that those are the qualities they'd like in a partner. Except of course if you're Nicole Scherzinger who seems to be two timing and getting her jollies with both Herbal Essence and Muller Corners on various modes of transport, maybe that is why things haven't worked out with Lewis Hamilton. Liberte's advert for it's fruity yoghurt sees Denise van Houten firstly referring to the yoghurt she is eating as a 'he' which takes the notion of gendered food to it's extremes and secondly stating that 'he's so fulfilling' and 'really satisying', oh how cheeky of you Denise! I'm going to just go ahead and say the cold hard truth that unless you have a weird fetish, yoghurt can't induce orgasms, I'm sorry but there it is.

Scherzinger on her third date

Muller corners have the capactiy to have a really creative ad campaign that utilises it's differences from all the other yoghurts. A few years ago I remember their string of TV ads that played on the way people combine the yoghurt and the corner which is something that all people who have ever eaten a muller corner can relate to (I pour all the corner in and just mix it up, rather unimaginative I know). Muller corners are quite a visual product and that is something that could be used in an ad campaign, take a situation that is boring until you mix in a certain element that transforms the aforementioned situation into something fun and amazing.