Hello Willards, this is common sense calling with a very important message: “It seems as though you lost us somewhere in the conceptualisation of this ad”.
This is the phone call someone needs to make to whomever came up with the concept for this Willards ad. For those of you not in the know Willards is a chip company that competes directly with Simba. Now if you’re going up against the likes of Simba your adverts need to be hotter than hot.
The premise for the advert is simple: two normal guys in their cubicle office talking about something related to business while eating their chips. They then suddenly morph, growing animal parts (such as donkey ears and hooves) and look at each other strangely yet unsure what is wrong. In other, longer versions of the ad these two characters dance around their office and cause havoc for their fellow co-workers. The tag line for the ad and the entire campaign seems to be: “Release your party animal”.
See what they’ve done there and how clever they are? They’ve associated the chips with parties and acting like an animal. You know, because the actors in the ad start looking like animals when they eat Willards chips? Sarcasm aside this is a really dumb advert and a pretty silly concept. I get where they’re going with the whole “Party Animal” thing but if you’re trying to associate partying with eating chips then get a couple of hot models into a room with a dorky looking guy and somehow get the chips to save him from his horrible fate in a humorous or intelligent manner. It’s the classic “hot girl” and “underdog” mix in an advert that has worked for many years; why mess with something good?
If this advert is targeting 14-year old boys then it’s clearly very smart but the reality is that to attract that market you’re doing a better job (and cheaper) to just put adverts on chat sites. I’m obviously not smart enough (or actually more than a shade over 14) to get this advert. It’s just so witty (and pun-ny) that I’m left writing these pithy words.
Seriously Willards, what were you thinking with such ridiculous adverts and such a weak payoff line?
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.
Saul – I think you’ve gotten this completely wrong and said a few things that make little sense in the current climate.
“It’s the classic “hot girl” and “underdog” mix in an advert that has worked for many years; why mess with something good?” Yawn. You want them to stick with what every other brand is doing and copy every other ad they’ve ever done? No no no, boring. Rather have them step out of the norm and fail (I’m not sure they failed) at something new & different then sort of succeed at something old and boring.
Furthermore – You say that the party animal advert plays to 14 yr old… and you think a dork at a party with hot girls doesn’t? That’s every 14 yr olds biggest nightmare, is that he is the dork at a party with hot girls who don’t even know he’s there.
I think that the Animal advert above isn’t the best of the best. But when I first saw it I enjoyed it because it was fresh for a chip company. It wasn’t the norm and didn’t make me yawn.
Hi, i love willards cheesecurls and eat them too often. I was dissapointed when i bought a packet 20.05.09 and they were not fresh.Sel by date 25 July 09 and yet they were hard, not the usual melt in your mouth taste. Please check if you had any other complaints as we rely on cheesecurls as our happy food, now i was sad