What We Can Learn from the Greatest Ad Campaigns?

Let’s be honest. You, like most people, have a well-developed case of ad-blindness. Unless an ad really jumps up and grabs you, you skip past it or totally ignore it.

A small percentage of really good ads manage to get past that ad-blindness and connect with the viewer. That’s exactly what you want and need your ads to do. It’s not easy. Relatively few ads or campaigns make the cut, achieving such a high level of success.

The best, most successful ads and campaigns illustrate principles you can apply to your own advertising.

Identify Your Decision Makers – They Might Not Be Who You Think They Are

Old Spice: “Smell Like a Man”

Old Spice was competing head-to-head with Axe, a trendier competitor vs. Old Spice’s somewhat stodgy image. “Smell Like a Man” changed all that.

Axe’s commercials had long focused on men using their products and attracting swarms of pretty women. This turned out to be an advertising cliche that overlooked a significant factor. Men used the product, but women bought the product. Overall, men only buy 15% of U.S. consumer products. Women buy 85%. This is especially true for body care products.

Old Spice designed ads that would appeal to women without turning off men. A handsome, well-built former football player was shown riding a horse on the beach shirtless, leaving the shower and in similar scenes. Although the ads could have been used for the cover of a romance novel, the spokesman was still very much a man’s man.

Don’t assume that the person using your product is also the decision maker.

Solve Your Customer’s Problem

Nike: “Just Do It”

In the late 1980s, Reebok outsold Nike who sold primarily to marathon runners. Then suddenly everybody was into fitness and exercising.

Nike’s trademark slogan “Just Do It” encourages people to push beyond their limits and pursue their dreams. It’s still used today.

The campaign worked. Nike sales skyrocketed from $800 million in 1988 to $9.2 billion in 1998.

Find a New Way to Connect With Your Current Customers

Coca-Cola: “Share a Coke”

After 127 years, Coca-Cola must find it hard to come up with something new. (Well, there was “New Coke,” but we all know how that turned out.) Coke found a new way to appeal to their loyal customers by printing first names on bottles and cans.

Vending machines were stocked with Cokes bearing random first names. If a Coke with your name didn’t roll out of the machine, you were encouraged to “Share a Coke” with someone with that name. You can still join their “Share a Coke” campaign and order customized Coke bottles.

Find a creative, new way to connect with your customers.

Be Creative – There Are Many Unique Ways to Tell Your Story

Absolut Vodka: The Absolut Bottle

Liquor ads generally show attractive, well-dressed people partying in plush surroundings. Absolut took a different approach, creating 1,500 unique ads featuring their bottle. This campaign holds the record for the longest, uninterrupted ad campaign. During the course of this campaign, their share of the U.S. imported vodka market jumped from 2.5% to about 50%.

If Absolut could create 1,500 ads featuring a simple bottle, just think what you could do with your product.

Take a Stand on Issues Your Customers are Passionate About

Always: #LikeaGirl

The tagline for the #LikeaGirl campaign was, “When did doing something like a girl become an insult?” This Always feminine products campaign focused solely on the desire of young girls to achieve great things, appealing to girls and women of all ages.

Don’t be afraid to take a stand on challenges faced by your customers.

Create a Market for Your Product

Miller Lite: “Great Taste, Less Filling”

Long, long ago, everyone thought light beer must taste awful, no “real man” would ever drink it and there was no market for a light beer. Miller thought otherwise.

Miller created a market. Their ads featured manly men drinking Miller Lite and declaring it was a great tasting beer. For decades, Miller Lite was the leader in the light beer market.

If you have an innovative, unique product, you may have to create your own market. Believe in yourself. Don’t listen to those who say it can’t be done.

With all the intense competition, boring, cookie-cutter ads are a waste of time and money. At BXP Creative, we live and breathe all forms of marketing, digital, email and printed. Take a look at all the services we offer at an affordable price.

We’re your creative team behind the scenes. Need help when your in-house team is slammed? Want an entire marketing strategy developed and implemented? We’ll collaborate with your team or handle the entire project for you.

How can we help you? Let’s connect.