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‘Dixons: The last place you want to go’ parodied by Big Al’s Creative Emporium

Last month I wrote about Dixons' 'honest' tube ads that claimed that people went to department stores for advice and customer service but came to Dixons for a good price. I thought that the ads were probably too big a gamble for Dixons (Craig Inglis, head of brand communication at John Lewis, seemed as surprised as me that 'another business would try to make a virtue of the fact they didn't have anything like a comparable service') but I also thought that the campaign would get people talking about the brand.

Other advertising agencies certainly seem to have taken an interest in the series of ads with Soho-based outfit, Big Al's Creative Emporium, producing this delightful parody.

Dixon's tube ad parody by Big Al's Creative Emporium

It's unclear whether this was actually a campaign or just the design team horsing around in the office but either way, I like it.

How Ricky Gervais wrote Coke their best ever ad

The new Ricky Gervais film, The Invention of Lying, casts the comedian as a man who invents lying in a world where everyone else can only tell the truth. Although it deals with various themes one of the film’s best jokes is the way it portrays big brand advertising in a world where marketing exists without the tools of exaggeration, cherry picked facts and, that old favourite, the lie of omission. I was so intrigued by the film’s take on an honest Coca-Cola ad that I had a go at mocking it up in Photoshop:

Coke: It's basically just brown sugar water

And to show there wasn’t any kind of bias against Coke the filmmakers also took the time to level a satirical swipe at Coca-Cola's main competitor whose fictional ad agency were compelled to deliver an even more damning creative: 'Pepsi. For when they don't have Coke.'

I've talked before on my blog about the trend of honesty in advertising and Ricky Gervais has certainly taken this modern marketing technique to its natural conclusion. Although many will be certain that we'll never see an ad for Coke that confesses that ‘it’s basically just brown sugar-water’, I for one would get a kick out of big companies having the faith in their brand to lay out the basic truth about their products.

It may be a risky strategy for a corporation like Coca-Cola but I've got a feeling that an ad like that would give them licence to run an incredibly satisfying and successful follow up campaign: 'Coke is just brown sugar-water. Coke drinkers don't care.'

Dixons: ‘The last place you want to go’

I was on the tube yesterday when I spotted this interesting ad for online retailer dixons.co.uk:

Created by M&C Saatchi the ad is a brave attempt to run the gauntlet of the 'refreshingly honest' approach to brand advertising. In one fell swoop Dixons have admitted that their staff are not the best trained, that their shops are not the most aesthetically pleasing and that their sales advice is somewhat sub-standard. They admitted all of this because they're hoping that the message of their ad, 'we're not the best but we are the cheapest', is what will stick in consumers' heads when they reach the final stages of the product purchase cycle.

In many ways this is a twist on the classic Avis ad: 'we're number two ... so we try harder'. The agency behind that advert, DDB, hit upon the idea when they asked the beautifully blunt question, 'why does anyone want to rent a car from you?'. The answer that spawned the legendary advertising campaign was that Avis couldn't begin to compete on price so they had to compete on service; they tried harder.

A similar question has clearly been asked of Dixons. Why would anyone buy anything from you? Conversely, of course, they can't hope to compete against Harrods and Selfridges on service but they can certainly compete on price. 'We try harder' for Dixons is simply 'we are cheaper'.

With the country still feeling the effects of the recent recession it is absolutely right that dixons.co.uk is staking its claim to low prices instead of great service but a major stumbling block of this strategy is the question of whether it is too late for the site to establish itself as a major low-price retailer. The cut-price consumer electronics marketplace has a number of major incumbents: Amazon, Dabs and even eBay are all established players in this crowded and competitive market and consumers are already well versed in the 'try and buy elsewhere' purchasing philosophy.

To bet a brand's reputation on a campaign like this is commendable but very risky. Personally, I have a feeling that Dixons no longer has the clout or the brand recognition to make sure that 'the last place you want to go' is a call to action and not an untimely epitaph.

UK Think! ‘drug driving’ TV ad is an embarrassing throwback

The 1936 film Reefer Madness was funded by church groups in order to teach the youth of the day about the dangers of cannabis. The fact that the film was then purchased and re-cut as a cult comedic exploitation film tells you just how hopelessly unrealistic the film's portrayal of drug users as murderers and rapists really was.

It is said that 'those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it' and the folks at Think!'s agency, Leo Burnett, clearly haven't taken the time to review the history of misguided government anti-drug campaigns.

The ad is clearly reaching out to existing drug users which is a problem because the existing users will be perfectly aware of what actual pupil dilation looks like and will dismiss the ads as worthless propaganda. If they can't take the dilated pupils aspect of the ad seriously then how can they be expected to absorb and, most importantly, engage with the message that drug driving is a serious offence?

Although it is plain to see that the video deliberately exaggerates the effect of pupil dilation in order to make a stronger point the reality is that all they've actually managed to achieve is to dilute and infantilize their message.

It's an immense shame to see that Think! (part of the Department of Transport) and Leo Burnett have so roundly failed to produce an informative anti-drug driving ad and that they have relied upon lazily rehashing antiquated scare tactics that were already ripe for lampooning well over 50 years ago.

Modern advertising is about engagement and Think! would do well to realize that patronising their audience has made a mockery of their brand and, most disappointingly, of their message.