The Super Bowl definitely pushes the envelope for many brands - starting campaigns that consumers will talk about until the next year. But from watching and reading endless blogs on the sole topic, I figured I would focus on 2018 as a whole. January kicked off with some weird viral posts and campaigns - with the Tide Pods epidemic and Ikea's peeing magazine ad. I've also noticed some bad rebranding (sorry Firefly Festival) and some not so stellar ads (Diet Coke - I can't imagine how much you paid for these incredibly uncomfortable ads).
Tide
In my blurb above I only mentioned Tide Pods - honestly that was my only thought all throughout January after reports of people (especially college students) eating Tide Pods. The tweet below is just one example of several viral posts. Read about it here.
However, the Superbowl really changed everyone's perspective on Tide - or at least really changed what everyone was talking about. Their "Every Ad is a Tide Ad" was a brilliant idea. Saatchi & Saatchi took such a simple idea, but made it so relevant to the P&G product. They chose a great spokesperson for the campaign - David Harbour - a highly nominated actor this year who plays an extremely likable character on Stranger Things. I also loved this because I'm personally so sick of the "moms doing laundry" ads that this product group always puts out. I don't know if this idea would have worked with any other product and I'm so curious about how their creative process looked. AdWeek covered it here.
Ikea
Ikea started the new year with an eye-catching magazine ad (something you don't hear often). Magazine have become the most basic, straight-forward way for brands to advertise, but Ikea - like always - was able to do something new and attract customers. They were able to promote their famly products and give customers a coupon, all while providing a pregnancy test. At its most basic level they gave women a free way to check their pregnancy, and it actually worked. I loved it. Read more via Buinsess Insider.
Firefly
Firefly released their line-up recently along with a major change in their website and overall design. The intention is clear, this design is more readable and cleaner than their past dark blues & green colors. However, it's boring and doesn't convey the fun, festival spirit Firefly has always shown. As someone who attended Firefly twice in the past when I was 18 and 19, I can tell that the crowd is still on the young end, and this rebrand is not coherent with the message the brand previously shared.
Also the "e" in the middle of "Firefly" is very irritating & what is up with the spacing on the bottom?
Diet Coke
It already frustrates me that Coke renamed their "Zero" product to "Zero Sugar" - it's more to say, although I don't know if their change has allowed sales to increase. Now, the company has been redesigned their Diet option, straying away from only marketing towards women and adding more flavors to attract more customers. I am excited to try their new product, and the product design is great; however their advertising is awful in my opinion. Their Super Bowl ad involves an Australian actress who Americans don't know awkwardly dancing for a whole thirty seconds. Most are confused by it, not having enough issues (like political incorrectness) to deem it as the worst.
According to AdAge, this was clip was meant for social media, but the brand liked it so much they decided to use it for their first Super Bowl ad since 1997. I think brands need to understand that social media is a very different platform and the humor is extremely different. I wouldn't be surprised if their agency Anomoly tried to disagree with their client. At least they didn't do anything very politically incorrect, but this campaign was a miss.