Not every print ad has what it takes to medal at the
2018 Games of the Olympi-ads.
These are my top ad-letes in the following categories:
Empathy, Specificity, and Extremism.
Crayola:
Aim for Empathy.
Meme culture, if nothing else, has shown us how our personal experiences are universal. That ability to identify a common emotion, experience, or opinion is what makes them a viral success. Want a piece of that viral pie for your own brand? Behind everything, there is human emotion, experience, and behavior--pinpoint and harness it.
If I've learned anything from my parents, it's these two things: a parent is always proud of their child, and when you find a brand (I'm pretty sure they said "man" at the time, but now advertising is my first love) you trust, you hold on with both hands. Pride, trust, nostalgia for the past--these are the feelings child artwork, and Crayola brand, engender in parents.
Trident:
Be Specific.
When advertising a whole brand, it can feel unnatural to zoom in at the risk of pigeonholing or leaving stuff out. But a brand is built from every little block, so dig deep in a detail to enhance the overall image of the brand.
Trident has a lot of gum out there, but THIS FLAVOR is special. This flavor comes with its own emotions, associations, personality, and when it and the other brand-in-and-of-themselves flavors join together, well, now you've built a diverse, robust brand for Trident.
Jem's:
Go to Extremes.
Differentiating can be difficult for new products in a crowded marketplace. If you're struggling to compete, taking the itty-bitty details that make your product unique and BLOW THEM OUT OF PROPORTION. Think like a flow chart of word association, and keep playing until your arrows lead you to the ends of the extremes.
Jem's beer boasts being "microbrewed" and comes from Israel, a country known for its technological advancements. So while it's a newcomer to the American market, let it rest on the shoulders of successful tech giants by extending for the common thread. Exaggeration is not exploitation; it's allowing the word, idea, product, or brand to grow and evolve. Let the laboratory-sounding "engineered" be something more: engineered to give you a good time. It is beer, after all.