Ad Analysis: Humor, the hallmark of iconic ads over the ages
What’s the secret to creating a fantastic ad? For the answer, we needn't look too far away but at our favorite video format — Cinema.
The only way to make a lasting impact through any video is if it can create an emotional response in the audience, and that’s it.
The utility of a video is never fully actualized unless it triggers an emotional response
Whatever decision that you want your audience to take through the video; be it to fill a form, visiting a website or even a decision to make a purchase.
It’s always more compelling for them if it comes from a place of emotion over logic.
Luckily one of the most powerful emotional triggers is something we all love- humor.
As marketers, we have to constantly think about how to stand out in our communication with our audience.
And humor is the most powerful way to achieve it.
Humor is one of the only genres of videos that make us want to share it without any persuasion
In this post, let’s dive in and analyze an amazing ad from the folks at Adobe.
If this did not bring at least a dim smile on your face then I’m afraid you’re a psychopath.
So what makes this ad so good?
- It boils down the business message into one simple idea
When we think about trying to influence behavior through video we have to think like Leo Dicaprio and his team in the movie Inception. The scene where the plan to perform inception is particularly interesting to marketers.
Here’s a refresher
And this is a perfect analogy as marketers are literally trying to perform inception on their viewers.
During the planning phase, the team comes up with a very important idea.
For inception to work we must plant the big idea into it’s simplest form.
For Adobe Marketing Cloud this simple idea was
‘Do you know what you’re marketing is doing for you?’
Once they had the idea in place, they simply thought of the funniest instance that would generate a ‘no’ as the answer to the question.
And what a more ingenious instance than a toddler misleading a business through random clicks!
2. 95% of the video delights, only 5% sells
The modern audience has too many content options to choose from and his antennas are tuned in to bullshit advertising.
Another mistake that brands make is to try and stuff the ad with as many business messages as they can.
So it’s vital that if you need your audience's attention, you need to entertain him first. Just like the pretty girl ain’t gonna kiss you till you woo her first.
This is particularly important when the video is for the objective of brand awareness. The first impression that you need to create is that your brand is cool. Any attempts to sell them up front and you’re gonna lose them. Just like when the pretty girl walks away after hearing your cheesy pickup line.
3. Cinematic treatments keep the audience hooked
A big problem that marketers have to deal with today is in figuring out how to target the 7-second attention span generation.
And brands and agencies together brainstorm on and on trying to think of truly original concepts hoping that would be enough to hook them in.
But take a page from Adobes playbook. Right from the start the dialogues, the music, the increasing intensity of the cuts, the sound effects immerse you into a different world.
Good cinema, my friends is the answer to the elusive question of how to keep people hooked. They transport you to a different reality where your biases and opinions take a backseat and you are truly invested in this experience
Did you love this ad as much as I did? Do leave your comments below if you have more interesting insights to share about the ad or the idea of leveraging humor in business communication. Or just share a funny cat video atleast.
