I completely disagree with Alan Sugar when he said the brand name needs to be all over the advert.

The Atishu one had it thrust so much in your face all the time it just looked stupid. The point of an advert is to get you watching untill the end. There is lots of adverts around that have nothing to do with the product but get you watching because of the story or because they are different and then give you the product name because then you are more likely to remember it.

Take for example the Cadbury advert with the trucks, you have no idea untill the very end that its for Caburys! Then you hear people talking about it more. There is lots of other adverts like this just cant be bothered mentioning them all!

Definately a wrong move letting the other ones win IMO.

Cadburys is an establishes brand, they can get away with Gorillas drumming to Phil Collins etc, However they couldn't have done that in the 1920's before people had heard of Dairy Milk. The archetect of that too would have been fired at that time.

I dont think it matters whether its an established brand or not. Had the drumming gorrilas or the new one been for anything else it would still have got the attention it did get.

You only found out at the end that it was for an established brand which is after you have watched the advert, so you dont watch it because its an established brand (if that makes sense??)

Of course that makes sense, to a certain degree, however we're talking about a brand yet to place itself in the market as a dominent player. People have not heard of "I love my Tissues" and the purpose of the advert is to give it brand recognition.

Dairy Milk is known to all and a 2 minute ad involving vehicles from an airport racing along the runway to the tune of Queen is perfect for such an advert, but a new product cannot get away with a such an abstract concept.

Look at new products that have recently been released on the market and I'm sure you will give up this line of argument. You have to have product placement and without it you are lost.

Raif made this error. It could be argued that it was Michael to blame rather than Raif. It cannot be succesfully argued that their concept was correct.

Alan Sugar made his decision after speaking to the ad execs at Ogilvy but then what do they know about advertising? They only have 497 offices in 125 countries after all.

I guess the question is how effective is advertising?
And how can this effectiveness be measured?

From the final decision made, I'm guessing ads people know that 'in your face' advertising is effective for new launch products.....with concrete evidence; i.e. increased sales off the back of advertising.

However, I know for example that I would be MORE likely to buy Atishu tissues if I HADN'T seen that cringe inducing advert. I guess I'm in a minority.
Last edited by nevada : 23-05-2008 at 07:30

I disagree I would say that the point of an advert is to get the viewer to buy the product, if the veiwer is not even shown the product they can't buy it. I think the 'I love my tissue' advert looked alot better and was better pitched to the advertisers. Perhaps if they had a shot at the end like 'Atishu' they would have clinched it.

I'm surprised neither team went for the whole germ issue in a big way.

The advert with the Boy and girl was slick and looked reasonably professional, it was pretty good really exept for the real biggie - Not showing the product and talkng about it either at end or start of advert.

Why didn't they just put a big picture of the box on screen at the end with a narration explaining 'how good the product is'?? They would have won it if they did.

absolutly, you didnt know what the gorilla and plane advert was all about and youd never guess but at the end the colour purple and the 1 1/2 glass of milk is iconic enough, you know immediatly that it is cadburys even before you see the swirly signature...

i think thats why those adverts were made - nothing to do with chocolate but a) got every one talking b) got people remembering c) probably got people buying
er.... sales figures?

What, are you saying that you couldnt have watched a gorilla drumming to phil collins in the 1920s? Not even in hi def on a signal broadcast from a satellite?

Would Raef's ad sell any tissues in the real world? Not featuring the product a lot was big mistake but may be after being aired many times people would have wondered what the ad is about and perhaps bought the product.

Would Alex's ad sell any tissues in the real world? No. On the contrary I think they would have heavily fined for misleading the viewers. As someone pointed out in the IF: what is the link between an anti bacterial tissue and a viral infection?!!!!!!!

Alex's was fundamentally flawed and it would not have passed as an ad in the real life because it clearly misinterprets the qualities of the product and it gives the impression that these "anti-bacterial" tissues prevent spreading a viral infection and that it is OK for a child infected with flu for example to go to the school if he/she has these "anti-bacterial" tissues ?!!!!!!!!!!!

I think a precise description of the product counts a lot in the real world. Reaf's ad needed one shot of the product but Alex's ad does not pass the basic regulations of advertisement. I know that there are many products in the market that claim to do things that they don't do but Alex's ad shows sheer ignoance by linking anti bacterial tissues to viral infections.

but they werent getting judged on artistic merit nor fact, they were getting judged on whether thier method would sell the product

Yes this is what I am saying. Their ad would not have sold the product because it does not describe the product. It would not have passed the advertisment regulations - not because their ad was artistically dreadful- but because it is based on a misleading story that suggests that using anti bacterial tissues can prevent spreading infections. In the real world, they would have been forced to change the ad completely. If their ad was shown to the public, the company producing the tissues would have been heavily fined because the product clearly does not do what it claims.

oops, sorry! i suppose so.

I made a mention of that. The point goes on to talk about linking sales increases to the specific ad campaign. Of course, an ads execs will know more about this than we ever will.

a new , ok NEW product needs to make an impact no matter how annoying it is , as Alex's ad was annoying but I have seen worse

I'M BARRY SCOTT AND THIS IS CILLIT BANG!!!!!!!!!

think Radon, cillit bang etc. as to how new products are advertised. Pruposefully loud and annoying to get people's attention.
It is so difficult to break a new product, they usually go for a tacky approach to break the market. subtlety doesn't work.
That's that you learn in business school and they have the stats to back it up.

Shake and Vac.

sorry, you did!

and yes, they are the ones who picked the ad, not sir allan

well we don't know about that. Do we?!!

I don't know how they thought Alex's ad was better. As I said many times before their campaign was totally flawed. If you want to focus on the product at least get your facts right!! What is the relation between antibacterial tissues and viral infections?!!! If I were the company that produced the product, I would reject the ad because I can be held legally responsible for misleading claims in the ad.

I think that the two ads were equally bad but as I pointed out before, the Atishu ad should be completely replaced while the I <3 my tissue ad can be modified by adding one shot at the end.

So at the end of the day it depends on the criteria on which SAS judge the ads. It certainly isn't the amount of sales that can be generated from the ad.

I have always had a problem with tasks like these, because they are purely subjective. I think the show should stick to tasks were the outcome is measurable.

There is actually no way of knowing for sure which ad would have been more successful because they were never shown to the consumer. I would agree the product placement might have been an issue for Raefs team, but the tackiness of Alexs team might also not have been well received. We simply don't know for sure.

Basically, the outcome is purely based on a hunch. And I find that unfair.

It should have lost anyway due to that horrendous voiceover and music choice.

the voiceover was bad

The task wasn't won or lost on artistic merit or getting the clinical facts of anti bacterial right. The 30 second advert was only one part of the task, this was an advertising campaign for a brand new product.

The only reason Raef & Co lost this task was simply because they had no product placement in their advert. I personally can't remember much about the poster advert (something in hospital green I think) they did either; which is the opposite of Alex's which was 'in-your-face orange'.

To the Ad agency, SAS and members of the public (did you all forget them?) this was an automatic failure on their part to listen and understand the task. It didn't matter to them, if Alex's ad was a pile of shit. Their advert showed the product, had a catchy name and as pointed out by SAS was bright enough to attract attention in the shop shelves. People keep mentioning Cillit Bang, guess what colour their bottles are - yep bright orange, not some insipid hospital green like Raef's Crew came up with.