The difference between the industry’s and the public’s view of
advertising is exposed yet again by this month’s People’s Jury. While
those in the know wax lyrical about Wieden & Kennedy’s marvellously
observed ’eagle’ and ’blind man’ films for Coca-Cola, the average man
and woman in the street - or, in this case, on the phone - love the
polar bears that have resurfaced in the soft-drinks giant’s
pre-Christmas TV campaign. Cuddly animals? You just can’t go wrong with
’em.
The bears just pip the popular Barclaycard campaign, starring Rowan
Atkinson, to the accolade of most likeable ad of the month. It’s a brave
client that ditches such a popular series but, no sooner had the final
instalment been released, than a new pair of Barclaycard films were on
air. The most memorable one features a man getting ready for work in the
morning as his house systematically falls down around him. It’ll take a
while before the new approach wins the plaudits awarded to Latham, but
BMP DDB will be more than happy with the round 6.0 score the fresh work
has achieved.
Each month, Campaign selects 20 brands that have new TV ads, or old
executions back on air, and asks two groups of 500 viewers what they
think of the advertising (ten brands per group). Those jurors who can
remember each ad give it a mark out of ten and we then rank the
commercials by their mean score (see table above). The panel (right)
indicates the five brands the jurors would be most likely to buy or
use.
Both Coke and Woolworths have made the top five in both, Bates Dorland’s
Woolies Wonderland ads coming a respectable third in the likeability
stakes as well as second only to the Royal Mail - also a Dorlands
client - in the propensity to buy category.
The fourth most popular ads this month were Mother’s delightful
Batchelors Supernoodles films. Oddly, given their male target audience
and Men Behaving Badly humour, they proved more popular with women
jurors than men. The lasses gave the ads an average 6.2, compared with
5.9 from the lads. But where the ads really hit home were with 15- to
34-year-olds of both sexes, who gave them 6.6 - as opposed to a frankly
unamused 5.0 from the over 55s.
As you’d expect in the run-up to Christmas, this month’s batch includes
a fair proportion of seasonal product sells, including McCann-Erickson’s
Black & Decker and Willox Holmes & Law’s creative masterpiece for Tryton
Yorkshire Puddings. In another ya-boo-sucks-to-you from the public to
adland, both were considered preferable to BMP DDB’s sumptuous work for
Vodafone.
One of that agency’s finest gems, the beef ad for the Meat & Livestock
Commission, performed averagely in the likeability poll, but - prior to
the latest meat scandal - the public’s appetite for beef was
considerable, making it fourth in our propensity-to-buy table.
Will the revered planners at BMP be surprised, delighted, or both to
learn that the old people featured in the ad are actually the ones that
gave it the lowest mark? By far the highest mark (6.2) came from the
middle group of 35- to 54-year-olds. Do they just recognise their
parents or is this how they would like to turn out?
Audience Selection carried out all the telephone interviews between 5
and 7 December, selecting 1,000 adults who represent a cross-section of
the population by age, class, sex and geography.
SELECTED ADS: DECEMBER 1997
1 Coca-Cola Creative Artists Agency 7.6
2 Barclaycard (Latham) BMP DDB 7.4
3 Woolworths Bates Dorland 6.4
4 Batchelors Supernoodles Mother 6.1
5 Barclaycard (new) BMP DDB 6.0
6 Royal Mail Bates Dorland 5.9
7 Felix Catfood BMP DDB 5.8
8= Dry Blackthorn Cider Grey 5.7
8= Honda CRV CDP 5.7
8= Meat & Livestock Commission BMP DDB 5.7
8= Somerfield Butler Lutos Sutton Wilkinson 5.7
12= Sure anti-perspirant Ammirati Puris Lintas 5.6
12= Surf Ammirati Puris Lintas 5.6
14 Tryton Yorkshire Puddings Willox Holmes & Law 5.3
15= Black & Decker Jigsaw
Multisander McCann-Erickson 5.2
15= Citroen Xsara Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper 5.2
15= Kodak Advantix Ogilvy & Mather 5.2
18 Anchor Cream Swirls Saatchi & Saatchi 5.1
19 Vodafone BMP DDB 4.9
20 L’Oreal Elvive
Multivitamins McCann-Erickson 4.5
Source: Audience Selection. Further information and copies of the full
results are available. Tel 0171-608 3618
