Just days after seeing (and commenting) on this neat viral ad for the Swedish TV licence, I came across a similar concept for Adidas’s range of Star Wars branded trainers. What is interesting to me is my reaction to both ads.
With the former I was spurred on to write about positivity in advertising and bemoan the often gloomy approach to social change advertising in this country (a state that came back to mind during a debate on Newsnight where all the questions centred around whether setting a minimum price for alcohol was likely to help curb the culture of binge drinking – my observation at the time was to wonder why nobody was asking why people felt compelled to drink to inebriation in the first place – but I digress).
With the latter ad (the Adidas one in case my digression has jolted you out of space and time) I found myself thinking about the technology which pulled in images from a Facebook account and incorporated them into the video.
I’ve seen this done before of course, and even proposed it for a campaign before today. Sometimes it has been done well, sometimes, not so well.
I’d argue that the Adidas campaign falls into the second group.
The biggest draw, the biggest point of interest in the ad was Star Wars. That was its entire appeal. The “personalisation” elements were added in because, well, we’re social now. It’s not that they were jarring, just redundant. A “share with Facebook” button would have probably sufficed.
And all this got me thinking about virals and technology and how we’re supposed to believe that everything has changed now because of the internet.
And yet, how little has changed.
Because, it seems to me, a viral ad is just an ad done correctly.
I wouldn’t pass the Star Wars ad on to friends because of the social aspect. Seeing my photos in it wasn’t new anymore and didn’t fit into the ad’s message any more than augmented reality technology is fitting into the many application it is being forced into.
Novelty is a technique, not a message.
Facebook connect (and technologies like it) are incredible. It’s easy to see appeal and it’s understandable to want to use it to facilitate word-of-mouth.
But the danger is that it can overshadow the message.
And it is the message which, when novelty fades, which goes viral.
And message isn’t reliant upon technology.
If the message is strong then tongues will wag, real or digital.
