The U.S. advertising spent more than $190 billion in 2016.
There’s no absolute data on the total amount of ads created, especially when considering social media marketing.
So let’s just mark the total as “a lot.”
The U.S. advertising industry is projected to spend over $2018.93 billion in 2018, increasing to $259.10 billion by $2021.
With the number of advertising dollars—and probably total advertisements—growing, standing out from this crowd becomes increasingly difficult. TM staff decided to reflect on our favorite advertisements in recent years.
April Kester
Chevy’s “Mayan Apocalypse” commercial from the 2012 Super Bowl: I’m not a big fan of the Chevy brand, per se, but I do love this commercial. From the “Looks Like We Made It” background music, to finding out that “Ed didn’t make it” because “he drove a Ford”, to the fact that Chevy supports the theory that Twinkies can, in fact, survive anything…I really feel like this commercial has everything I’m looking for in an ad as a consumer.
KFC’s “We’re Sorry” campaign from early 2018: Now, granted, this one is a bit…”naughty”…but, nonetheless, I still love it – of course, the only reason it works is because of the convenient way that the letters “KFC” can be rearranged, but that’s the beauty of having the right initials at the wrong time…you can at least make something funny out of it. Not sure what I’m talking about? OK…here goes…in case you didn’t hear, there was a bit of a chicken shortage in England this past winter, and it caused quite a bit of a stir. I’ll let this screenshot from an AdWeek article (that ran on 2/23/18) do the talking for me, because I don’t really think I could sum it up any better than they did. Also…the tweet. I do enjoy the fact that folks actually called the police about the chicken shortage scandal and that the calls were prevalent enough that, apparently, the police felt they had to respond via Twitter (and create a hashtag!)…multiple times.
Lacy Jo
If you want my real, raw, honest answer:
There are tons of cute and catchy advertisements out there. They may be funny or touching, but what it comes down to is: Did they make you purchase a product? Did they get you on board with their brand? Not a single commercial I’ve watched on TV so far this year has made me go out and buy something. However, I became a brand champion for someone this year based on the marketing of a small business.
The company is “Method to the Madness Planner”. I found her product on a give-a-way by a company I followed on Instagram. I happened to win (doesn’t happen to me often, so I was stoked as it was). The owner reached out to me, was super friendly and conversational and I gave her a shout out when I got the planner. Since then, the company likes my posts and interacts with them regularly, and has asked me to participate in a survey to make the product better. I love the product, have re-ordered and have become a champion of their brand. They weren’t running advertisements. They were marketing the new product through Instagram and have provided stellar customer service since.
Ads are cool. They’re entertaining. But they won’t make someone else a champion for your brand. They won’t create loyal customers. They very well may not even entice people to buy. Not this day and age where people want to do their research and be sure of the product before they buy. Having a stellar online presence is where it’s at. That’s how the best marketing works, and that’s how we do marketing here at Transformation Marketing.
Shannon Filing
I like how Tide totally hijacked any and all competing commercials with their approach. Clever and cunning.
Louie Broz
One of my favorite advertisements was a piece of sponsored content by Upwork that was advertised in The Atlantic. I was super drawn into what I thought was a compelling article on San Francisco’s growing freelance market, only to realize I was duped into reading the entirety of their sponsored content. Upwork not only tailored their ad to The Atlantic’s specific reader demographic, but they even wrote the content with the exact same style and voice Atlantic writers use. I do not know if they hired The Atlantic staff to write, but it was impressive.
Whether an ad pulls at your heartstrings, taps into your funny bone, or simply caught your attention, you probably weren’t the only one. These successful ads can provide insight into our own practices, maybe someday your ad will make someone’s favorite list.