For my blog entry this week, I thought of writing about local ads, television ads to be more specific. I thought that I would ask my colleagues at the office to tell me their favourite local television ad, which could be recent or a classic. From that survey, my intention was to select the ad getting the most mentions and dissect it to see why this hit the sweet spot. Honestly, I was expecting to see the endearing TATIL “Where People are People” ad to be at the top spot. Well, to my surprise, it did not appear in the results of my unscientific dipstick survey. In fact, the answers were quite varied, spanning 2015 to the 1970’s. There was one leader though, the bmobile “No Words” commercial.
As I looked at the “winner” I tried to analyse why this topped the others. Where I thought originally the “best” local ad would be “rootsy” or very close to the essence of our intrinsic Trinidad and Tobago selves, this bmobile offering was nothing of the sort. As the title suggests, there is no dialogue so there isn’t local parlance to entice the ear. Hmmm. So what is it that makes this connect with those surveyed?
The ad shows various everyday, interactions between people that bring a smile to individuals, scenarios that we can all relate to. Each scene was framed and shot as one would a feature film, satisfying the sophisticated taste that we have developed over the last decade or so. The score by Andrew McIntosh is a feel good sort of tune and the folk appearing in the ad are people that we can identify with; they are “us.” The message at the end is, “90% of human communication is non verbal. We will help you with the other 10%,” suggesting that this provider completes the basic human need to communicate.
So overall, I believe that what makes this ad endearing to my colleagues is that it has universal appeal, it is quite local and it is at an international standard.
Honourable mention
Here are the other ads that my co-workers favoured:
- Current ad for Sunshine Granola
- KFC Special Tuesday offer
- All the Lucozade Man ads
- FCB Christmas 2013
- Current Smalta ad
- Chubby (with the little animated man and repetitive Jingle)
- Digicel campaign featuring local theatre Icon Raymond Choo Kong and his troupe
- Crix ‘Vital Supplies’ ad from the 1970’s
