How can one firm run an ad as good as this – but another so bad it made me groan?
Do you ever look at an ad and mutter to yourself, “Wanker”?
I do. It’s a sad condition, I know. Why should any sane person give a hoot about the mental debris that constitutes so much advertising?
I can avoid TV ads – and I do. I stopped watching a good TV show the other day because the ads were so utterly crass, and took up about a quarter of the time (some advertised the station itself, which made me hate the providers even more).
But I can’t escape posters. They’re there, cluttering up the streets, eating away at my waning reserves of patience for the intellectually deprived who clutter up too many advertising agency offices .
Anyhow, all this is about a Fiat poster which has been disfiguring Bristol. I won’t reproduce it here; I just have to tell you the headline. It is “Get to the Punto”. This is the kind of sad play on words you expect from a kid in a failing primary school.
But the same day I caught sight of something in the paper – also from Fiat – which I have reproduced, because it is very good.
It doesn’t sock you over the brain cells with anything crass. It uses a cartoon (the form of illustration that attracts most attention). It doesn’t talk the usual ad-crap. It makes you smile slightly. You want to know what exactly the car is as cheap as.
That answer would have meaning only for people in this country, because the phrase – which we all use – is “as cheap as chips”.
They strain for effect with a silly line at the end of the copy, though – “Talk about a portion of delight”.
As John Caples said, “When people have read your copy, they want to know what to do. Tell them.” I have never understood why people don’t say, “Go and try the car”? It may not be clever but it is what the damned ad is there for.
Still, I remain mystified. How could one firm run an ad so good – and a poster so bad?
Drayton think about the UK though.
Most people in the UK do as there told. And think there only in some position to talk because they went to a UNI to study.
That ad in the paper is good, but what gets me is that they don’t measure bleep!
There should be some code for the closest Fiat showroom – so they can actually measure it.
If I told fiat this they would probably think that was Ludacris or genius
p.s
You viewing that ad in press display?
p.p.s
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its irritating having to come back and check
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Is Ludacris the name of the other chip?
I’m glad you’ve said this. My tragic lantern broke down in 1999 and I’ve never had one since purely because once I became a copywriter, telly could never again be something I could sit in front of and just let it wash over me. Bad copy in soaps, news reports, documentaries and ads and I just start shouting. I’m glad I missed all this narrative after the break where they remind you what you just watched four minutes ago. I know people have made a lot of money taking the rip out of bad TV, but I just stopped watching it. I’m now unemployed and post sanctimonious cobblers on here. Good call!
I laughed at your ‘failing primary school’ comment and felt ashamed. I’m not familiar with the meaning of ‘portion of delight’. Is this a Bristol saying? And what’s with the fish? Is that because they are chips? Don’t they fillet fish any more? £79 could be written bigger, couldn’t it? Seeing as it’s, you know, the whole point. And if Brian is allowed an ellipsis, how come Unspecified Mystery Chip doesn’t get a comma?