By my quick and unofficial count last night, three in five television ads can be considered "bad", one "good" and one "indifferent". Why this is the case I have never understood. I trust that corporations, which have the majority of ads shown, genuinely are trying to make good advertisements. So why is it so difficult to create effective or interesting advertisements?
The particular ad which sparked my interest was this effort from Tim Hortons, announcing their new "Caramel" theme. (Sorry for the poor quality of the video, and ad).
The particular ad which sparked my interest was this effort from Tim Hortons, announcing their new "Caramel" theme. (Sorry for the poor quality of the video, and ad).
The most egregious part of this ad is that I know that the one actor is a brilliant professional. Her name is Jenny Young and I saw her give a wonderful performance in "The Women" at the Shaw Festival this summer. This refuted my initial reaction that the actor yelling "so much caramel" just didn't have the chops to handle such depth. So if the acting in TV ads isn't (always) to blame, what is? I can't say that Tim Hortons just doesn't care or try with their TV ads because here is an example of a fantastic and effective ad from them. (Note: this will make you cry).
All of the things Tim Hortons is trying to accomplish in this ad are realized. Getting back to the first ad, the only thing it seems to be trying to accomplish is the annoyance of TV viewers, which I suppose it does realize.
Tim Hortons spent $190 million on advertising in 2009. Now, only a portion of that is going to be spent on TV ads (numbers based on Tim Hortons 2009 Annual Report page 119, found here). But still, that is $190 million!(!!). Certainly Tim Hortons has one of the higher ad budgets among corporations, but you can get an idea of how much is being spent yearly on TV ads. So why aren't we seeing better efforts more consistently? I don't have the answer just yet, but hopefully in the coming weeks and months we can sort it out in this blog.
