Top Of Mind

Sooner or later you are bound to find all four in the same place. Using sex to sell stuff from softdrinks to home entertainment systems is as old as advertising, so why not use it to sell cameras. Sex, digital cameras .. now somehow that seems to have a very natural fit. Cameras and sex.. a match made in ad heaven.

Here are two executions from the great minds of advertising. One is from Olympus Camera, and the other for Canon. Both use sex to somehow sell their brands. Call me old fashioned, but I feel that advertising has to have at least some form of message - how the brand is different, or better or even a obnoxious “Buy Now” call to action would do.

Just like the women in the old Wendy’s ads says; Where is the message??

The Canon TVC seems to say that with a Canon Digital Camera, you can make your ugly wife look better or even sexier. And is the way the dorky guy reacts supposed to be funny? Yes, there is a line at the end of the TVC that says that “With Cannon, You Can”. Aside from the cheesy line and bad acting, nothing comes out about Canon. If anything, it did more damage to the brand than anything.
A bit of advice for Canon, you need a new storyboard, new production house and new actors. Oh, yes, while you are at it, a new advertising agency would also help. Either that or probably too many Marketing MBAs stirring the pot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXYN6eWiUUI

Olympus TVC. Firstly, even with the grainy video from You Tube, the production values come through, and it does look great in black and white. While the branding is somewhat subtle at the end it does seem to say that Olympus is cool, trendy and sexy. But it all ends there; other than the coolness message, nothing else seems to come through about the brand Olympus. As far as getting the viewer attention, the TVC worked, but now that the viewer is somewhat paying attention, why not say something interesting about your brand? Better yet, say something that will get him interested in the product. Unless of course they want to say that the whole artsy thing was actually shot by an Olympus (riiiiight) and so can you if you use an Olympus. The thing is that they doesn’t even bother to say that. A wasted opportunity.

Did Olympus actually pay several hundred thousand dollars or a couple of billion won for this TVC? Guess they must have, what with a celebrity like Jeon Ji Hyun in it. Come on guys, image helps, but not if the message is missing about your brand.

I don’t know if those two ads worked, but both Canon and Olympus should ask for a refund from their respective agencies or fire whomever approved storyboards. And by the way, by now you should know that sex will most likely get you the attention you want for your brand, but you also got to have a worthwhile message.

Thanks to www.sillycorner.com where I first came across the TVCs.

EDIT : Upon further investigation, looks lilke there are 2 versions of the TVC. Here is the properly branded version. Can’t embed, so click here.