retired_therob

No it wasn't. You were insinuating that these sorts of things don't necessarily provoke sales, and are unsuccessful, surely?

retired_shellmac13

Client: "Yes, they hate it. What's more our sales haven't gone up one bit".

I guess this is where mine and Retro's idea of an unmitigated success differs.

retired_therob

Ventil

Elephant.co.uk is a prime example of how crap adverts can be very successful.
Most advertisers just want you to remember their brand and as long as the method achieves the end then what the method is immaterial (although does reflect on the brand, but when you're talking about car insurance, the brand is unimportant).

retired_princesspouty

Ok - I'll reword. Advertisers are so good at spin, they can make something that's not successful sound like it is.

In this campaign - everyone is talking about it sure - but is there really a strong association made with Cadbury's? People can talk about the advert all day - but if no-one's talking about Cadbury's but are talking about the "Gorilla Playing Drums" then how's that successful?

There's nothing to link the advert to Cadbury's so I don't see how it's necessarily successful.

retired_princesspouty

No it wasn't. You were insinuating that these sorts of things don't necessarily provoke sales, and are unsuccessful, surely? </BLOCKQUOTE>
I was winding Docker up... but by all means take everything I say literally if it suits you better.

retired_princesspouty

This is successful because they say Elephant.co.uk about 30 times in the advert.

I'm not saying an advert needs to be high quality to have an impact. I'm saying the Gorilla Playing Drums isn't necessarily successful if people talk about it - because you could have a million people think it's great/terrible - but if only 1,000 of them actually make a strong association with the product (enough to encourage them to choose Cadbury's over another confectioners) then it's pointless.

retired_therob

No it wasn't. You were insinuating that these sorts of things don't necessarily provoke sales, and are unsuccessful, surely? </BLOCKQUOTE>
I was winding Docker up... but by all means take everything I say literally if it suits you better. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Given that I'm not psychic, I guess I'll have to

retired_princesspouty

You're able to understand context though yeah?

I said directly under that sentence "glad to see you didn't bite though". But, your need to be a smartarse at every given opportunity overode what was there.

Incidentally, I am being light-hearted in that response - just so that you don't need to exercise your psychic skills.

retired_shellmac13

Woah, the 'it was only a wind up' line. It's been a while seen I've seen that old chesnut, good work.

Anyway, I don't think advertisers are in the business of swanning around trying to convince people that a rubbish advert has been a success, when the definition of success is so clearly dictated by sales figures. And people do talk about Cadbury's as a result of the Gorilla. Reckon conversations are acted out thustly: Gorilla wtf -&gt; What's it for -&gt; Cadburys -&gt; Hm how odd.

Anyway, the idea that creating a strong association is the only viable way of advertising is quite outdated, imo.