The hype before the hype

The Super Bowl advertising hype is ramping up. Not only will brands be duking it out for the best ads on the game telecast, they’re going head to head before the game even starts to get the early buzz. It’s kind of like the red carpet on steroids.

My favorite clash of the titans is between Pepsi and Coke. As always, they’re looking for an edge vs the other, and the delicious irony is that without knowing it, they’ve spent the past several months developing new campaigns that are mirror images of each other, featuring relentless optimism and unbridled happiness. It almost feels like there are sliding doors between the two agencies and the same creatives are going back and forth doing all the work.

Both sides are claiming they were first, but I’d file this one in the there-are-only-seven-original-ideas-in-the-whole-world department, especially in this year of Hope.

There are the usual differences; like last year’s Charlie Brown spot, Coke goes the way of warm and “ohh…nice…”

And like Pepsi Max’s bobbing heads spot from the past, they go the slapstick route again.

Both fun, with many more memorable ads to come. This one won’t be among them.

I know it's for PETA, but it might be a way to get a whole generation of boys to eat their vegetables...

Hey Pepsi: You forgot something

Yay, Pepsi! They’re full of happy, joy and love! Despite the economic woes, the renewed fighting in the Middle East, and the moon-crater-size potholes springing up across our fair land, Pepsi is debuting their happy-or-bust act in Times Square to bring their new marketing platform of no-holds-barred optimism to the world.

Seems right, right? Obama is coming, and it’s the perfect time to change to the good side. They just forgot one thing:

They forgot the humanity. The part where we’re human beings and we don’t like being TOLD to feel a certain way. Especially being SCREAMED at to embrace the optimistic side of life.

We far prefer to be told a story that makes us feel something. The Coke Macy’s day parade commercial immediately springs to mind.



Not humans, but endless humanity. Makes you feel good.

Yesterday, I went to see a restored 70 MM print of West Side Story at the Music Box Theatre, a slightly run down but still wonderfully gemlike anachronism of a movie palace in the times of 18-theatre megaplexes.

For all of you showtune dissers, I will acknowledge that a bunch of pirouetting, knife wielding gang members is a bit silly, especially in our times of special effects violence. But c’mon, this is West Side Story. Best Picture, 1961. A ridiculous number of smile-inducing showstoppers. How could you not beam for 5 minutes watching this:



With the new print, the sound was massive, and the colors were spectacular. But most important: the movie was huge! It’s over forty years old, so I’ve never seen it in a theatre. On the big screen, the story was so much more powerful. You couldn’t help but feel the love and frustration and grief from these trapped kids. Powerful stuff.

Everyone in the Music Box yesterday felt it.

So when you go on Pepsi’s related site and are told to be happy, you probably just move on. Because you can’t tell someone how to feel. You can tell them a story that might make them feel something. You can appeal to their human being-ness. Pepsi's new campaign is admirably eager to make us feel the happy, but in their eagerness, they forgot to tell us why.

How much Thrilliciousness can we handle?

Overheard on Madison Avenue sometime in mid to late 2007...

"Hey! What should we do for the new Sobe LifeWater TV commercial? We have time on the Super Bowl. Let's make a big splash!"

"Hmm...what if we got a supermodel who isn't all that super any more and has no dancing ability to dance with some animated lizards with blinged out teeth?"

"Cool! But we'd need a famous piece of music that would be prohibitively expensive for any other ad at any other time, but we could justify buying it for 5 or 10 million because waters are the new sodas and this is Pepsi's big bet."

"Awesome! As long as the commercial has no real strategic foundation whatsoever."

"Wouldn't have it any other way! Let's do it."

And the rest is history.



Regularly chastised, sure. Lacking a strategic backbone, absolutely.

BUT...it was a cultural phenomenon. Over 5 million viewings on Youtube, youbetcha. The most viewed Super Bowl spot of '08. Inspired a series of wonderfully goofy claymated thrilliciousness. Like this.



Times Square video billboard blizzards, plush toys, the list goes on.

I hated the spots. But while I can present a pretty decent argument about Ms. Campbell's lack of talent on the dance floor, I can't argue with the spot's infectiousness.

So what do you do for an encore?

Early reports have NFL players Justin Tuck, Matt Light, and Ray Lewis taking Naomi Campbell's place as the lizards' new dance partners for this year's super bowl. I'm sure it'll be even less strategic and even more expensive. What moves will those krazy lizards pull off this year?

I lay awake just thinking about what funny gag they'll do with their teeth!

$1 billion for a plumber's smile?

The new Pepsi logo is popping up everywhere on Ad blogs. The corporate Mega Giant took five months to develop it and will spend a billion dollars to update their 21 year old wavy thing.



That means repainting trucks, rewrapping vending machines, replacing stadium signage and sending out new point-of-sale materials…and that’s just the beginning; picture anything with a logo. Letterhead, briefcases, those slick polo shirts and all of their wonderful corporate clothing, even the napkins in the cafeteria. All will need to change. I still see trucks with logos from the late ‘90’s on one of the brands I used to work on. The is a massive undertaking.

According to Pepsi leadership, each brand has it’s own version:

Pepsi’s logo is a smile, Diet Pepsi looks like a grin, and Pepsi Max will be a full laugh. Hmm. It’s so…what’s the best way to say this…well intentioned, yet horribly unclear, and more confusing than memorable.

It’s a great example of a marketer telling us what they want us to know, not what we might be interested in.

In general, I think change is good, but this is very expensive, very corporate change. If Pepsi thinks people are going to remember the smile distinctions between the different products, they’ve been to one too many logo design presentations.

Some have described the new logo as asscrack. I wouldn’t go that far, but Coke has been kicking ass in the marketing world. And I think Pepsi blinked.