Adtasm.com | Ads in Media

The Mail on Sunday, a UK based publication, has released a brilliant new ad with great viral potential depicting an imagined war between the sexes. It’s brilliant on a variety of levels.

Synopsis: The two sexes (male and female for the imagination challenged) line up against each other on a grassy battleground, clearly emulating the Braveheart war scene motif.  The men strike first, kicking soccer balls which bounce and splash mud on the screaming women. The women retaliate with a barrage of heavy hand bags. And so on. Eventually things settle down to reveal everyone reading magazines from their respective publishers, which happens to be Mail on Sunday.

Grade: B-  While I enjoy the viral nature of this video, the problem is that although its humorous and certainly something for the executives to brag about, doesn’t necessarily have the relevant messaging that particularly stood out. The finale was a bit anticlimactic and lacked the oomph of the initial few moments of pure hilarity.

It took me a while to understand that this video was even about some kind of publication. Then again, when is it easy to ever have relevant messaging for what looks like a generalized media site?

I wrote about this particular Internet phenomenon before, but I decided to highlight one successful campaign that used the power of the Internet to generate some viral buzz. This video was an illustration in the possibilities of viral marketing and one of the factors that put Youtube.com on the map in 2006.

Dove, in 2005, started a campaign that highlighted “real” woman, as opposed to the overly anorexic wisps of air that we see normally in commercials, print ads, and the like. Seth Stevenson, in a Slate.com article critiquing the campaign, noted overall the short term prognosis was excellent, but that on the whole that:

Sadly, this is not a winning play for the long haul. If Dove keeps running ads like this, women will get bored with the feel-good, politically correct message. Eventually (though perhaps only subconsciously), they’ll come to think of Dove as the brand for fat girls. Talk about “real beauty” all you want—once you’re the brand for fat girls, you’re toast.

A bit of a change in direction was expected to keep the message fresh, but the overall message was clear: beauty is often manufactured. Along those lines, a viral video was created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, which had massive exposure in all avenues and media.

Synopsis: A plain woman steps into a studio for a photo shoot. The timing is increased, ever so frantically, showing the process in which the woman is made to look better for the billboard her photo will be placed on, from the make-up artists, to the photoshopping of the woman’s features.

Bonus: Here is a parody video, amongst many on Youtube.com, that kept the original video exposed and talked about for many months after.