Vuitton – Classy oldies (part 2)

Last week I told you about Gorge Clooney and his classy coffee. For now, I would like to introduce you to... the classy Sean Connery by Vuitton !

In this 2008 campaign (released in october 2008, at the same time as the Quantum of Solace movie, what a James Bond coincidence !), we can see Sean Connery relaxed and confident, having a good time on what seems to be a desert island.

This reminds us of the “classy travelling senior”, who likes discovering new landscapes etc... It's all the same as for George, with an exotic side.

On this second photo, he just looks like an older George Clooney, don't you think ?

Louis Vuitton... What else ?

Nespresso – Classy oldies (part 1)

Well, George Clooney is not as old to be inserted in such an “old-people-in-advertising” blog. Isn't he 51 ? Yes he is, so that he is part of my “target” ! Remember: “white-haired and wrinkled people, between 50 and 80-year-old that we all know well”.

He his quite white-haired, maybe if your eyes are close to your screen you can see some MICROSCOPIC wrinkles, he is between 50 and 80, and... we all know him well.

Let's be brief, he represents the classy part of the seniors. A free man, educated, attractive, independent and financially stable. Doing whatever he wants, wherever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants.

What could make us more likely to looking forward to being a senior ? Nespresso uses senior-seduction and added value to make us match them with the coffee value.

I promise, next week I will talk about a real senior, as classy as George. Wait and see !

Lay's – Our lovely grandparents

“Naturally irresistible”, aren't they ? This TV commercial shows the grandparents we love.

They are struggling with each other for crisps, and when the man seems to have won, his wife shows him this is not the end as she holds his dentures in the hand. Her mischievous smile highlights the love between them, showing us they have lived together for a long time and they know each other by heart.

Their grandson comes back and takes the crisps without seeing the scene (or without taking the time to understand the scene). He just kisses his grandfather and then leaves. Without crisps, they are lost, they seem not to realize what is happening.

So, okay, the message is: our crisps are so “naturally irresistible” that everybody wants to eat them, even your grandparents.

But I think that what makes the ad effective is the image given of the relationship between us and our grandparents. Sometimes they don't understand nothing to what we are living, and sometimes we don't understand them well. But we love them as they are. And that's the most important.

What a comical advert with a touching couple, don't you think so ?

ELEVENPARIS – Rebels of yesterday will be rebels of tomorrow

Iggy Pop is one of the most famous figures of the 1960's rebels. His band, The Stooges, became a pioneer of the Punk movement (he is named “The Godfather of Punk”).

Today, he is still a singer, but we also know him for many adverts. Indeed, he has become a quite commercial figure. But here, we are not judging the star, we are looking at the image Iggy Pop gives us of the elderly in this particular ad for ElevenParis.

On this photo, the most important thing to see is the mimicry between Iggy Pop and Daisy Lowe, aged 23. Although he is a man, she is a girl, he is old, she is young, he has blond hair, she has brown hair... they look alike. They are doing the same thing (sticking out their tongue, right =P), looking at us with the same eyes, the same face.

Each one influences the other, Iggy Pop looks younger as he is presented as a “friend” of Daisy Lowe, and she is now a “credible” rebel.

This photo emphasizes the sharing relation between our seniors and us.

Do you think this ad is efficient ? What does it remind you of ?

Shock & Soul – Old dying people ?

Shock & Soul is a London vintage clothing store. Its press campaign is based on provocation:

 

“Silk dress coming soon”

That is to say “as soon as she'll die”. The innuendo is well understandable, but is this morbid joke bad or good to the brand ?

The Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint that the ad was offensive so that we can deduce lots of press readers reacted to this. But wasn't it the aim of the campaign ?

Having impact on consumers by being dividing ?

Let's debate !

Adopteunmec.com – The senior teen spirit

In its latest TV campaign, the french dating website adopteunmec.com uses the mediagenic figure of Lucienne, a 79-year-old grandma.

The website is quite unconventional since it represents a kind of “men supermarket”, with the massive consumption codes (shopping cart, delivery, promotions, novelties, “open store”, etc.). With this campaign, they assume their image by using an unconventional protagonist.

Playing the role of the “man consumer” in the ads, Lucienne is well-known in the french media. She has already been seen in humoristic programmes, like Groland or Le Petit Journal on Canal + with “The Lucienne Live Report”, a satire about the parisian jet-set.

Lucienne always uses the generation Y vocabulary in the media. In this video, she says to the tattoed man “I love death metal, it's slammin' ! Don't you think so ?

This campaign show us the “senior generation Y” : active people, who understand well today's world. It tells us olders are modern, they are not locked in in the 20^th century ! as they can use our vocabulary to make fun of us.

Here, the humour does not come from Lucienne, in fact, it comes from the vocabulary, our vocabulary !

What do you think about that ?

(The four videos on this site)

Antenna 1 – Using the stereotypes

As a beginning, I would like to introduce to you a quite famous ad. This “Anti-boredom campaign” for a Romanian TV channel has been shared a lot and seen more than 333.000 times on YouTube since 2005. It is really funny, and to my mind, this is the kind of commercial which embodies the term “advertaining”.

They used the stereotype of an aging couple boring life: in their old car, the husband is driving while his wife seems to be tired of this routine. They are not smiling. Just oldies like others.

But the aim of this campaign is to break the stereotypes. The first thing that can surprise us is the fact that the woman takes a second wheel and begins to “drive”, next to her husband. At this point, she becomes a child playing, what makes her much more younger to us.

Then we see the couple passing another car, and as the woman is still “driving”, she turns the wheel sharply so that the man in the other car believes that they are going to have an accident and tries to avoid them.

The couple laugh out loud in their car, they seem to be proud of their joke. Here we can see on their faces that they are happy in their life, which is not boring at all.

This antithesis between the starting situation and the final one makes the ad funny by the play on stereotypes. The commercial is efficient since we all want to become funny oldies in the future, and the channel uses the emotional transfer between the couple and its programmes.

Have a look !