A blog for the New Zealand creative advertising industry, now at www.campaignbrief.com/nz. Email news to: michael@campaignbrief.com

Sunday, April 09, 2006

The payoff is dead. Long live the payoff.



Is it just me or have adverting payoff's/taglines become just sad
epitaphs to an era of advertising gone by? An age of simplity, where
the commercial led you singularly entranced to the memorably crafted
payoff - at which point the whole thing made sense with a giant
cash-register-murdering 'Ka-ching!' As an example,take the two latest
ads for Toyota, for the Yaris and new Rav-4. Yes nice ads. Yes lovable
ads even. Everyone remembers them, but can anyone remember what they
said at the end, or what they were trying to say? The Yaris ad
presents us with a lovely visual story about deft handling, and hits
us with a payoff about 'being really clever'. Then the Rav-4 shows us
two people who obviously want the Rav-4 all to themselves, but then
were hit with a 'you just want to get into it' or something in that
vein? What gives? Where the writers? Where's the 'Ka-ching!' Or have
payoff's these days just become feeble attempts to marry a good idea
to the brief that said something a little different? Sorry to pick the
Toyota example, but that's two in a row from a big-spending client out
of Saatchis from whom we should expect more attention to detail. Of
course there are loads of other examples. Pity about the 'Ka-ching!'
Isn't it still so very nice when it all does come together though?
Shame. Discuss.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the thrust of what you're saying but the examples you chose are actually good ads.

I remember the endlines and they're not my ads.

Yaris. It's really quite clever. Nice bit of understatement. Granted it's not going to set the world on fire as an endline, but I've definitely seen worse.

RAV4. A car to make your own. I think that's a great example of an endline. And it's fucking campaignable too - I'm a big fan of the mag ads (I prefer them to the TV ad, in fact.)

I think you put way too much emphasis on endlines. All they should do is sum up the idea. Very rarely do they ever do more. Even on great ads.

10:26 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good point but you can't spell or write, hope YOU are not a writer.

9:28 am NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I HATE the endline for the RAV4. It sounds very clunky to me and it also has the word 'car' in it which is so not needed. Still, the worst endline I've ever seen is for lotto, 'never miss a week, never miss a draw'. Not a stitch on the 'anything's possible' line - which in itself is just a re-wording of the Saatchis global line. 'Anything's possible' - 'nothing's impossible' which in itself is basically Adidas's line 'Impossible is nothing'....I could keep on going...

9:41 am NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If it ain't as good as Just Do It, just don't.

11:35 am NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Go Harvey Norman, Go.

2:08 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Briscoes you'll never buy better

5:00 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Eh is for Auckland.

5:35 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am Dunedin.

6:12 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

LJ Hooker, you're the one.

6:14 pm NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the best one is twl-acompany called twl

8:56 am NZST

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No - the best is Delex Couriers. "Don't waste your time, waste ours."

3:57 pm NZST

 

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