Tide Detergent's christmas tree ad bubbles with joy - two steps away from brilliance

with English back translation

how does a detergent product say "merry christmas"? you can have dancing housewives. or dancing detergent boxes. to many that can bereal easy. but the real easy can be real boring.

tide detergent decided it will not take the easy path. and here is what we have, an unexpected and very creative way to say "merry christmas".

not only is it unexpected and very creative, it's also on strategy to the brand and contributes to it's story of efficacy. tide has moved away from it's long standing heritage of powerful suds as a core signal for efficacy in its advertising, but every woman who does hand washing continue to understand what it means and in fact for many of them expect it from their detergent product. strong and abundant suds mean effective detergency in this market.
this chirstmas ad delivers that very well.

it's an almost perfect ad except for two things --- (a) the woman is too pretty, too young and too nice to be the typical labandera (woman who washes clothes). they could have used an on-camera talent who has the looks of a more typical labandera. she looks too classy and too rich and someone who can afford to buy a washing machine. her type is the one who has not done any hand washing at all. and the (b) they could have chosen a more appropriate dialogue for the radio drama that the woman is listening to on her radio. it's a christmas ad, the radio dialogue should have been about christmas, not ordinary time situations. having it as a topic on christmas could have been more emtional and make the ad work harder.

getting an on-cam talent more like real labanderas would have improved the ad's empathy. it hits home harder when the people we see in the ads look like us.

the point of the ad is to deliver a christmas message. this ad could have done that in a much more effective way had they chosen a radio drama dialogue where the setting is christmas. doing that would have allowed them to more actively and directly deliver a christmas message. the way it is now, we sort of assume that is the point of the ad and that happens only at the very end of the ad when we see the suds have formed a christmas tree shape.

what a pity they missed out on those things. it's a great ad, but two things shy of being a brilliant ad.

Rejoice Shampoo (japan) - strategy visual that feels good

procter & gamble, the company that makes rejoice shampoo is very much well known for their use of demonstrations in their commercials. demonstrations are devices that visually demonstrate the product function, in most cases the superior product performance of their brands.

this rejoice shampoo commercial features a demonstration of the kind of hair that rejoice shampoo gives it's users - smooth hair. in some other markets, they use a comb demo where the commercial cuts to a scene where the model is back to the camera showing her long hair, they place a comb at the top of head, release the comb and the comb effortlessly slides down the hair on it's own.

this commercial in japan shows the same kind of idea, in advertising speak, it's called strategy visual to show just how smooth the girl's hair is.

disclaimer : i really don't know if this is a real commercial or maybe it's a spoof or some kind of home video. it's too racy for procter & gamble. procter & gamble a few years back has declared war on boring commercials. they are known to favor very effective ads but they almost always turn out to be boring ones to the general public and compared to other ads in the market. a few years back, p&g management released a policy asking their ad agencies to drop the drab ads and go into more daring and creative ads.

is this japanese commercial one of those daring ads? or is it just a spoof? i think it's the latter, but it's here because it's fun to watch.



if this is a real tv ad and was actually aired in japan, i would think it's a polarizing ad at minimum to it's a WAWAM!. not sure the women will find the ad amusing. the men definitely will find it amusing but the men are not the primary target market of the brand.

tide detergent's mr. palengke tv commercial - part 2

senator mar roxas in this tide detergent commercial did not mention the tide brand name even once. he also did not touch the product and and in fact his only interaction with tide was when he pointed to the price discount on the pack.

is it a tide detergent tv commercial? hell, yeah! is it a product endorsement tv ad by the nationally elected senator? hell, yeah!

there is no mistaking - mr. palengke appeared in the tide commercial and is endorsing the product. why else would you display such huge bags of tide, standing up with the tide logo clearly seen? i don't think you will ever see any store in the palengke where they display tide that way and certainly not in front of the store where it contains nothing but giant tide packs. the way tide was displayed and the shelf itself is simply not done in the palengkes.



this is not tide's brandsell advertising. in the world of p&g advertising, this is considered as a tactical value advertising. it's meant to sell tide's large packs and promote big purchases among consumers in the palengke.

what? wait a minute. mr. palengke in a palengke promoting big pack purchases? something is very wrong about that!

first of all, detergent purchase habits says most consumers buy small packs for lower cash outlay. also, the palengke is where most DE and some lower C socio-eco users go to for their daily needs, and most of them go to the palengkes very often because they do no have the money to buy in bulk, thus the consumer practice is small price but more frequent purchases.

and the above is where we move in to a new topic - this is not just a product endorsement ad, it is actually a political campaign ad.

promoting large priced purchases for bulk detergent products is simply alien to the palengke goers. it's consumers who go to supermarkets who do that, but hardly is that legitimate purchasing habit for those who shop in palengkes. very few palengke goers can afford large pack purchases, in fact it is in the palengke where you can buy literally a spoonful of anything, placed in small plastic bags. you can actually buy condiments and cooking needs in small plastic bags good for one cooking. for an advertising purist, you can argue this commercial is off strategy.

the fact that the mr. palengke, senator mar roxas commercial is situated in a palengke means only one thing - it's a political ad.

but p&g is not foolish. they will not intentionally and knowingly air an off strategy commercial. being off strategy in p&g is a mortal sin that will get you fired the next minute you say it. i am certain they have done extensive consumer research on this tv commercial - from the choice of the talent to a full blown advertising pre-airing test and i bet they found that while this commercial is meant to be tactical, it has powerful brandsell characteristics.

is it a WAWAM!? it's not entirely a WAWAM! for tide detergent. mr. palengke has excellent credentials and a huge following. it's also not a WAWAM! for senator mr. roxas. he is getting national tv exposure highly consistent with his positioning as the mr. palengke. and for free! the media money behind it is being paid for by p&g.

again, is it a WAWAM!?

yes, it's a WAWAM! for the filipino people and it's soul. we can rationalize it all we want. we can take it down to technicalities like no brand name was said, but the fact remains, like judas, several pieces of silver worth millions of pesos in talent fee was exchanged for integrity, pride, honesty and honor in a nationally elected public office.

senator mar roxas tide tv spot

here is one of those tv ads - is this a product endorsement ad or a political ad?

this is what senator mar roxas has to say on this tide tv spot:

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who once pushed the detergent brand Tide, denied doing any product endorsements: “But I didn’t endorse. I didn’t say that the public should buy a product, nor did I hold any product. And I did not say that it was better than the others. It’s a public service announcement saying that all product sellers should be true to consumers.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080528-139254/Villar-cracks-whip-on-senators-in-ads

this is next in WAWAM!