Mow The Lawn ... Now In Print Form

I’m guessing that over the last week you’ve seen the musical “lawn mowing” video by Wilkinson Sword. The minute long musical, along with the micro site has made its way around the Internet more for its unique musical topic than the product it’s selling.

As an American advertising professional, I’m always impressed by this type of advertising; advertising that pushes the boundaries on taboo subjects. I wondered to myself if something like this would fly in the states.

Then this weekend while flipping through my guilty pleasure, US Weekly, I found this print ad for the Schick Quattro Trim Style. I’m not sure of the association between Schick and Wilkinson Sword but there must be some as they are both selling a product called the “Quattro”.

The ad does a great job of drawing from the video. It uses the same shapes seen the video and the same statue. The message is simple and easy to take away. The ad placement couldn’t be any better. Aside from me, US Weekly, has a predominantly female following and is the perfect age range for this type of product.

The print ad seemed like a smash until I thought about the American consumer who is reading this magazine. Have they seen the accompanying video to this print ad? I know it was popular last week in the advertising world, but did it make its way into the general American public?

I tried to look at it from the perspective of someone who hadn’t seen the video or micro site. It’s still interesting. It still grabs my attention, but the song doesn’t start playing in my head. I think the lack of tie in to the video takes away from the consumer’s experience. It makes the print ad and the product less memorable.

I don’t know if Schick has any plans of releasing the video in the US. I just hope, they don’t come up with some contrived version that takes all the fun and humor out.

What do you think about the video/site and the print ad? Does the print ad lose effectiveness without seeing the video?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

At The Beach … And Screaming

At The Beach is a tanning salon with locations in Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. I’ve never been to one of their salons, as I do not tan, so I can’t comment on the quality of their tanning products. But because I live in Colorado, I have been exposed to their unique brand of TV advertising.



The strategy seems simple enough. They have tanning beds, something called the mystic tan and you won’t have to wait. As far as that goes, everything is fine.

Then there is the issue of the character/voice over. Is the point of this to annoy you into paying attention? It’s brutal to your ears. It may make you pay attention to the commercial the first time. After that, you want to stab a Q-tip in your ear. I literally change the channel when this commercial comes on. That’s saying a lot for me. I purposely watch commercials because that’s what I do.

Not to mention the character is strikingly similar to Donna Versace.

Has anybody else seen this commercial? Is the point to annoy you into paying attention? Is that an effective mode of communication, or is it damaging to the brand?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

Mother Nature Is A Busy Bee

Mother Nature has found steady work in these unsure times. She’s appeared in multiple forms of the newest Tampax campaign as well as most recently appearing in the new Vitamin Water 10 commercial. Both are fine ads. They have a simple message that is easy to understand and conveyed in a memorable way. The thing I’m interested in is the difference in use of Mother Nature.
In the Vitamin Water 10 commercial, Mother Nature is the CEO of the fictitious “Water Incorporate”. She’s rallying her troops, both Human and Animal, to fight back against the new Vitamin Water 10. She’s a strong personality that will fight to defend what she has created.



In the Tampax commercial, Mother Nature plays the villain. She is bestowing the unlucky woman with her “monthly gift” at a very inopportune time. She’s distraught to find out that the young woman has protection, and won’t be bothered by her “gift”.



I find it very interesting how the fictional character of Mother Nature can be used so differently and at the same time do a good job of getting the message across to the consumer.

What do you think about these commercials? Have two figures been used so differently by two separate companies before?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

Craftsman’s Attempt At The Everyman

I found this print ad in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated and thought it did a great job of targeting the everyday man. Most of the yard maintenance advertisements you see coming out now show people smiling and excited to get out into the spring weather and breathe life back into their yards. That may be a certain percentage of the population. The other percentage sees the lawn as a drain. The lawn is a tiring obstacle standing between you and the rest of your weekend. This ad does a great job of speaking to that percentage.

The ad’s headline is succinct and straight to the point. “Cuts grass and time”, lets you know everything you need to know about the lawn mower. It will do a good job cutting the grass and it will help you do it faster. The body copy goes on to explain exactly how this mower helps you cut your mowing time. It does a fine job, but I don’t even need it. The headline does it all for me.

The second impressive thing about this ad is the placement. As I said, I found it in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. That is the perfect target audience. Men who most likely are taking care of their lawn, but most likely aren’t weekend lawn warriors. They are more concerned with getting the lawn done and catching the rest of the baseball game or getting to their kid’s soccer game. Better Homes and Gardens, for instance, would be a bad placement for this ad. People reading Better Homes and Gardens generally take more pride in their lawns and might be put off by a lawn mower that helps you rush through the job.

What do you think about this layout? Does it do a good job of conveying their message?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

Gatorade's Quick Strike

Tiger Woods put a stamp on his comeback recently with a Tiger like come from behind victory. Gatorade wasted no time capitalizing on this latest fist pumping moment. They did exactly what they should have done. They grabbed the ultimate snapshot of the round, the ubiquitous fist pump, placed a simple, attention grabbing line of copy, and boom, they have an attention grabbing print ad.

As an account guy, I like to see companies and agencies being light on their feet and grabbing a moment in time that could have easily slipped by. Tiger has done this dozens of times. Sinking an important put, throwing out the fist pump and giving Stevie a hug is nothing new to Tiger. Except this time, it comes on the heels of a reconstructed knee and two weeks before one of the most anticipated Masters tournaments in recent history.

I tip my hat to Gatorade and their agency for being quick and resourceful.

What do you think about this ad? Does it do a Gatorade justice?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

The Wonderful World Of Photoshop

Photoshop and its image altering brethren have opened up a brave new world to advertising and the rest of the media arts. It has allowed artists to create scenarios that were unthinkable before. And for this, image-altering programs have been a boon for the media arts.

At the same time, these programs have been used to make people in magazines “perfect”. They have raised the bar on what is considered “beauty”. Raised it to an unattainable level. Image altering has grown so out of control in magazines that they just remove human anatomy. This month’s issue of Self has the below image.



Did you find the altering mistake? Check out the zoom in if you missed it.



Yes. The girl in the red bikini has no belly button. Some artist went so altering crazy they just decided to remove the belly button. No big deal right. For a magazine that has a slogan of “you at your best”, they should really pay more attention to things like this if they insist on using altered images.

What do you think about image altering of people? Do magazines go too far?

-The Ultimate Account Guy

Hyundai Genesis Online Event

Yesterday I watched the Hyundai Genesis online event for the launch of their new Genesis Coupe. This event was no different from other launch events. They spoke about the new vehicle, compared it to competitive vehicles and explained all the techie goodies that are in the car. The thing they did that I liked was making the event open to the public online.

Most of these events are held for the media only. This gives Hyundai a chance to reach out to the general public. With more and more people doing research about vehicles online, this is a great way to grab a captive audience for an hour and talk to them about why Hyundai is the right choice.

The Q and A session at the end gave the whole event a round table feel. The three representatives from Hyundai took questions from both the audience in the room and online viewers. It made it feel less like an infomercial and more like a discussion with the public.

All in all, I think they did a great job of taking an event that has been done for years, putting it online and opening it up to a whole new audience. At the same time, this added very little cost to the event, but gained more potential customers.

Check out the recording here

What do you think about online events like this? Why don’t more companies do this type of thing for launches?

-The Ultimate Account Guy