Advertising Design Class Project

[fishheatcats]

Okay folks the professor of my advertising design class has all 7 of us in the class doing a bit of an experiment this week. What we have to do is take a product, and create an ad that is a no nonsense, truthful ad, and then compare it to an actual ad and see which style people think works better. The idea is to see if people prefer straight forward ads(for instance, Avis - "We're #2, but we try harder!") or those that play up the good aspects of the product. I don't necessarily need any critiquing of the ad itself, just which is more likely to get you to go buy the product, which in this case is Sam Adams. I'm looking get get 20-30 responses by next class on Saturday, and I think I can come up with that here alone. Thanks in advance and vote away!

AD #1

AD #2

[gordie_delini]

From the brief of the assignment, I think #2 is a winner. It's simpler, more to the point, and is funny. Ad #1 would be lost in a sea of similar ads. The white space, typography, and imagery in #2 grab attention, and the humor of the ad does three things to make it a good ad: it creates an emotional response (laughter or humor), stands out as unusual (since it's to the point) and would start a conversation.

[fiasco!]

Personally, I think #2 is stupid, but in regards to the assignment, I guess that's your winner.

[Shumway]

Only amateurs get drunk of light beer

And, I'm sort of in the same boat as Joel here(I call dibs on steering). It seems to fit the 'head on' approach that you speak of. The main issues I have with it are that it's a blatant ripoff of Chappelle's Show, and it doesn't fit at all with Sam Adams' traditional marketing. I do, however, like that you included all of the varieties in the first, as it seems to be what they focus on in their advertising.

[Davidson]

what an utterly facetious idea for a project.

your ad is no more or less true than the advert you have chose to compare it to.

sam adams will not necessarily make you vomit in the same way it may not act as

a perfect accompaniment to any meal.

i dont reckon some sort of elaborate double bluff, self deprecation of a product is

in any sense 'no nonsense'. but this is really by the by.

i reckon the fact that you will never see an advert like this promoting a product like

sam adams should give you enough data to make the leap in logic that the first works better.

shock horror! companies tend to advertise their products based upon the 'merits' of their products!

and blow me if people dont respond to that better!

whats next on this guys course? "when printing posters what makes a more effective medium?

paper or cat vomit? discuss."

good luck with your project and i know this isnt your brief but this is :censored:ing ridiculous

and will teach you nothing whatsoever about advertising, only that those who cant, teach.

[slapshot]

Visually, it works.

And that's about it.

From a copy point of view, it's about against common sense as one can be. If you were going for the humorous angle, you tried way too hard.

You want no nonsense truthiness? How about...

"Sam Adams. It's beer."

Very direct. Doesn't make any other claims, and is 100% correct.

[Jigga]

Visually, it works.

And that's about it.

From a copy point of view, it's about against common sense as one can be. If you were going for the humorous angle, you tried way too hard.

You want no nonsense truthiness? How about...

"Sam Adams. It's beer."

Very direct. Doesn't make any other claims, and is 100% correct.

I like it, Slappy.

And if your class is going to take lines from the Chappelle Show Samuel Jackson Beer sketch, y'all should have taken, "You'll be :censored:ing fat bitches in no time!"

[fishheatcats]

Thanks for the comments guys. As far as the ad itself goes, I used Sam Adams Light cause it was the only decent picture of a Sam Adams bottle of any kind I could find. I know it's from Chappelle's Show, I just thought it was too funny not to use, and this is just more for the comparison of the message. Not everyone is doing Sam Adams btw, you could pick whatever you wanted, I just was thinking of something that needs very little effort to sell and would work well with the direct approach, so I came up with beer. That commercial for the new Samuel L. Jackson movie happened to be on and that's how I arrived at this. I also wanted to do something that went away from what they currently do, not only in terms of the message but the image of the brand. The little line at the bottom is a play off the Boston Tea Party.

[oddball]

I like the tag line. "It's beer." It's straight forward and to the point and actually says that all other beer, is well not beer but crap. Good job Slapshot. You shoot and you SCORE!!! 1-0 for slappy's team!

[CreamSoda]

number 2 would never ever run in any sort of campaign.

[winters in buffalo]

#1 speaks to me. I like variety, I like flavor, I like a good beer with a good meal.

#2 is just silly. First, I don't drink light beer. Nor do I drink just to get drunk. People who do drink just to get drunk are probably looking for cheap, 'fun' beer, and Sam isn't cheap or 'fun'.

So, #1 is effective to me, and I'm the type of person who buys it. #2 isn't effective to me (a Sam buyer) and I would guess that it's not going to be effective to people who are the drink to get drunk type, either.

Know your audience.

[fishheatcats]

I like the tag line. "It's beer." It's straight forward and to the point and actually says that all other beer, is well not beer but crap. Good job Slapshot. You shoot and you SCORE!!! 1-0 for slappy's team!

Actually I just remembered that Red Stripe uses something similar to that line: "Red Stripe, It's Beer! Hooray Beer!" so I don't know if that would have worked any better.

[AndrewPF]

I like how #1 highlights the pairing beer with food aspect, and I like how it shows all the different varieties of Samuel Adams that are brewed. I like how #2 is the kind of ad that would have people talking, although something like "It's beer" would work just as well, or better for a "straight forward" effect.

[SDX]

I like the 2nd one with its message though not the look. The concept kind of reminds me of a post on Copyranter about Budweiser (http://copyranter.blogspot.com/search?q=budweiser and how they advertise differently between UK and USA.

2nd is a nice representation of products which would be good when promoting to a retailer though not the consumer.

[LMU]

#2 would only be found stapled to bulletin boards in college dorms. #1 would be the more appropriate choice for a mass marketing campaign. Plus, I'm with WiB. I don't drink just to get drunk, and I like variety.