Nailing the message: inspiration from two very different commercials
Category: Andrew's thoughts August 24th, 2010With all the many tools communicators have at their disposal now to share a message with the audience, I still find that a perfectly-executed video spot (commercial) carries the maximum potential to move people. The combination of video, words, sound… when done perfectly can communicate everything about a brand.
Sometimes these communication elements in a commercial are combined with creativity in a way that just nails it. These two commercials I saw this week certainly did, in very different ways:
1) Geico Piggy
The pinwheels!
This short commercial already has nearly 2.5 million YouTube views, which brings up another point: a perfect commercial that nails it can employ all the other communication tools in the digital marketing world… a perfect commercial can take off through social and traditional marketing.
2) ornge medical transport… Propelling Life
Goosebumps… besides peeing your pants like in the first video, goosebumps are the most amazing reaction you can get when a message is nailed.
This commercial is brilliant because it transforms the high drama of a helicopter medical rescue into something peaceful… the commercial just sort of floats. The powerful wind of the helicopter propellers is conveyed as a gentle life-giving breeze that effortlessly blows away the sadness of trauma. The noise of the helicopter and the flurry of human activity in a rescue are stripped away.
And then the tagline captures the build-up of changing the propellers from things of power to things of angelic beauty.
Propelling Life





