Welcome back to the Cadbury's Dairy Milk campaign. A campaign crushing under the weight of more expectation than Barack Obama.Yet despite some glowing reviews elsewhere I struggle to like the new ad. The idea of setting the Dairy Milk moment as that moment of glee when kids are left on their own to cause mischief is nice; and far better than Trucks. The use of humans is much better than inanimate objects (unless you Pixar them).
But as my colleague Steve mentioned today: The ad sets its stall out to be entertainment, so we judge it differently. And in this campaign the benchmark is very very high.
The problem seems to be that the tone of the humour doesn't quite fit with the idea. It's trying to be Vic and Bob with serious faces and silly movements, but it just feels too forced and lacks the emotional quality that made Gorilla great. Besides, the joy of Gorilla was that you felt the joy of the moment even if you didnt understand the message; but here that joy just doesn't hit.
That said, the balloon is great and the music is spot on. A disappointment, but not a catastrophic one. This is better than Trucks, better than average, but just nowhere near Gorilla. Which, unfortunately for Fallon, all these ads will be compared to.
Best analogy I came to so far is Manchester City. They wake up expecting Kaka, and ended up with Craig Bellamy. Not a bad signing, but not what they were hoping for.
4 comments:
After all the sycophantic nonsense I've read about this ad, finally someone with a view.
Thanks! How things going down at HBM?
My head of Planning:
"That's a nice piece. Of film."
Spot on, Rob.
I completely agree with you Rob. You've identified exactly why Gorilla worked and this eyebrow spot doesn't. Well, it could have been worse: the fact that we're reviewing it and actually talk about it do count for something...I think. Happy new year by the way (Chinese and 'regular')! /F
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