Uninspired, lazy advertising

This Holiday season we've noticed a lot of ads which are using the animation, look and feel of the old children's Christmas specials, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.



The ones which we see the most are the Alltel ads. Same characters as their other campaigns, but looking like Herbie the Dentist and Santa Claus. Let me state this clearly...this is lame. This is simply putting an existing ad into another skin. That skin happens to look familiar to anyone who watched the shows during their childhood. It is laziness on the part of the creatives, and shows that they are uninspired.





The other one we particularly remember this year is the Apple ad. Same thing, we have the "I'm an Apple...I'm a Mac" thing going, but animated. We expected better from Apple...



Defenders of this might say that by using this animation treatment they are tapping into a specific demographic, say mine, who remembers Rudolph and the other shows. This is not unlike the Burger King ads which play nostalgic, classic rock & roll songs while showcasing their Whopper. Again, this is lazy advertising. Using a song or a classic Christmas tale to inspire emotion is missing the point of emotional advertising. You want the emotion to be between the product/brand and the consumer...not the consumer and the theme of the ad. The emotion of a Nike ad makes me want to compete, work out and play sports - things I need sneakers and apparel to do. I can tell you, I'm not inspired to switch to Alltel.