This ad, for Microsoft’s Bing search engine, begins popping up on our screens tonight.
In theory, it ticks all the boxes:
- Has something distinctly British (the London Underground) to appeal to a British audience.
- Features people the audience can relate to.
- Features a small, cute child in a school uniform to appeal to mothers.
- Everyone is implausibly attractive.
- It features some zany humour to get people talking about it.
However, it’s not a good ad for two reasons:
- You have to be either blind or stupid to get lost on the Tube. And you certainly don’t ask strangers for directions.
- The product itself is relegated to seven seconds at the end of the ad, which doesn’t even show it being used properly. The first twenty-four seconds is junk, with a dramatic segment bearing almost no relation to the “what has information overload done to us?” tagline. It might make idiots laugh, but the fact Bing itself doesn’t appear until the end means you’re likely to miss it entirely.
(Disclaimer: I’m not an advertiser, I’m just applying common sense.)