Finding new turf to play on

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwndLOKQTDs] Send to me by a friend, I thought this spot was a nice compliment to the Wrigley gum spot I looked at a couple of posts ago.

Beer commercials run the gambit from silly & offensive (most) to sentimental and emotionally overwrought. What I like about this commercial from Guinness (apart from the unexpected ending )is that it's telling a story about the viewer. If you're the kind of guy who would use a wheelchair for a couple hours to play basketball with your friend who has to use a wheelchair, then you're the kind of guy who drinks Guinness beer.

You can buy a beer because of the taste or you can buy a beer because the story of the brand matches your story -- or at the least it matches who you want to be or how you want to be seen by others.

Guinness gets that, and in telling this story they're not competing with other brands on taste or cost, their playing the game on different turf.

Always aim higher

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgC84kDhWl4] A header like, "If you have a heart, this Wrigley gum commercial will make you cry," set a pretty high bar, but also sets off my ok, I'm gonna call that bluff response. Well, the stupid fricking ad did indeed make me cry or the room got incredibly dusty as it climaxed.

Is the gum a bit of a macguffin here? Sure, it could have been anything, but staking out that space, telling an emotional story about a parent and a child, about sharing something in good times and bad, well that's powerful. It's too easy to say, well it's just gum, we should talk about it's flavor or it's ability to solve a problem. Like this crappy gum ad I saw last night:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_XpT8Haohc]

The Wrigley commercial for Extra gum goes to a higher place on the hierarchy -- other gums are minty or clean your mouth, this gum you share and experience, this gum is about love and connection.

The downside here is that I'm not sure this brand of gum has enough of a pre-exisitng space in my brain to make an impression (what's the brand name again). So an ad like this one for a brand that doesn't have a position needs repetition in other mediums, it has to tell this same story of sharing again and again in a myriad of different ways (what about directions for making those Origami birds on the inside of each package or a Web site about creating your Wrigley moment).

Still it's a great ad, and a good reminder that it's not about the function of the product, but something more.