Think about why you buy things. You want to get some benefit from the product, right? Buying a certain product makes your life easier or better in some way. Companies are well aware of this desire to gain something from products. Snickers and Old Spice shaped these two entertaining and memorable commercials around this concept.
Snickers: Super Bowl XLIV 44 2010 commercial
Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial
Both commercials, in their own ways, show how their product can benefit you. If you focus on the message being communicated behind the theatrical displays, they are simply saying, this is what our product will do for you, buy it.
How Snickers conveys benefit
For Snickers, their tagline is “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” This brilliant strategy takes a Snickers bar, which is really no different from any other unhealthy candy bar, and shows its benefit to you beyond satisfying a craving. They show how you as a person change when you’re hungry and Snickers can reverse this and make you better. They took a simple candy bar and gave it the benefits of an energy bar. The playfulness and humor in this ad, along with the attention-grabbing and surprising scenes of older actors being tackled into a muddy football field make the message very memorable.
How Old Spice conveys benefit
For Old Spice, their commercial was no less fun and entertaining. In contrast to the few sudden attention-grabbing moments in the Snickers commercial, the whole commercial is fast and interactive. Your attention is held by chaotic visuals and the narrator not giving you a chance to look away unless he tells you to. The narrator guides you through the fantastical world of the perfect Old Spice user.
At the end of the commercial, the narrator slips in the tagline “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.” The commercial is implying that if you use old spice, you can be like the perfect man in the commercial. The possibilities are endless when you try this product.
Which commercial is more effective?
The more effective of the two commercials is subjective. When talking about entertainment value or overall effectiveness of the commercials, opinions differ. When focusing on how well the companies communicated the benefit of their products to the consumer, I believe that Snickers takes the cake.
What challenge did both companies face?
Both companies had the task of taking products that offer no real exciting or different benefit that stands out from their competitors. They were challenged with taking relatively unexciting products and making them beneficial to you. What makes the Snickers commercial better is that the benefit they offer is attainable and realistic.
Why Snickers conveys their benefit better
Snickers doesn’t need to claim that you will be the most attractive perfect person by using their product. They make a claim that has truth to it even though it was communicated through an impossible and exaggerated story. Old Spice, in contrast, had a great and entertaining commercial that hooked you in for the whole thirty seconds but their claim was too grand.
You may have skipped breakfast and you grab a Snickers bar while shopping because you remembered that “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” but when you’re eye catches the Old Spice bottle, you may choose it over other brands because you remember how entertaining the commercial was, but you will not grab it in hopes that you can become the perfect man by buying it.
About the author
Colin Young is a copywriter at Copper Sun Creative. He specializes in writing advertising and branding content. When he is not blogging or working to complete his bachelor’s degree in Marketing he enjoys doing anything outdoors.