Every year, brands tend to jump on special occasions with the enthusiasm of a cat attacking a red dot on a kitchen floor. And without fail this sees consumers inundated with promotional material related to Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and pretty much any other day that has even slight significance to someone. So, in what has come to be an annual tradition, here’s a rundown of how various brands—including Google, Campbell Live, GrabOne and BMW—attempted to trick gullible consumers this year.
Browsing: Stihl
Garden emperors, tomorrow’s basketball stars, Hobbit pilots, and regular Kiwis make an appearance in the latest edition of the weekly TVC rundown.
On 19 October, the NZ Herald ran a story promising Kiwis a long, hot summer Labour weekend. And if the modern art of divination known as weather reporting is anything to go by, then this could signal the start of the warmer months to come. And given that Kiwis are likely to spend more time outside over the next few months, Stihl, Ryobi and AEG have launched campaigns on the range of products that Kiwis might be inclined to use during their gardening endeavours under the summer sun.
Like many media organisations, we get sent a range of commercial detritus to draw attention to various launches or promotions, many of which seem like they help to keep the overseas crap factories ticking over. And in the past couple of days we’ve been sent two very different animal-related products, one celebrating continued survival, the other warning of impending death.
The sibling rivalry, cruelty and dastardly power (tool) games seen in Stihl and DDB’s advertising first kicked off in 2009 with ‘Bequeathed’ and returned a few years later with ‘Mercy Dash’. And now the brothers are back in another campaign that asks Kiwis a difficult question: in a raging barn fire, would you save your cherished chainsaw or a cute little lamb?
In just four years, Stihl has added a suite of new products, started targeting the residential market, changed its approach to comms and vastly improved its retail network. And now it’s reaping the benefits.