Schweppes Burst Self-ComBursts

Schweppes Burst from ipub on Vimeo.

I started this post ready to praise Schweppes for what a brilliant ad this is. And it is a brilliant one as far as ads go. But as you'll see, my experience degrades almost as fast as it was built up during my journey from watching the ad on Dino's blog to researching it more for this post.

Normally I'd just post the ad, mix in a few quick thoughts and be done. But for this, I thought I'd share the story of my experience with it since that is what we're creating now. Experiences. Not ads. Experiences. It's a tragedy really. Anyway, here we go then...

Original Title: Schweppes Burst = Brilliant

Maybe advertising can survive. This makes me believe it's possible. Wow. Simply gorgeous. Highly engaging. Easily the best ad I've seen in a while.

It's like Sony Balls, but maybe even better. I'm very glad to see they've brought some energy and emotion back to Schweppervescence. Hopefully Schweppes will extend this work around the globe. (It appears to only be in Australia now from what I can tell.)

Why I think it's a great ad...

Conveys emotion? Check. Dramatizes the essence of the brand? Check.

Gets my attention and makes me want to watch it? Check+

Is memorable not just for the ad but for who it is promoting as well? Check.

(I know. I know. I love advertising more than your average person, so this isn't an entirely fair assessment. But it's my blog, so just go with it...)

I could be a bit off on this one, but I think I saw a quote recently from Joseph Jaffe that read:

"Where and when advertising succeeds, it will be well received and sought after.  However, in most cases, agencies will have to work a lot harder to get consumers to give a damn.”

Well, this one made me give a damn and it's not just because I like the combination of their ginger ale with my Jack Daniels. Yes, to the point of my presentation below, it makes me in some small way, feel better about Schweppes.

This is where it all falls apart...

They have me engaged. Hooked even. I'm wanting to experience more Schweppervescence. So I got to the Schweppes site... I click on Australia...

"No local site available... X"

Wait. What? How is this possible? You're a global brand, you're doing high-quality ads like this one, and you have no web presence in the country you're running this ad in? Really?

Now, I'm not advocating that there should be a matching micro-site for this spot, but there should be a way for me to engage with the brand in some form online if I live in Australia so I can at the very least learn a little more about Schweppes and maybe see this ad again.

Hang on. It gets even worse.

From my brief clicking around on different continents and countries I get more "No local site available..." messages than I do places I can click through to a Schweppes site. This is becoming a big problem.

And yet it goes further down the drain.

Finally I get through to a couple sites. Yessssss! Something. Finally. Oh. No. Don't get too excited. None of the sites I do explore feel like the same brand as the one in the TV spot. They feel far different. Not nearly as warm or inviting. Not nearly as welcoming.

Oh how I'm falling out of love with the TV spot and Schweppes now. They're letting me down by the moment. This really is unfortunate. They had me. The had me hooked. Thirsty for more.

In the words of an old beer commercial... it's a travesty. A sham. A mockery. It's a traveshamockery!

Schweppervescence feels like an emotionally rich territory full of opportunities to do interesting things in the digital space beyond just being able to watch the ad on any number of video and ad sites/blogs.

Yes. It's a beautiful spot. It's scored beautifully. Shot beautifully. Directed beautifully. Edited beautifully. I'll give it all of those things. Five or six years ago, that might have been enough. But it's not now. We have come to expect more. TV isn't the center of the ad universe.

It's too bad they stopped with a beautiful TV spot. It's too bad they were stuck in old ways of thinking about advertising.

Sure, it will probably win some awards and everyone who was a part of it will feel great about it. A few other agencies and ad folk might even say "Damn. I wish we made that."

But at the end of the day, it failed to rise to the new bar for advertising.

Such a shame really. I had such hope for advertising when I started this post.

--

For all the details on the ad, go here.

Thanks for pointing it out Dino & Charles.

(Yes, this is how far I've gotten behind on the RSS lately... Must get caught back up!)

Comments

[Chris Wexler]

Believe it or not, the desired action of this spot wasn't to go to their site (It should be consistent and available but that is not my point). What are you going to learn about Ginger Ale that you don't already know? They want you to remember it the next time you see that yellow label IN A STORE.

Guess what, I bet you do.

[Daan Jansonius]

Thanks for bursting my bubble (excuse the pun!

I completely agree with you, I absolutely love the ad. First thing I said was 'must be the guys from sony'. Very similar use of music and visuals.

Although I can see where Chris is coming from, and he is right up to a point, it's quite simply a missed opportunity. Where I think they have gone wrong is having a map to find your local website, where not even half the countries represented on the map will link to a site. Had they simply had a .com website, a few things about this ad and the let down wouldn't have been as big.

Still, it's a shame to see that an advertisers that knows how to create great, engaging ads fails to move into the digital marketing space.

[Dino]

The Internet? That things still around?

[Rob @ Cynic]

You've just got me back for the comments I made on your preso Paul :)

http://robcampbell.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/schhhh-you-dont-know-who/

[paul isakson]

Chris-

Thank you for taking time to leave your comment. I agree with everything you said. I welcome challenges to what I write here. That’s why the comments are open. It’s good to have a conversation about things so we all can learn from what we share and become better marketers from it.

I’m certainly not arrogant enough to think that what I post here will always be right. If I’m proven wrong, I’ve got more than enough humility to admit it and change my view.

Having never met you, I could be misreading this, but leaving your very first comment here in a wise-ass tone when you could have taken another angle irks me a bit. I tried all week to let it go, but it's just not doing me any good, so I've got to get it out. Had you taken a different tone, so would have my reply.

Again, thank you, and please feel free to respond again if you disagree with my response to your comment...

You’re right that the desired action of this ad was not to go to the web site. I never said it was. It was obvious to me as they didn’t include a URL at the end of the spot.

You're right a second time. I don't need to know anything more about ginger ale. I know I like it on its own or with my Jack. That’s all I need to know.

And you’re right a third time, I did remember them this week when I went to the store and picked up a 12-pack of Canada Dry. (They didn’t do enough to convince me to switch. It takes more than one great ad for that.)

But that wasn’t the point of my post, Chris. I complimented the ad for being brilliant. I said it was memorable, on brand and blah, blah, blah. I don’t need to repeat it as it’s up there in the post.

The point of my post is that Schweppes has their priorities all out of whack. From a business perspective, they’re being negligent with their marketing budget. Shame on them and shame on their agency for not being a strategic business partner and recommending that they get a site built before they create an expensive TV spot and then spending more money to get it on the air.

Having a web site is business 101. Especially if you’re a global company spending millions of dollars around the world on marketing. Aside from the fact that they’re a global company, their product appeals to an outgoing, social, probably younger and highly digitally active group of people. Imagine what those people could do for your brand if you engaged and inspired them more. If you gave them a way to connect with your brand more. If you gave them a way to connect with each other more.

Before they spent money renovating the kitchen with high-end stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops, they should’ve fixed the hole in the dining room wall that was big enough to drive a train through.

As for your comments more directly, even though they didn’t tie to my point, it’s a brand new game in advertising, Chris. The world doesn’t revolve around the offline advertising. The end game isn't telling people things via one-way communications and then leaving it at that. Your ad is just one piece of the bigger puzzle.

I tried to go to their site because they had just made me interested in finding out what other "Schweppervescence" things I could experience. (There's that word again, experience.) They inspired me. They made me want to care more about their brand and their story. Then they gave me nothing.

Not "nothing" as in nothing about the ad. They gave me nothing at all. This post would have never gone the direction it did if they had an Australian site but nothing about the spot. But they didn't even have a web presence.

Unfortunately for them, Sony, Nike, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other major global brands have built up an expectation for me that I can go online and continue to have a great experience with their brands. Maybe with their advertising or some extension of it. Maybe not. Regardless, they have a presence and something for me to experience.

Like Daan said, they're missing a huge opportunity to engage me more and make me want to pick them up next time I’m at the store. But more importantly than that, they’re making a terrible business decision to put producing an expensive ad ahead of creating a presence for their brand online.