Video: Old People and Kinky Sex

Branding expert David Allison critiques five TV spots from the celebrated ad man Chris Staples.

CHRIS STAPLES is a master at making simple stories about a brand – and making you laugh as you watch them. That’s hard to do, but he’s been doing it for a very long time, and at a consistently high level of quality

Awards show judges love him: he has to bring a Sherpa along to help him carry home the statuettes. Other attendees at those industry dinners joke about why they even bother showing up, because the winner in almost every award category is a foregone conclusion. If you’re looking for well-conceived, well-executed, entertaining stories that include a brand, Staples is your guy.

Watch the above clip of five of Staples’ TV spots, then read on for some of my observations.

Back to article: Chris Staples profile
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More: Allison's blog, One Brand Clapping

1. Coast Capital Savings – No Stress
This has a tight and singular message, probably the strongest of a strong bunch: Coast Capital Savings = No Stress. I’d like to know if viewers remember the “no fees” feature, or if the message remains simply “no stress.” Not that a claim to own the “no stress” position is bad – it’s just that many brands aspire to own that position.

2. Mr.Lube – Keys
This commercial assumes that you understand the premise: car dealerships are expensive places for routine maintenance. You have to leap to that page in your brain fast in order for the next 29 seconds to make sense. The story exposition takes 90 per cent of the screen time, with the client logo tacked on the end. It would be stronger with some client identification woven into the script or visuals more frequently, which is a tough thing to do with a humorous approach like this. Stuffing the client name into a classic story arc kinda ruins the arc – but it can be done, and Staples knows how. And what are we left understanding about the client? That they are NOT a car dealership. Okay, so that’s what they aren’t. But what ARE they? The script mentions “faster and easier,” but it’s easy to miss.

3. A&W – Inflatable
This commercial, in case you’ve been trapped under something heavy for the last few years, is part of a series. The characters are well developed by this point. We all know the stout, friendly, long-suffering restaurant manager and his rotating cast of sidekicks, and that familiarity helps us understand the storyline much faster. There are precisely three product mentions either visually or in the script – an old, reliable rule of thumb from the days of radio.

4. BCAA – Wrong Bag
This one is the weakest of the bunch. It’s sure to be a judge-pleaser at an awards show, however, because there is an element of frat-boy humour and the judges eat that stuff up. Ha, ha. Old people have kinky sex. Ba dum dum. What’s the brand again? An airline? A hotel? It’s not an obvious and direct connection back to the brand like some of the other spots in this selection. In fact, there’s no mention of the brand whatsoever until the last 4 seconds. But it’s got old people and kinky sex!

5. B.C. Lions – Watch and Learn
Same format as the Wrong Bag spot for BCAA. Funny gag. Ha, ha. And again the client isn’t mentioned until the very end. In both spots the simplicity of this structure develops a tone of zen-like simplicity. An unexpected situation leads to an unexpected resolution, and roll the credits – like a miniature sitcom. Gotta hand it to Staples and his team: keeping things that clean is a real art form. And unlike the BCAA spot, the gag in this one relates to the brand much more directly.

Of course, I’m being nit-picky here. As brand commercials go, these are good ones. Production values are high. They’re well shot. The lighting is nice. The acting isn’t over-the-top. There’s no question that Staples is good at what he does.

My question is about the strategic underpinnings of this approach in the new economy. These commercials are part of a time-tested scheme that assumes a heavy frequency: if you are shown these commercials enough times you will mentally glue the brand and the key brand attribute together.

But I wonder if that’s still a viable premise today. Do the benefits justify the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to mount a campaign like that? Or has advertising as we know it has had its day in the sun? Is our entire industrial complex suddenly without an effective self-promotional vehicle? Is there a God?

Maybe, maybe not. It’s just that some things, like these commercials, feel decidedly like old-economy thinking. Consumers today seem to be rejecting anything that feels like advertising. And this TV commercial formula, of which Staples is the undisputed master hereabouts, is about as classic an example of advertising as there is.