Currys adverts on Sky One: marketing failure?
August 26th, 2009
I’ve just caught a few of the new Currys advertising spots on Sky One — they sponsor The Simpsons and Futurama now after Domino’s dropped out last year (details).
I’ve seen three of these spots:
- A guy bolts a very large, glossy flatscreen TV to the wall over his mantlepiece. Channel surfing, he finds an exercise program and starts to jump around. Presumably dislodged by his antics, it falls from the wall and shatters to the floor, taking a vase with it for good measure. Cut to a Currys delivery van with two guys who proceed to bolt a new TV to the wall for him.
- An elderly gent is struggling to put his new TV into the back of his car in a car park. Balancing it with one hand while he opens the tailgate, it crashes to the floor. Warily, he shakes the box, accompanied by the sound of broken glass. Cut to “need a hand putting your TV in the car? We can help!”
- A lady is walking through a car park with a large TV in a box. She trips and the box crashes to the concrete. Cut to the same catchphrase.
All three of these ads have really well captured foley; really prominent crunchy shattering glass and plastic.
Now, I understand that they are trying to pitch Currys as a place with value-add services, like carrying things to your car and installing TVs for you. But the strongest mental link they’ve made in my brain is between “Currys” and “very expensive, very broken broken TVs”. Is it me, or is that somewhat wonky marketing?
But the new ad shows a staff member loading a LG tv into a car as you view it from inside the car and it has three different model labels one in the top right corner states its a 32inch LH2000, the one next to it states a 37inch LH2000 and the big one with a double barcode is a panasonic 42inh ps-10 plasma label.
This is really poor as with the technology of air brushing they could’ve quite easily erased any logos if they didnt want to show any preference.