The Target Lady is so back
Plus good dogs doing bad things to IKEA furniture
The bowl cut is taking over.
Tell your barber. Kristen Wiig’s Target Lady character from Saturday Night Live has returned to work at Target, or “Terget” as she pronounces it. Target Lady was one of Wiig’s most beloved characters on the show.
The ads are running from April 7-13 to encourage people to join Target Circle (a rewards program). Target timed this one out perfectly, with Wiig set to host SNL tomorrow.
Here are two of the spots.
This one’s pretty sick.
Umm, okay. How do we explain this ad. Well, basically, Dramamine, the motion sickness medicine, made a mini documentary called “The Last Barf Bag: A Tribute to a Cultural Icon.”
It’s 13-minutes long, and to be honest with you, I think this might be my new favorite kind of ad. It’s thoughtful, funny, well produced, on-brand from Dramamine, quirky…folks in my office are calling it a home run. Let me know what you think in the comments. Even the post-credits are great.
It only has 2,000 views on YouTube right now, tell your friends about this one–it deserves some love.
Agency partners: FCB Chicago, 360PR+ and The Shipyard
Have the brands gone too far?
I try not to send you anything behind a paywall, so I’ll explain a bit on this one as it’s a NYT story from Scott Cacciola (if you subscribe to the NYT, you can read it here).
Cacciola wrote a great piece this week on Bank of America’s sponsorship of the Boston Marathon, and the inclusion of the logo on the bottom of finisher medals. See below.
At the heart of the article is the question, does the new design detract from the achievement and make it look like a cheap advertisement for Bank of America? Given the race’s history of not having sponsors displayed on medals, I think so. This feels like a miss from Bank of America for me, this isn’t your local 5K, it’s The Boston Marathon. What do you think?
A new kind of pasta pairing.
Barilla is at it again, with music scientifically designed to enhance the taste of your meal. Wait, what?
Barilla worked with Emmy and BAFTA award-winning composer of The White Lotus, Cristobal Tapia De Veer and University of Oxford experimental psychologist Charles Spence to explore how sound can enhance how we experience taste, and the end product is a Spotify playlist for all of your favorite pasta dishes.
There’s also a social post explaining the campaign below, but the bulk of the campaign and the Spotify Playlist are wrapped up in a little website. Check that out here.
What an affordable mess.
Long time readers of The Ad Spot know that IKEA is my favorite advertiser of all time, and yet again they made me smile. As Brand VP at Booking.com Natalie Wills highlighted on LinkedIn, IKEA is simply owning it’s brand’s purpose. They offer a practical solution for low cost items.
Here are some pictures worth at thousand words. Captions read: “Don’t worry, you can afford it.”
The fire’s still burning.
How does Burger King celebrate it’s 70th birthday? In a classic, bold fashion, of course.
Text at the bottom of the ads reads: 70 years later, the fire’s still burning. Flame-grilled since 1954.
Love these.
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Today's newsletter was sponsored by The Weekly Forekast, the newsletter that gives you a leg-up on what’s going to be trending. Forekast is how we knew the Boston Marathon was coming up, Burger King was turning 70, and Kristen Wiig was hosting SNL tomorrow. They’re like Tyrion Lannister…they know things.
Before ever reading Ad Age, I imagined it was full of articles/columns that were like this article. A commentary on commercials. A thoughtful opinion. (And not PR fluff.)
Anyway, love this.