Toshiba has launched its first advertising campaign for two years, the first from Grey, which secured the Toshiba advertising contract last year. Like the new Carling campaign we reviewed (on 8 January, page 14), Grey has very big shoes to fill.
Toshiba's last TV push in 2005 harked back to its most famous campaign: the 1985 "'Ello Tosh, gotta Toshiba?" ads that featured Ian Dury.
The new campaign shows how far we have come since the 1980s. The sound is now ambient, and where there were once cartoon blueprints, the ads now show hi-tech close-ups on the surfaces of microchips and other components. However, the message of the two campaigns is much the same: promoting Toshiba's innovation and quality.
In 1985, the message was that Toshiba's flat-screen televisions "ain't half built well". Today, the far more classy, controlled voice-over tells us how Toshiba makes round, rounder; fast, faster; small, smaller; and light, lighter, in its new Portege laptop. The strapline is, "Toshiba leading innovation".
Toshiba's figures on BrandIndex suggest the ad has been a real success. There is no obvious leap in the brand's buzz since the ad first aired on 21 January, but there is an undeniable effect upon the underlying scores.
General impressions are up four points to +29, and perceptions of Toshiba's quality have risen seven points to +32.
The only downwards movement in Toshiba's figures is in the customer satisfaction scores, which rose after the ad launched, but slumped after Woolworths announced last month that it would no longer sell movies on Toshiba's HD DVD format.
Presumably, the fall was due to the people who had bought Toshiba HD DVD players being disappointed that they may have backed the wrong format.
Methodology: YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday to form its BrandIndex, a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors.
It is measured on a seven-point profile:
1. Buzz
2. General impression
3. Quality
4. Value
5. Satisfaction
6. Recommend
7. Corporate reputation
In addition, we supply an index score.
By Sundip Chahal,
Toshiba's last TV push in 2005 harked back to its most famous campaign: the 1985 "'Ello Tosh, gotta Toshiba?" ads that featured Ian Dury.
The new campaign shows how far we have come since the 1980s. The sound is now ambient, and where there were once cartoon blueprints, the ads now show hi-tech close-ups on the surfaces of microchips and other components. However, the message of the two campaigns is much the same: promoting Toshiba's innovation and quality.
In 1985, the message was that Toshiba's flat-screen televisions "ain't half built well". Today, the far more classy, controlled voice-over tells us how Toshiba makes round, rounder; fast, faster; small, smaller; and light, lighter, in its new Portege laptop. The strapline is, "Toshiba leading innovation".
Toshiba's figures on BrandIndex suggest the ad has been a real success. There is no obvious leap in the brand's buzz since the ad first aired on 21 January, but there is an undeniable effect upon the underlying scores.
General impressions are up four points to +29, and perceptions of Toshiba's quality have risen seven points to +32.
The only downwards movement in Toshiba's figures is in the customer satisfaction scores, which rose after the ad launched, but slumped after Woolworths announced last month that it would no longer sell movies on Toshiba's HD DVD format.
Presumably, the fall was due to the people who had bought Toshiba HD DVD players being disappointed that they may have backed the wrong format.
Methodology: YouGov interviews 2,000 people each weekday to form its BrandIndex, a daily measure of public perception of more than 1,100 consumer brands across 32 sectors.
It is measured on a seven-point profile:
1. Buzz
2. General impression
3. Quality
4. Value
5. Satisfaction
6. Recommend
7. Corporate reputation
In addition, we supply an index score.
By Sundip Chahal,