Christmas wouldn’t really be Christmas without the reappearance of
old favourites. And this year the great British public showed that
familiarity in advertising rarely breeds contempt by voting the latest
incarnations of the Tesco and Safeway campaigns into first and second
place in this month’s People’s Jury.
Say what you will about the blue-rinsed old battle-axe, Dotty still
seems to bring a smile to the watching millions. Or rather to the
watching female millions - the ad scored 6.8 with women against 6.2 with
the cynical, hard-bitten male half of the population.
Bates UK’s latest version of its oh-so-cute Safeway kids split the
nation even more sharply on gender grounds. The ’aah’ factor helped the
ad score 6.6 with women but only 5.7 with men.
There’s precious little ’aah’ factor in that hardy Christmas perennial,
the anti-ad voiced by Alexei Sayle for the Dremel DIY power tool. The ad
has attracted the sort of cult following that used to be reserved for
Ferrero Rocher, and predictably found more uneven favour among the
audience, registering 5.9 among the easily pleased male population and
5.1 with more demanding females.
One ad that registered almost equally among male and female viewers was
the Allied Carpets festive special, an unusual appearance for the
category ahead of the traditional post-Christmas sales period.
Unfortunately both sexes were united in thinking that the ad wasn’t very
good.
A more surprising appearance in the lower half of the table, and well
below the respectable 5 score of simple indifference, was made by WCRS’s
ad for the new Camelot Superdraw game. The proposition is clear enough -
a millionaire made for every million tickets sold - but so far the spot
hasn’t warmed many hearts. WCRS fared a little better with its ’voucher
without the ouch’ work for Orange Just Talk, suggesting that it has
built up considerable reserves of goodwill in the brand.
People’s Jury is based on a survey of 1,000 adults who rate the 20 most
shown ads with a score ranging from one (turkey) to ten (treat).
As far as the questions go, a certain schizophrenia was apparent.
Although supermarket advertising was a clear favourite, 53 per cent of
those questioned believe retailers should spend less money on their
television advertising.
And whatever the pundits say, only 23 per cent of respondents agreed
they would bank on the internet, with fully three quarters turning down
the chance to organise their finances as part of a brave new online
future.
Audience Selection carried out the interviews from 3 to 5 December with
a cross section of 1,000 adults.
TOP 20 ADS
Rank Ad campaign Agency Points
1 Tesco Lowe Howard-Spink 6.5
2 Safeway Bates UK 6.2
3= Dremel BMP4 5.5
3= Citroen Saxo Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper 5.5
3= Kingsmill Tasty Wholemeal Publicis 5.5
3= Sainsbury’s Homebase Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO 5.5
3= Ciabazza Italian Bread Pizza HHCL & Partners 5.5
8 Kodak Advantix Ogilvy & Mather 5.4
9 Renault Kango Publicis 5.3
10 Orange Just Talk WCRS 5.2
11 Sky Digital St Luke’s 5.1
12 One2One Bartle Bogle Hegarty 5.0
13 Tiny Computers Golley Slater & Partners 4.9
14 Gaviscon D’Arcy 4.8
15= The Link In-house 4.7
15= COI Action 2000 Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO 4.7
17= Camelot Superdraw WCRS 4.6
17= Mercury Brand Vision n/s 4.6
19 Viva On and Off n/s 4.5
20 Allied Carpets BDS Beechwood 4.4
Source: Audience Selection Tel: 0171-608 3618.
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