Campaign Review: MLA’s tired and tested strategy, Kia’s ‘nothing’ ad and Uber Eats’ tennis hit
Mumbrella invites the industry’s most senior creatives and strategists to offer their views on the latest ad campaigns. This week: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne’s Stephen De Wolf and Digitas’ Simon Brock offer their views on Meat and Livestock Australia’s missing cultural tension, Uber Eats’ smart and seamless integration, Mercedes-Benz Vans’ misstep and Kia’s confused campaign.
Brand: Meat and Livestock Australia
Agency: The Monkeys
The Verdict: Great production quality but it felt manufactured and contrived
Stephen de Wolf, executive creative director, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, says:
De Wolf says: “The topic they were leveraging doesn’t have the true cultural tension the other campaigns did”
“What has always made me uncomfortable, in a good way, about the MLA spots, is their brevity in highlighting uncomfortable truths about Australian society. Executions aside, they’ve created great conversation and debate – important in the journey to overcoming prejudice, biases and difference. No mean feat for any brand.
Jeez these people are hard to please, why aren’t they producing anything better then?
Couldn’t agree more about the Kia spot. It’s actually a good car with a bit of toe yet the ads made it look like it was made for muppets. Dumbvertising.
I can’t speak for Simon but Stephen has produced a tonne of great work. The Myer Christmas bauble being the most recent example. His back catalogue is world class.
I think his critique is fair. And it is a critique, which I imagine was the brief.
MLA 2019 best yet and fully leveraged those that created amazing equity prior years. No tension, my arse! They hit two biggest issues: shift Australia Day and who the f are we now. You could argue it wasn’t sharp enough on those 2 points but i’d argue they nailed interest and enjoyment which is critical to reach and engagement. Smashed it! Ditto for Uber Eats.
How you can give MLA 6/10, and anything else that follows it more, is a bit contrite to say the least.
The grab gag execution is woeful. High hats echoing after every one.
“bummm … tish…”
Gosh, please remember the viewer in all of this. Today we are bombarded with as much promotion as a programme, material. which really is a joke instead of calling it the Tennis lets call it sponsors offers,
As a viewer, we don’t have any say in what is promoted or how often, we just want to watch the tennis, the cricket, a movie or whatever we choose to watch. In our household, the Kia avertisement was gold, irreverent, fun, and did alot for brand Kia. When you have to watch an advert 84 (appox) times during a week you’ll know what I mean.
Uber didn’t reasonate at all, having been burnt by Uber ride sharing pricing,in peak hour, we dismissed the adverts and assumed the delivery would cost more than the meal. Go figure
Kia is so fake-fun, it feels so icky, like all the people around the mob boss table laughing after the mob boss laughs, in a very plastic generic opioid way.