Is a kettle boiling a good ad?

i’m in two worlds.

on one hand, it’s bold, brave – and very different from usual fanfare (both the press and the vid). On the other hand, the life is too short message was too esoteric and the vid – if you watched the whole damn thing – was the most boring experience of my life despite that that being the point they were trying to make.

So that’s what that site was.

I clicked through to the site when someone posted a link watched 10 seconds of it then skipped to the end of the video and when it was still just a kettle I left.

My honest feeling is that this probably won’t work due to the low number of users who would stay through even the first video. I only bothered skipping to the end of it to see if it was branded and thats because I work in the industry.

I’d love to see some post analysis around numbers after the campaign. I just cant imagine the branded message getting enough reach to drive a return for the client.

Of course without knowing what the brief or goals are who can say whether or not it will make the client happy.

i liked it.

joel pearson’s right, it won’t work. the few people who go to the site won’t wait, or will miss the brand message. And there’s nothing that will compel those who see it to act on it – and even if they do the ad doesn’t tell me why i should prefer that brand.

Too long. Nice message (not unique, but clear at least) but this should be after about 10 seconds, not 90 seconds! As Joel says, I only looked to the end because I’m in the industry and am being made aware of this campaign through Mumbrella – if I was the average punter, no way – boring as bat poo.

Can Billi please provide their figures that support the ROI on this campaign? I will happily watch a kettle boil if they are favourable!

That’s why Designers should stick to Design.

They are doing outdoor ads on trams and I looked at it on my iPhone, but hey, no flash. What a waste. #fail

I agree with Jodes…Cornwell Design are designers (very good ones too) but they’re not an ad agency. A very clever idea with great production values but probably too clever.

Life’s too short to go to a website without purpose. Can only imagine their numbers will be pretty poor. Cornwell should surprise us all with a compelling case study once the numbers are in.

Ohh dear, I lasted 14 seconds on the first vid, hmmm sorry guys, but clearly I am either not the target market, as in my life IS too short to spend watching Vids like this and try to work out what the hell it is your trying to tell me…or you just bored me !

On one hand this ad is quite clever, I saw it on the side of a tram a few weeks back and found myself driven by the intrigue, needing to know what the site was all about.
In the end I have to admit I was amazed to discover it was an ad for a boring old kettle.
The whole way through I was expecting a big climax, but never even got close to one. It felt a hell of a lot like an awareness campaign for a cause, never would of expected kettles.

Tim, you realise that the ads not for kettles right?

Awwww Anonymous (3:03pm) … don’t be too harsh about your iPhone being a waste and a fail for not being Flash capable.

It’s clearly a clever way to drive interest, but i think it broke a cardinal rule of not giving people a pay-off/reward for watching.

Having just felt duped into wasting 2mins watching a kettle boil, there is no way I’m about to reward the company with any of my money.

I’m going to find another way to wash the bitter taste away!

Errr….Maybe the brief was:

Let’s do a really left field, slightly esoteric ad that, due to its being so different then other ads, will get picked up by the media (like Mumbrella) so the ROI will come from the PR results.

Interesting and in product messaging and as an idea it’s very strong as it’s true to its USP but here’s where it all goes wrong and as pointed out already a comms agency rather than a design agency would have taken that idea to the next level in customer satisfaction, interaction and reward. Once people land on the site, the campaign idea of; Life is too short could be pushed further to; saving time, here’s what others are doing or what would you like to do? Answer and win – they could have build a whole campaign that pulled people in to participate around that thought – missed opp but at least they had a go

It’s a clever way to fail.

Hopeless. I looked at it 2 weeks ago and had no idea what it was for until I read this article. Now it has just annoyed me!

WOW – in a world where customer attention is scarce and hopefully valued it would be interesting to see how many customers shared and raved about that ad!

Snoring. I wanted something like a tropical destination or at least something funny / engaging. Talk about not meeting consumer expectations.

We live in age where blip verts are too long. Someone using the 12 times function on their Foxtel IQ have a greater recall of the ads in the breaks than the someone who sits thru the break. I would have throught if your premise was that lifes too short then speeding an ad up too 24x faster would have delivered a better result.

Also can anyone who watched all the way through put aside their disappointment and remember who the ad was for.

I thought it was clever initially and then disappointing. I saw the FPCs in the Herald and wsa curious so I googled Life is Too Short – only to watch a kettle boil and find out it’s a water system. Which I forgot the name of until I read it again in this post. Clever idea, pity it wasn’t for a travel company or something.

Oh, and I also watched about 10 seconds then skipped to the end in case it got interesting. It didn’t.

Fail…

Claire, you missed a word.

MASSIVE Fail

Zip Industries must be LTAO

@Lisa, thanks, so I did!!! EPIC could also be used 🙂

Well its certainly created some awareness for Billi – so job well done Steve, Kate et al…. R