You may have seen this video in your inbox over the last couple of days. It is doing the rounds at a crazy rate. I have received it via email several times this week and have been motivated to share some thoughts.

The premise of the video is great. It picks up on a general distrust that the public is experiencing over the apparent digital trickery that goes into advertising and fashion at the moment. The movement is strong, with many opponents making a lot of noise about the unreal expectations the media is forcing upon men, woman and our children. We are constantly shown images that are digitally "enhanced" and are encouraged to live up to body ideals that are not real in the first place - most highly paid models that make it their career to be "body / beauty perfect" are still not perfect enough for the media and undergo significant amounts of digital trickery to make them "more presentable.

The creative types responsible for the LG Vacuum Brand and subsequent advertising have come up with this as their latest commercial. It plays exactly on this current conversation, but fails in one major way - brand cut through.

That was great right? So where is the fail you ask?

The fail comes when it leaves the hands of the advertisers and finds it's freedom on the open plains of the internet.
The same emotion that they were counting on to get them noticed has worked and people are uploading this to youtube at an incredible rate, as well as sharing it via email. The shame for LG is that they have targeted a well established brand, with a very high visual recall rate, AND THEN MENTIONED THAT VERY BRAND IN THE AD!

What this has done is given away their brand cut through to a larger, more recognised and well established competitor. This is evidenced by the titles of the numerous instances of the clip on youtube, and also the title of the video file I received. In most cases it is labeled the "Dyson Model Ad", or in the case of the video file I received "Dyson-vac.wmv". This is obviously quite a problem for the company. All of that hard work to then see the competition getting the credit!

Dyson have been innovative in their advertising as well as in the design of their products.
Perhaps that is why there have been so many imitators.

Dyson have addressed this several times with their TV commercials - this one is particularly good at it.

The lesson here is to think through your marketing. Look at the big picture. Even when you may be onto a winning idea, that is very current, one wrong move gives away all of your advantage.