AUSTRALIAN CAR INSURANCE COMMERCIAL

by Dan O'Day

Both radio advertising and TV advertising sell with pictures. On radio, you paint the pictures in the listener's mind; the fancy psychological term for that is "constructed imagery." On television, you present the actual pictures -- or what is known as "eidetic imagery."

But whether you call them "eiditic images" or "constructed images" or just plain "pictures," those pictures need to tell the story.

Whether it's a television commercial or a radio spot, the pictures tell the story...including this Australian TV commercial...

If you've never seen this commercial before, there's a good chance you're not even sure what the "story" has to do with the advertiser.

They're advertising automobile insurance. But if I hadn't just pointed that out, there's a good chance that five minutes from now - or perhaps five seconds from now - you wouldn't be able to tell me what this commercial was trying to sell.

You'd remember something about the women stopping, eyeing the guy, and then driving away. And maybe some people in some sort of call center. But not insurance.

Why not? Because the pictures they've created don't sell insurance.

Instead, they use a spoken voiceover to attempt to connect the pictures to the sales message. The idea is those women wouldn't let the guy in their car because of his shoes. From the visual images, it looks as though his shoes don't look good enough.

But the announcer asks, "Do you really love your car?" So the viewer is supposed to think, "Oh. Those women think that guy is hot, but his shoes are so dirty they'd mess up their car. And if they care that much about their car, they probably want to make sure they have good automobile insurance."

If you want viewers to see THAT story, you've got to paint it with pictures, not with a voiceover.

Television advertising and radio commercial campaigns DO work -- when the pictures sell the results of the product or service being advertised.