đ§ This ad left an impression
But not in a good way
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Growing up, my friends and I loved to go trick-or-treating.
We would all head to the neighborhood with pillowcases to fill them with delicious candy goodness (those small, puny pumpkin buckets just didnât cut it đ).
After a nightâs work, we would come back, dump our hauls, and trade for our favorites (Reeseâs are still my fav đ€€).
But before we knew it, we became too old to go door to door asking for Halloween candy.
And now, I have to resort to walking through the grocery aisle for my Reeseâs pumpkins (#firstworldproblems).
This is the exact pain point Airheads tried to hit on in their newest Halloween ad.
You can watch the full video here.
⊠and I have thoughts.
Donât get me wrong, the ad concept was clever.
Adults miss the old days when they could go trick-or-treating, but now theyâre too old to participate (unless you have children you can sneak some candy bars away from, I guess đ«).
So Airheads promoted a fake product called the âDecoy Boy.â
Using a humanoid child robot to get around the holidayâs age restrictions is a funny and brilliant fake product here â especially as people are embracing AI more these days.
And introducing it in an infomercial-style was also a fun way to present the ridiculous solution.
Even though the Decoy Boy is a fake product, the ad works by calling out a specific target audience â adults too old for trick-or-treating â and making their pain point of growing up feel relatable in a lighthearted manner.
The ad also agitated the target audienceâs pain point by bringing in other adult horrors like HOA fines and vehicle registration fees.
But there is one thing about this ad that I think Airheads missed the mark here.
The ad was too long for its concept.
It kept going on and on about how this fake Decoy Boy is a great solution and about its fake product features, like persuasion levels and tantrum mode.
Airheads was trying to make it more funny and a bit more creepy (cause you know, Halloween and stuff đ§).
But these additions lost me when I watched the ad.
Essentially, it was giving me Appleâs âConvince Your Parents to Get You a Macâ ad vibes â where the ad was drawn out for too long and lost its audience in the mix.
We talked about why Appleâs ad didnât work in a previous issue, and the same concepts apply here.
A fun gag ad works ⊠but if you keep the gag going for too long, your audience loses interest.
This ad wouldâve been better if Airheads just cut to the chase and shortened their ad.
Then, I think it would have been a great gag ad that wouldâve stood out this Halloween.
P.S.
If you disagree with me here and think this Airheads ad was well done, reply to this email to let me know.
If you want to make your disagreement public for the world to know you disagree with me here because you really think the Airheads ad was well done, then upgrade to premium to leave a comment đ
Otherwise, just share this post with a friend and ask them about their opinion.
While Airheads ad fumbled the ball with their Halloween ad, Jeep understood the assignment.
This next ad couldâve gone the typical route with breast cancer awareness, but instead did something much smarter.
Itâs a masterclass in handling sensitive topics.
Upgrade to premium to read it:
