starburst

“you are boring me back to death” – starburst

Ok.

I have disliked Starburst advertising for quite some time <but I have always liked the product>.  In my own semi-ignorant eyes … the advertising has never seemed to capture how good the product is.

Anyway.

I am still not sure this television advertisement is good (for the product or sales) but it made me laugh. Very clever. Extremely well written. Look. I understand the strategy. It is relatively sophomoric <ok … maybe better said obvious> in that someone did some research and it uncovered that the taste (or satisfaction) of eating a starburst reflects some contradiction in user responses. Excellent <I say>. Contradictions are the most fertile ground for positioning something in people’s minds. Owning a contradiction, if you can really do it, is the holy grail of positioning.

But ( a HUGE but). You don’t frickin’ tell everyone you are a contradiction. At some point you have to figure out how to tell the without … well … telling them. This is a case where the research <and, by the way, this is fairly rare> appears to be better than the articulation of the learnings. I imagine somewhere in that research there is a real idea but they haven’t figured it out yet <p.s. … “keep trying”>.

Anyway. The TV ad. Any commercial that is dialogue driven and you actually want people to pay attention to the entire dialogue and not tune out … cannot lollygaggle <a technical advertising term> in its entertainment effectiveness.

Almost every line .. heck … almost every word has to deliver the goods.

This tv ad is well written.

Once again … let me say .. I am not really sure it says anything that could actually help starburst long term <positioning it as the darn good product that it is> but it is funny. And entertaining. And likeable.

Starburst Zombie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z9_FJFj_uw

All I know for sure is that is it is well written … and funny (but I still do not understand the bagpipe guy … although I am sure in some strategic document he is ‘contradictory’).

Written by Bruce