What does "sticky" really mean?
The goal of every advertiser is to develop work so memorable that you can't get it out of your head. But it must also be immediately associated with a particular brand. We say, "if you can remove the product from a concept and it still works, it won't be nearly as effective."
No matter how much time has passed, I still remember a full-page newspaper ad for Halloween on the wall of Gail Schoenbrunn which was largely blank; except, if you looked hard enough, you saw a small pin in the lower left corner. The headline read: "If it's hard for you to find it, imagine how hard it would be for your kid."
Sticky.
I also remember a television commercial about herding cats. Yet I can't remember the brand. Fun ad. Not sticky. At least, not for me.
There was also this hysterical Super Bowl commercial for Monster in which, among a series of kids expressing their average aspirations, one says: "I wanna claw my way up to middle management." I remember it for its brand and content.
Sticky.
One llow budget ad for Hood, developed by Peter Seronick and Gary Greenberg, illustrated that cows aren't very good at certain things, like catching frisbees, but they are great at producing Hood milk. Award-winning for a reason. I remember it to this day, though the commercial is from years ago.
Sticky.
Perhaps the best work I ever saw, and I've seen a lot, was a recent Cannes Lion Winner from TBWA/Paris for Burns & Smiles https://lnkd.in/dKqRFJVV. It revolves around the sensitive but impotant subject of burn victims. Now you would think the most obvious thing to do would be just to show the hard life of such a devastating, painful and life-altering injury. But the creative folks who made it gave it a lot of thought. And they decided the best way to engender empathy would be to pick the one day each year that a burn victim might be able to feel normal: Halloween.
In the three+ minute film, a gentleman who has severe burns on his entire face and now bald head dons a vampire costume and ventures out into the night. Rather than feeling conspicuous and having people turn away, he becomes the center of attention and receives numerous compliments about his amazing costume. At one point in the night, he is even flirting with a young woman, telling her she's the prettiest one there.
Then, at around 3AM, his night ends, and he laments that this is the worst part because he has to wait another year until he can feel normal again. It makes the audience want to help because it goes against the grain, puts it in terms we can all understand.
No doubt it took a lot of time and plenty of other concepts before it finally emerged as the winner. It didn't beg for money but simply and brilliantly let us know how such a terrible and unfair burden must feel on all those other days.
Sticky.
Beautifully, unforgettably sticky.