Advertising on the cheap

I always admire advertising whose impact is huge compared with its production and/or media budget. Usually it’s funny or controversial ads that get talked about, or emailed around.  About three years ago Ogilvy created the Dove “Evolution” commercial, here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U  It was made to be viewed on the internet as a “viral”, that is, as a communication that’s just emailed from person to person.  Millions of people have seen it and talked about it.  And it cost nothing to run. Isn’t that amazing? I have a more recent example to share with you: an ad that was made to run in the commercial breaks in this year’s Superbowl in the States. Airtime for that event certainly isn’t cheap: $3 million for 30 seconds (you wouldn’t think there’s a recession on, would you?). OK, no prizes for saving money on media. But the commercial, for Doritos, is said to have cost just $2,000 – peanuts compared with most TV commercial production budgets.  And something like 147 million people watched this year’s Superbowl. Here’s the ad:

Tagged as: cheap advertising, Doritos Superbowl Commercial