Ego's 'gotta get some' advertising

Hey all, yeah I know it's been a long time but Telkom has been having fun with my lines (both of them) and I've been on and off for the past few weeks - off mostly thanks to them. Anyway we hope that they have put everything together properly and that it won't happen again... though I'm seriously thinking of a satellite phone just now so that I don't have to waste my money on their "service".

This week we look at Ego's advertising, especially their latest radio ad promoting their number that you can call to get "tips" on clever ideas for pleasing the ladies, which I'm sure most guys do need help in.

Looking through their advertising it's pretty plain to see that they like using the sexual angle to promote themselves, which by the way is quite ironic because their name is Ego and on Maslow's Hierarchy it's totally on a different level where sex is physiological and Ego is three more steps up at Status. However it would be difficult having a product called "Physiological Sexual Deodorant" sitting on our shelves, although with its almost technical name people might actually believe that it has special powers to lure that lady you've been after in the PR department, towards you.

I can recall back to when Ego had their TV spots where a guy in an old looking western town got all these women chasing him when he used the deodrant and there it seemed to use a mixture of fantasy and sex. Nowadays we see the use of more realistic situations/scenarios that the common man can relate to, which is a very good idea as it makes that emotional connection, or should I rather say "physical recall" just in case we have some ladies that think men are still out of touch with their emotions.

In their last TV spot we saw a guy standing on the edge of a city road and a young lady on her daily jog heading to cross the road when the guy puts out his hand to stop her from being hit by a passing vehicle. When the vehicle has passed we see that his hand landed right on her breast, with both of them looking at each other surprisingly.

I don't know about you guys but that's happened to me twice - and to the same young lady! No, it was not intentional, I just put my arm out to hold her back when I had to unfortunately slam on brakes at an intersection and she didn't have her seatbelt on and my hand ended up umm... ya. After the strange looks she put her seatbelt on and things were rather silent for the rest of the trip.

The other incident happened at a stop street some days later. *nodding head* I don't know if she ever thought it was intentional or that she knew that I was just looking after her safety(?) *cough* Ok, we're drifting off the subject here...

Ego's new radio spot though also makes good use of the "realistic factor" I'm going to call it, which makes the ad always entertaining but there is one thing I'm not happy with in it, which I'll mention just now. In case you haven't heard the ad, it starts with this couple which have just had a date and are at the door of her house. It's spread over two takes. In the first take the guy asks if he can come in and she flips out and slaps him for thinking he can take her out and then get sex. After sound effects of rewinding, the second take is of him saying that he had a good evening and he'll see her sometime but doesn't ask about entering her home. Needless to say she flips out as well, saying a line that I always crack up over - "you insensitive bastard!" *slap*.

Brilliant! But the ad then goes into a bad spot. The voice-over goes on to say that there is better luck winning the lotto than pleasing a women. Sometimes that's true but mentioning lotto makes you think it's an ad for lotto and your attention and interest drifts off of the ad as you know what lotto is and what you have to do to "win" so why listen to the rest of the spot? However it then goes on with how you call the Ego line and get ideas and tips on pleasing that special lady followed by a jingle that paints a picture alright!

I think the ad would've been made slightly better if the lotto part wasn't mentioned or if something else was "slotted in" there that didn't immediately pull up a brand when mentioning it, ending up with the recalling of a different product.

Besides that, I'm sure Lotto has increased their sales.

Rating: 7/10