[Orchids & Onions] VW's honesty shows the cliché game is all but up!

One of the most clichéd messages was along the lines of: "To the world, you're just a guy, but to me, you're the world."

What brought out the guffaws among us was when some cynical young woman would add that stinging twist to her message: "To the world, you're just a guy and to me, you're just a guy."

Taking aim at clichés is something people in the advertising business are often reluctant to do. Clichés appeal to the biggest possible spread of people and an anti-cliché always carries the danger it could backfire on your brand.

Two brands have done anti-cliché quite nicely recently in TV and other ads. The first is Volkswagen (yet another good, local ad) which punts its new up! entry-level compact as being able to do everything from "get you the girl" to "get you the job".

The up! will get you the girl... and it's simple. You get in it, drive to where the girls are, get out, start talking to them and use your charm. There's a similar recipe for succeeding in the job market.

©weerapat wattanapichayakul via 123RF

It's a not-so-subtle knock at all the aspirational brand advertising which would have you believe that cars, beers, make-up, even coffee are the highways to stardom. That ain't so and the world is a bit different.

The up! acknowledges it is "only a car" and you shouldn't expect miracles from it. But it does take you places... literally. Emphasising the car's down-to-earth, different-to-the-norm attributes, the campaign will appeal to a younger market which is increasingly cynical about the hackneyed marketing tricks from the 1950s and 1960s, which are still doing the rounds.

The brand as an anti-hero works here - and so it gets this week's first Orchid.

In a similar vein, Hunter's Dry cider has the clichéd shots of golden, bubbly cider erupting in a gush in a desert setting, with a full symphony orchestra providing the suitable sturm und drang as a background.

But then the narrator takes a swig and says something like "hey, it's just a cider". Self-deprecating humour will always emphasise a brand which doesn't take itself too seriously. And, let's face it, cider drinking is hardly the stuff of rocket science (or symphony composition).

So next Orchid to Hunter's.

An Australian commercial (yes, a decent imported ad) for Kia's Cerato also has a bit of a surprise twist to the cliché. A Kia Cerato draws up to the "lover's lane" location late at night. Romance is confirmed to be in the air when the man says to the woman that he has a question. At the same time he produces, with a flourish, an engagement ring in a box.

The problem is, she says, almost in sync, that she wants to break up.

Without missing a beat, the jilted lover closes the box and says: "Good thing I kept the receipt. You should always keep receipts." And then they both laugh.
The punchline sums it up: So many features, there's never an uncomfortable moment. Well done, Kia, and well done your Aussie agency. Orchids for you both. Let's hope this doesn't continue into the 2015 Cricket World Cup.

For a brand which once set the standards in good old home-grown advertising, Klipdrift has drifted off. Its latest TV ad is so much like so many other brandy, or beer, or whisky commercials.

It features that clichéd shot of the liquid, lovely backlit in gold, swilling into the glass - or should I say brandy balloon in this case. Then there is the clichéd group of upwardly mobile gents (nicely balanced from a race point of view, too), all nodding contentedly.

The message is also a heard-before-somewhere one: Gold in every drop. Dull in every drop, more like it. Look at the advert with the sound off and before the punchline and logo come along, and you won't know who it's for.

All one can say is that you have to look at such an ad and sigh "eish", because it hurts to look at the new stuff, given the brand's past glories.

An Onion for Klipdrift.