SHOULD’VE GONE WITH HUMANS
I saw these ads for Specsavers on the internet. They’re the latest in their global campaign “Should’ve gone to Specsavers”. They certainly stand out and make you smile, but when we dig a level deeper – are they missing the magic that makes us remember the best of Specsavers?
What’s the big idea?
Over the years, Specsavers have poured millions of dollars into one simple idea. They all involve a human making a simple mistake because of poor eyesight. The farmer who sheared his sheep dog, the volleyball player smashing a seagull, the kid with the wrong remote. We see humans we, see chaos and we get the point. Should’ve gone to Specsavers.
It’s a campaign that really works. Specsavers has grown from an Irish Optometrist into a global player with meme-level brand recognition around simple call to action ads. But how does the idea work? And what are these new ones missing, for me?
It’s about eyesight. Not incompetence.
Specsavers big idea is that people make awkward mistakes because they can’t see properly. That’s why it’s clever. The human demonstrates the problem and the brand brings a simple solution. But these new ads miss the point for me. No human ever, no matter how blind, would put up a billboard sideways or wrap it over themselves.
I think this makes all the difference because we can’t, as humans, empathise with the human who made the mistake. We can see the gag and smile. But it’s hard to see ourselves in the story. So these ads become funny shouters, not clever connectors.
Great ads draw us in with stories.
Good ideas get people to notice. But great ideas draw us in to the stories they share. They feel human. And it’s a really hard thing to do – that’s why the best ad people are storytellers first – it’s also why there aren’t very many really great ads.
And there’s science in the storytelling too. It’s all about memory. Our brains work to remember things by using ‘mental models’. We shuffle the stuff we see and save it to the system in the folder that makes most sense. That’s why we learn through analogy – and it’s why we remember stuff through stories.
Should’ve gone with humans.
So that’s why I think the latest outdoor from Specsavers missed a trick. I saw them. I liked them and I shuffled them into the system – but they landed in the folder of ‘more funny ads from Specsavers’. But not in the folder of ‘stuff that could happen to me.’
That ad with the guy who helped someone parallel park into the car behind them, that was a human moment. I could see me doing that. I connected with it. The kid with the wrong remote bashing the car with the garage door. I could see me and my son doing that. So I connected. And when I connect as a human, I remember stuff – which is what makes a good ad great, for me.
That’s what I reckon, what do you think?
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