Bitter sweet

You can almost hear a medical director's objection to this ad: "What do our patch and gum have to do with reproduction?" But what I like about this ad is that it made me laugh; it over-dramatises what the product actually does and makes something quite dull seem exciting. The message is simple and single minded. I applaud the marketer who sold this internally and the agency that suggested it to the client in the first place.

 Conceived without interference

If I were working at the agency that produced this ad, I would be really proud of the copy 'For lungfuls of life'. It is a great proposition for creatives to work with and the image is an interesting way of showing a patient going about normal activities, but I feel there may have been too much intervention on the copy front. Maybe someone asked for a stronger call to action in the headline and that all the key messages be shoehorned in. This has had a detrimental effect on the art direction. Leaving the headline alone would have made for a stronger ad.

Has lack of confidence written all over it

This ad is really quirky and engaging. The illustrative style reminds me of Virgin's in-flight safety video, which has to be a good thing. What I like about it is its single-mindedness in telling us to trust Stamaril because it's been around for ages. The ad itself hasn't been cluttered with extraneous information, such as safety data or the numbers of patients that have received the vaccine. The art direction is excellent — even the fact that there are three logos to negotiate doesn't affect the flow of the ad.

Immune from interference

When I initially saw this ad my first thought was: "Why haven't pharma companies stopped using animals in their ads?" But on closer inspection I wondered if this ad needs to say or do any more than it already does. The visual gets across the feeling of an annoying itch and the ad isn't over complicated by unnecessary copy. In this instance it feels like the client trusted their agency enough to run with a simple concept. While the ad isn't groundbreaking and the agency might have pushed the client more, it could have turned out so much worse.

The agency could have stratched below the surface

Where do you look first in this ad? There is so much going on. The headline: 'Because they rarely have an empty stomach' is good — it shows a key patient insight as well as lets you know the brand's benefit — but all the other copy could go. Why say "we keep it simple", when it would be stronger just to show it by creating a simple ad? In this case, I would actually be the one getting out my red pen: the body copy just repeats what is already elsewhere in the ad and that awful clip art burger meal adds nothing but clutter to the page. I presume that the art direction is following some tortuous branding guidelines; why else would you overcomplicate an ad that could be so simple?

Did the client help to make a real meal of this one?