This week will mark the first Ad of the Week winner based on a new award criteria. For some time now, we’ve been awarding Ad of the Week and subsequently Ads of the Quarter and Year based on the highest Ace Score for a given period. Exceptional creative certainly is evidenced by high Ace Scores. That being said, exceptional creative is also relative to the category it competes within. There are inherent biases in many categories that result in lower scores on average. To produce an ad that stands apart from all others is the mark of great creative. Therefore, our Ads of the Week will now reflect the advertisement to have earned the largest percentage gap from the categories’ 12-month norm.
And what better way to top off the week, than with Reddi-Wip’s Whipped Topping. Continuing the trend of health-conscious Ad of the Week winners, Reddi-Wip’s “Work It :30” scored 16% higher than the 12-month category norm of 544, the highest for the week of May 18-24, 2013 (Ace Score: 631). The ad features two women after a grueling workout putting Reddi-Wip on a bowl of strawberries, explaining that it only has 15 calories per serving. This is the second Staples category ad on the Ad of the Week list (Cool Whip Frosting’s “Mistreated and Hurt” won Ad of the Quarter) and the sixth health-themed AOTW winner in 2013 alone. In terms of component scores, this spot earned high Information, Relevance and Desire scores.
“Work It :30” skewed older female, and the overall female score was 17% higher than males and 25% higher than the current 90 day category norm.
Though the ad clearly appealed more to women, men still heard the main message and found the ad to be informative. In fact, Males 36-49 were the top demographic to use the word “informative” in the optional verbatim comments.
More than ever, an increasing amount of advertisers are focusing on low-calorie options or healthy lifestyle changes. As we discussed in our previous AOTW blog post, many Restaurant & QSR, Packaged Foods and Candies & Snacks brands have been successful with this health strategy, scoring high with all demographic groups. It’s only a matter of time before more brands jump on the bandwagon.
To watch this year’s winning Ads of the Week by Category Overachievers, click here.
Interestingly, based on Ace Score alone, Frigidaire’s “Legendary Innovations” and TGI Friday’s “Rockin’ Jack” would have nudged out Reddi-Wip by just one point; both ads scored a 632. Frigidaire’s ad has a similar look and feel to their 2012 ad “History of Innovation,” which rose to the top of our Ad of the Year list (8.6% above 12-month Appliance category norm).
TGI Friday’s would have tied for first place with an ad that takes on the standard Casual Dining format, featuring a juicy Jack Daniels burger and skewers (8% above 12-month Restaurant norm).
To watch this year’s winning Ads of the Week by Ace Score, click here.
