Lately, Skechers’ high scoring ads have all been singing a similar song—it’s all about comfort. Skechers new Stretch Fit shoe claims to be the yoga pant of footwear, which would make it the perfect shoe for any activity, even if no stretching were involved. The new Skechers ad features Dancing with the Stars sensation Brooke Burke-Charvet and earns the title of Category Overachiever. Meanwhile, Ace Hardware is showing off a product of its own—Valspar Paint—in its new ad to win the title of Highest Ace Score.
The Footwear category includes some stiff competition by way of Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Asics, etc. This last week, Skechers was able to rise above the rivalry, releasing its newest ad “Stretch Fit” which earned an Ace Score of 579, scoring 15% above the 12-month Footwear norm. The ad opens to Brooke Burke-Charvet walking around a farmer’s market, and after she says the new Skechers Stretch Fit shoe is like yoga pants and a pillow for your feet, the shoe sounds almost too good to be true.
While the ad is targeting women, older men still gave the ad above-norm scores. But, of course, women gave the ad the highest scores. Overall, women gave the ad an Ace Score of 609, which is 7% higher than the score men gave it. “Stretch Fit” also skews older, with consumers ages 35-49 awarding the ad a score 13% above the ad’s overall Ace Score. It’s no surprise then that yoga-pant-wearing (presumably) women ages 35-49 gave the ad its highest score, an impressive score of 712.
“Stretch Fit” achieved these impressive marks through communicating a strong, interesting message about its new Stretch Fit shoes. The ad scored particularly well in terms of information, explaining the benefits of the Skechers shoe, resulting in an Information score of 629, 17% above the 90-day norm. The informative description of the shoe made many consumers say, “I want that,” translating into a Desire score 18% above the 90-day Footwear norm.
Of the 323 consumers who opted to leave feedback for “Stretch Fit,” 10% admitted to being a fan of yoga pants and were interested in the prospect of a shoe that could fit that same casual, comfy need. Likewise, 8% of respondents mentioned how “comfortable” the shoes sound—certainly a winning factor when showcasing a new shoe. Burke-Charvet earned her fair share of shout-outs as well with 2% of comments mentioning the dancing star.
Skechers’ much-used combination of celebrities and comfortable shoes can mean big hits or loses depending on who the popular shoe brand choose as its celebrity spokesperson. However, one thing is for sure, consumers love comfortable shoes.
Watch this year’s winning Ads of the Week by Category Overachievers.
Consumers awarded Ace Hardware’s new ad “Best Paint” with the highest Ace Score of all the 122 ads to debut last week. With an Ace Score of 654, “Best Paint” explains the benefits of Valspar Paint, introduces an attractive deal and humors us with two cute chameleons.
With so much to love about the ad—the brand, the deal, the little lizards—consumers were divided as to what was the best thing about the ad, overall. The ad’s steal of a deal—99 cents for a pint of paint—got the highest percentage of consumers’ attention with 17% indicating that was the best thing about “Best Paint.” Otherwise, 15% of consumers equally agreed that the brand, message, characters or product was actually the best part of the ad.
No matter what the actual best thing about the ad was, consumers agreed that the ad was effective—even effective on an emotional level. The ad’s 350 optional verbatims combined to create an Emotional Sentiment score of 73 out of 100, an impressive 26% above Ace Hardware’s Emotional Sentiment norm.
Reading through the verbatims, it’s easy to see the emotional connection consumers have with the ad. Five percent of consumers mentioned that they “love” the ad (or at least they love the color-changing chameleons in the ad). Other consumers found the ad “interesting” (4%) and “informative” (5%), being able to relate to the family’s situation and finding the deal to be attractive.
What’s really interesting about this ad is while there is so much going on between the two featured brands, the deal and the chameleons, consumers didn’t seem to be overwhelmed with what was happening in the 30 seconds of playtime. Ace Hardware managed to fit in all the information it needed while still coming out on top.
