The Ads of X-Factor (Live Week 2)

After the excitement and big name ad launches of the first live show all marketing eyes were on the commercials of the second week to see if they could produce the same level of buzz - whilst last week’s big success Yeo Valley did return their decision to run just a shorter version of the same advert was a little disappointing but perhaps we were expecting too much from an advertising campaign?

Grabbing the attention on Twitter this week was the above advert for Cadbury Chocolate Fingers, just one of two adverts the chocolate giant launched in the break alongside one for Dairy Milk Bliss - it’s fair to say that the two, combined with contestant Rebecca’s purple dress, had a lot of people talking chocolate.

Slightly biased brand loyalty aside it was also great to see a quirky new advert from Argos (the catalogue shop) - lining themselves up for Christmas with a brilliant reinvention of a classic Bing Crosby moment. It has to be said though the tie in to Argos itself did feel a little tagged on at the end?

The Ads of X-Factor (Live Week 1)

Here in the UK the current season of X-Factor is as close as we get to a ‘Superbowl’ style moment for advertisers to get their messages across to the entire country. With ratings for this season higher than ever (buoyed by a little bit of controversy) all eyes are on the famous singing stage, and the breaks that come between them.

Last night was no exception, with several brands using the show to launch new campaigns - first up, and with the audacity to buy nearly an entire advert break to premiere their rapping farmers, was Yeo Valley (featured above).

The dairy brand’s advert fitted in well with the musical theme of the night and certainly stood out from the crowd - what the advert really highlighted was the power of social media to amplify the impact of a high profile showing. Saturday night on Twitter pretty much belongs to the #xfactor but for most of the night it was ‘Yeo Valley’ and not a reference to the show itself which topped Twitter’s trending topics world wide. To their credit their team was well prepared with a well designed ‘Yeo Tube’ channel for those looking for more content and crucially Twitter and Facebook accounts which were very active and conversational throughout the night. Of course not everyone liked it, but it certainly got people talking - we’re hoping to catch up with the team behind it later in the week.

Our other pick from the bunch was a new one from Ikea: “You’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties”. Another musical approach which did a good job of showcasing the firm’s kitchens, the biggest surprise was probably more that the Swedish furniture giant was launching a whole new campaign just a month after they premiered their ‘cats’ advert. Again the advert got picked up and discussed on Twitter but no way near to the extent that Yeo Valley did.

And just like that the show’s launched and the gauntlet’s been set - which advertisers will step up to the plate next week? With an ongoing X-Factor ticket offer running on the Yeo Valley site it may be that they return to our screens quite soon!