Copywriters! Whaddya think of these new Lego ads? Clever? Too Clever? Not Clever?
(click ads, via)
These ads are appearing in magazines on four consecutive pages. I get it, Pereira O'Dell (the ad agency): The copy is attempting to show the limitless mind of a child, and that what that mind is thinking often only makes sense to that child. But. The ads are not enjoyable—reading them made my head hurt.They're lazy. They could have been written in the same scattershot style, and made sense, had a better payoff, which would have been enjoyable. Your comments welcome.
Previous good Lego campaigns: Good • Better • Best.
posted by copyranter @ 8:15 AM
28 Comments:
boring copy. never be boring in a lego ad. and man, they can do stuff for lego and this is what they come up with? the lego ads that won at cannes would pretend they don't know these ads if they'd meet on the street.
the idea isn't that bad, but it lacks closure and a real insight.
i got from it that from a little thing you can build and build and build, all thanks to your imagination... maybe?
You are right. I would keep just the last page, i think it's enough. But, I'm not sure this is the lego brand I've seen before.
I´m of the opposit opinion. I think this copy is awsome. If you´ve ever played with Lego you´ll understand and smile right ahead. At least I did.
Tedius.
I think they're great. It reminds me of being a kid and having a crazy imagination when playing games like Lego. Kudos for the copyrighters to try and bring back long copy in a world of attention spans so short people probably stopped reading this comment halfway thru.
Exactly! Why not make it a single back cover ad instead? Poor execution. I didn't get past the second ad myself.
Who is going to read them? A child?!!
Good. The copy may be a little predictable in its voice and only gives a small relative take away. It does give you a new perspective and feel in the minimal/clean art direction though. The last idea I've seen done before, but it works for lego more or less better.
Good concept, poorly executed. As (almost) always, copy should be shorter. I was bored before I got to the end of the paragraph.
Could've got the same point across in half the space and had room for shot of one of the characters from the paragraph at the end to tie it back into the block at the beginning -- what starts with one block, ends with this awesome creation.
I was a kid, I was imaginative, but, come on, did you really now about Marrakech when you were kid? It's not so believable. And the text is so long. No one is going to read every word and it becomes lazy in the third paragraph. It was just a good idea.
Seen in sequence, they make sense. And seen that way, it's cute. But you get the point 6 words in.
I would have chopped 75 percent of the copy block in each case, placed a visual of each creature in question at the bottom of the page and a kid-sized pile of mixed legos on the bottom of the tabula rasa (I always throw a little latin into feedback. Keeps the art school grads guessing). Finally, I would have continued the bullshit online - by doing a placement in whatever mothering magazine this appeared in driving them and their snot nosed spawn to Facebook where there would be a new set of wonderous creatures placed every month for them to write the story for. Best story for each one gets in the magazine the next month - and vice versa. And then Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram blah blah blah ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem.
I get what it's trying to do, although the copy is just a stream of self-indulgent consciousness.
Could be tightened-up and shorter.
Yeah, I saw these last week. My first thought was 'who the fuck are these marketed at?'
No fun at all. It's aimed at a child, I guess.
A child with an English degree who needs words to stimulate their imagine.
Just miles off the mark. IMO
red, green, blue, yellow blocks - aren't those the microsoft logo colors?
I-)
I like the truth behind it but the copy doesn't make you feel that child-like excitement of how things evolve.
tedious copy. couldn't simplified and been much more effective. 4 is also too many. don't care by the end.
it should also be noted i sucked at playing legos as a child.
Rimowa suitcases have long used the concept line "Every case telles a story".
There are lego ads for children, and then there are lego ads for adults.
I don't like them. I didn't even bother to read the whole copy. It was too tiresome.
Here's a vintage Japanese lego ad. The year is 1970. I love it.
http://oi40.tinypic.com/mrvdbr.jpg
And here's another one, from 1963.
http://oi41.tinypic.com/3163l29.jpg
brilliant!!!! love it!!! made me feel 7 years old again!
Yep, too wordy by far, and the vocabulary and syntax are totally at odds with the childlike, rambling, nonsensical stories. Maybe that's the point, but it's just disorienting, like listening to someone with Wernicke's aphasia.
These ads would have been better if they'd transcribed (bits of) stories told by actual 4-year-olds.
Awful typography. Absolutely terrible.
I was going to say something like
"Kids might talk in a kind of imaginative stream of consciousness but they don't talk in that sort of language and use phrases like "at that moment" and if it sounded like it came out of the mouth of a kid and typeset to look very pompous that might be cool."
But then I read Cath's comment.
Cath's comment was pretty much what I wanted to say, except it was totally dope and the stuff about Wernicke's aphasia sounded pretty funny, although I don't know what Wernicke's aphasia is.
They're boring, lazy, badly set and sadly turn my Lego-loving ways down a notch, which is one of the saddest feelings in a long time.
I think the whole thing would come together nicely if the pay off line came at the end of every ad. that would give it some closure and continuity, giving the ads an obvious common thread.
I'm going to take the less popular opinion and say that I really like them. Yes, the copy isn't enjoyable to read, per se, but I'd say the copy is more of a visual element in this ad. It's not written to inform. It's written to invoke a feeling. When I read it, I see a little kid playing with legos and making explosion sounds. I feel nostalgic. And I think that's the point.
the colours of the voltron lions! and in the right places too - arms and legs
they don't have to be 'clever clever' with a payoff. that's not how kids think. thats how adults think. they're great and invoke stream of conscious kid thinking.
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