Gorilla wins the battle of Rugby World Cup final advertising

Watching the ads during the RWC final reminded me a little of Superbowl Sunday - an enormous sporting occasion that generates enormous TV viewing figures and some very high profile advertisements.

From my entirely unscientific focus group of 10 non-advertising people watching the rugby it was interesting to see what ads people talked about unprompted and what they said.

These were the ads that seemed to cut through and get people talking in South-West London last night:
1. The Silverjet ad - people were amazed that a such a direct "copy and paste ad" could be made (though admittedly the soundtrack had been changed for the final) Everyone remembered the original British Airways ad even though it was from the 1980s. It's a fantastic ad and I guess that the music that helped keep the association so fresh and alive.
2. The Audi R8 "The slowest car we've ever made" - This car-porn ad got every man in the room salivating.
3. Cadbury Gorilla - By far and away the ad that made everyone stop and talk. Most people seemed confused, "I just don't get it," "what does this have to do with chocolate or Cadburys", " But then people started to say how funny they found it,  how everyone they knew was talking about it and about the brilliant parodies and remixes that were on YouTube that kept on being emailed round.

No-one talked about Bravia Bunnies at all. Buying the spot immediately at the end of a World Cup Final for me didn't seem like the smartest decision. Everyone was so exhausted and deflated that they paid no attention at all to the TV. If we'd won, we'd have been  dancing  round celebrating and opening  bottles of  champagne and not  paying attention to the TV. But what do  I know about media buying.

So in Renata's house last night, Gorilla was the clear-cut winner of the RWC commercial break. Not only for the ad itself, but also for the creativity that it inspired in others.

As people unprompted mentioned the brilliant YouTube Gorilla remixes, here are two of my favourites:

Comments

[Charles Frith]

I thought the ads and the buying were exceptional too. Nice roundup Amelia.

[Mikej]

I love the Gorilla ad. Got a friend who works at starcom and they are having a problems because everyone wants to see the long version and they cant afford it. So if you press the red button while the 10sec version is on you can see the full length version. Supposedly doing well already

[Faris]

Hi!

I did a similar dip test - god we're both lame - gorilla did well, Bravia everyone loved, although I did draw attention to it, and everyone thought Silverjet was a BA ad.

Even when I explained they said, so is Silverjet like a subsidiary of BA?

Rock on - see you Weds.

FX

[Amelia]

Usually I prefer not to post about stuff that the rest of the plannersphere are chatting about, but Gorilla does interest me as I initially thought that it was just the "media village" of Soho who liked it, but from chatting with friends even though they say that they don't get it, they are all talking about it and they all call it the Cadburys Gorilla. So something seems to be working!

[Nadiya]

mssocial led me here..and i'm loving the eastenders one gorilla utube...!