Nine’s Panellists Share Their Big Ideas On A “Million Dollar Ad”

The “Million Dollar Ad” panel by Nine’s Big Idea Store featured a series of marketing insiders who provided their insights on what a perfect ad looks like and what the key ingredients are to capture audiences attention.

The panel by Nine was hosted by Liana Dubois, director of powered, who monitored the conversation. Joining her were chief creative officer of The Monkeys, Tara Ford, advertising consultant and founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, Cindy Gallop and the duo behind the highly successful Flyaway campaign for Qantas, Paul Chappell and Josh Whiteman.

The panellists were asked to present a series of advertisements which they thought filed the following criteria: originality, simplicity, strategy, branding, emotion and execution.

Gallop went first, choosing an ad by cheese manufacturer Velveeta, which came with the highly recognisable tagline “la dolce velveeta”. Gallop pointed out that in the ad, “creativity flourished within constraint,” adding that the brand noticed a 13 percent increase in sales since the launch of the campaign.

Tara Ford then took the floor, presenting an ad from Burberry as her ideal, which, as she said, showed confidence through emotion and restraint.

Before coming up with their own choices, Chappell and Whiteman spoke about the Flyaway campaign that they worked on for Qantas, stressing that it was crucial to keep the brand name alive at a time when it was dormant and that the timing of the launch was a key factor.

Whiteman then went on to present his “ideal” ad which was by eBay, citing a single part within it that, as he said “shares a cultural moment, in a time period when social media and the pandemic had separated us more than ever.”

Finally, Chappell selected an ad by tech giant Apple, which was 9-minutes long and was the third of a three-part series. The Brand+Story co-founder supported his choice by saying that the story kept him fully immersed, but that he had also counted over 29 product placements within the ad itself, which is something that only a company such as Apple could pull off.

The panellists then went on to present a number of follow-up ads, coming up with some interesting opinions to back them up. The host, Dubois, also provided her own response, choosing an ad from beer creator James Squire and pondering if this could prove to be a “renaissance for longform writing”, du to the extended length of the ad.

There was also an extended debate about the culture of advertising campaigns, with both Gallop and Ford stressing that the people in the rooms that make decisions about the ads need to be from diverse backgrounds. Gallop also pointed out that one of the most important factors in creating a brave campaign is having the bravery of the people behind it to move forward with it.

Nine’s series of Big Idea Store panels continues today.

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