Ads you need to hear - not just see

Ad films are meant to be highly engaging. Created to make people lean in and and avoid that skip button or resist the temptation of thumb scrolling to the next video on Facebook or Instagram that most often - automatically play.

Agencies hire creative talent that understand the power of human emotions and can create films that make ads memorable, and brands recognizable - and most importantly - are able to tell amazing stories in less than 90 seconds. 

Storytelling is an art. We've consumed so many great stories that have an amazing cast, a beautiful and engaging script, a highly reputed director, music that play to the beats of our heart - matching tempo to the emotion conveyed, peaking at the right times, and so many other smaller yet significant intricate things that come together to make us feel something. 

There are millions of such amazing campaigns where all of this can be easily demonstrated. 

But how often have we seen a film that does all that with just typography and sound design?

In 2012-14, creating infographic videos was a big thing, and using kinetic typography was sort of a trend. But it was mostly used in highlighting a case study, or sales AVs. In fact, I remember being a fan of the V for Vendetta one, where the famous speech is made 


What you'll notice is that the typography and the voice over are the same. In essence, the typography is a way to animate the otherwise dull video and highlight key points that the creator wants you to focus on.

I was amazed how some campaigns have managed to really go all out and use typography in a completely different way. I've managed to find just a few examples, but they are top notch.

GOOGLE

The first one that I ever came across and instantly fell in love with was this one; where a story is being said just by typing for something and searching for something. It's the award winning, super bowl ad by Google in 2010 titled "Parisian Love".



It was a benchmark film on how a simple seemingly dull product demo film could also be transformed into a brilliant ad.

Google in fact followed it up by the Super Bowl ad in 2020 titled Loretta. You'll notice that the background score in both are the same. 



They used ambient sound and sound effects to make you feel that there's an action taking place (sound of the flight, the church bells etc). 

It's an amazing demonstration how a product's features can be integrated into an engaging story.

You felt what the protagonists felt. All by just seeing what one was typing and hearing the things the other is asking the Assistant to remember.

NEW YORK TIMES

The second brand that I saw pull this off in a completely fresh way was Droga5's campaign for New York Times titled "The Truth is Hard."

The first film they did was in 2017, which won 2 Gold Lions at Cannes.

The objective of the campaign was to get people to subscribe to the NYT. What better way to get people to do so, than using real life stories of the extents that journalists go to uncover the truth.

The brand went on to do 3 more campaigns - each using typography and showcasing the brand's commitment to unravel the truth and hold people in power accountable. 


 The one above was an elegant way to bring to light the #metoo movement that rocked the world.

They followed it up in 2019 with a series of films titled The Truth is Worth It. The one below was titled Fearlessness



This time - they wanted readers to really feel what the journalists were feeling - while they are chasing a story. It makes us go into the minds of these journalists. 

The words are words that the journalists wrote. The footages are the ones they took. The end slate is the final story that the journalist wrote.

The more recent one they did was "The Truth is Essential"


The sound of the typing really make you feel the frustration. At a time when the President of the USA is making statements that consuming bleach could cure you of the virus or even dismiss the virus as a hoax - this film really wanted to throw light on the urgency and important of the truth. 

The next campaign was in the same lines but was a showcase of the news that people were reading and needed during the lockdown. In a time of confusion, there's nothing more essential than the truth.




For the first time - there was a background score and with a perfect tempo to keep the viewing experience alive. 

Why do we not see this often?

This format, while looks easy - is really hard to pull off when trying to incite an emotion. 

I've never seen this format put to use in any of the campaigns in India. In fact, the only one I remember seeing was more like the kinetic typography example - where the typography replicated the voice over.

And in a country that prides in so many languages - and at a time when regional language is helping drive and consume regional content - it's shocking that no vernacular version of this too has been done.

Is it because we almost always target millennials who aren't comfortable reading their mother tongue so quickly?


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