Ad Review Podcast - The Good, The Bad & the Ugly #1

This week, we’re introducing a new series of content in alignment with our focus on Creative for 2025. We’re reviewing ads we’re seeing in the wild and discussing what we love or hate about them, or even how we’d fix them.

Joe Kim (00:00)

All right, everybody, thanks for joining again on one of our little discussions. Today we're gonna start a new series that we're gonna call the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Basically, first of all, I watch too many Westerns and secondly, being in the ad business, we see a lot of ads and also as, I'm probably gonna cut this part.

John (00:08)

Thank

Joe Kim (00:27)

As users of social media, as well as advertisers, we see quite a bit of ads as well as make quite a few of them. So, you know, just in our personal lives, we come across all kinds of wacky ads, some are good, some are bad, and some are fucking shit terrible. So we thought we'd kind of take some time to discuss what makes a good ad and kind of just review all of these different ads that we see.

and hopefully you as a listener can take that and kind of learn to make great ads for yourself as well. the first one we're going to start with is something that I actually considered thought was a great ad in terms of just kind of communication. So, you know, what we like to see in

an ad is really clear value propositions. What are you selling me? What is the value proposition? What the heck is it that you're doing? Right. So, let's pull this guy up.

Yeah.

So this is the ad. We're just gonna take a quick look at it, because it's nice and short.

John (01:43)

.

Joe Kim (02:00)

So yeah, mean, like, it's really straightforward, right? It's a chart phone charging cable that cleans

up after itself. mean, John, Corey, there's no confusion with you guys on that,

John (02:14)

No, not at all. mean, it's a super clean ad for product that is meant to clean up your desktop or car console, wherever you use it. It is really straightforward. It's like it's a simple product, brilliant product, and they aren't trying to hit you with a bunch of

technical features and value propositions. It is just visually showing you the value proposition of how easy it functions, how it functions just like a regular cord without the mess. And there's no confusion as to what the product is. It's a really clean, nice ad.

Joe Kim (02:56)

Yeah. Corey, what are your thoughts? Do you see anything kind of interesting going on in there?

Corey Grant (03:01)

It solves a pretty good problem. I know when I got my new phone got a new charge cable in my car and Yeah, it's all over the place. I try and wrap it around the four-wheel drive stick and stuff to keep it at bay and I think Yeah, it's a it solves a good problem and it's cool for them Well, just money wise

Joe Kim (03:15)

yeah, yeah, I do that too. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think it shows the

solving of that problem like really easily, right? Because we've got shots of like this tangled mess of cables. And then of course, you've got like the, you know, nicely coiled up, you know, cable. identifying the problem, showing that your problem solves, that your product or service solves that problem really concisely and just like no BS, right? Messy cable, not messy cable, that will be $25, please, right?

Corey Grant (03:31)

Mm-hmm.

John (03:52)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Kim (03:53)

Really

simple.

Corey Grant (03:55)

Easy execution for them.

Joe Kim (03:57)

For sure. Yep. I don't know any thoughts.

John (03:59)

They also, one other thing.

Joe Kim (04:01)

What can we? Sorry, go ahead, John.

John (04:04)

I was just going to say one other thing is they didn't clutter the video with a bunch of text overlays or any fancy graphics or anything. It was just really straightforward. This is what the product looks like. This is how it functions. It has one main value proposition of keeping your desktop clean while fulfilling its actual function. So they didn't do any logos or text call outs or anything like that. Like really simple.

Joe Kim (04:11)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think what makes that a great ad, just simple, clear communication. Don't overthink it. All right. Now let's go to an ad that I think is...

John (04:39)

Mm.

Joe Kim (04:49)

Kind of bad.

So let me share my screen again.

And there it is.

The product in question is this guy here. it's a magnetic. God damn it.

John (05:11)

Joe, you're not sharing anything.

Joe Kim (05:19)

Okay, so the product question is this little guy here. And it's like this magnetic thing that you slap onto the side of your car. And it just kind of provides like a touch point for you to lean stuff up against your car. Now, here's the thing. Well, let's get your guys's feedback. What do you what do you think so far?

John (05:46)

It's confusing at first glance. certainly would have no idea what this was trying to show. I mean, I would think that it was a ski ad. And really, like, I see what they did with the muted colors, with the product being like the clear black strip and everything else dulled down. But it, yeah, but

Joe Kim (06:10)

I didn't even notice that.

John (06:13)

Everything else in it, there's just way too much going on. Cause your eye is drawn up to the ski hill. It's drawn to the rest of the parking lot. It's drawn to the skis. It's drawn to everything else on that truck. I mean, it's not clear what this ad is for and the image is just entirely too cluttered.

Joe Kim (06:33)

Yep. Yep. Corey, any thoughts or anything to add?

Corey Grant (06:34)

I

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with John. And I think maybe video for this would be better to translate what it is.

Joe Kim (06:46)

Yep, yep. And

for this product specifically, I have seen their video ads. And the video ads are fantastic, right? So you know, here's props to rig strips, they their other ads are good. This one is just kind of on the the confusing side. I think conversely, I mean, they're kind of doing a good job of showing what the product does. Although it just takes you a minute to figure out what the heck is going on.

And then of course within the context of social media, you don't have that luxury of the customer, you know, spending the time to investigate your ad and like, what is that? And right there, they're to scroll right past it and you're, and you're not going to get the click. So with that context, it's really important to communicate clearly. And you know, this ad doesn't quite do it. Now the thing. I was going to say, now I guess.

John (07:29)

Thank

If they did something, I'll go ahead, Joe.

Joe Kim (07:44)

you know, I would give this ad maybe a C, C minus rating. And the kind of the only thing that saves it is a copy. Because if you click into the copy here, it explains what the product is. And so you're like, okay, that's what it is. We click through and figure it out. Sorry, you were saying

John (08:03)

Well, I was just going to say like, if, if an advertiser is in the situation of, know, wanting to run a static image ad and not having great photography, which I would say this is not great photography. What you could do to save an ad like this is bring in more branding elements and even a text overlay saying like what the problem is. Like if you put, what's the name of the rig strips? Like if you did a rig strips logo, like up

above over the ski hill. that would serve like double purpose of cleaning up the image and getting the branding hit on there. And also kind of focusing the mind of the user on okay, rig strip, I must be looking for some sort of strip that you put on your rig. there it is. And you could also, you know, even take it a level deeper than that. And just like, just a brief one liner of what this product is like.

Joe Kim (08:33)

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

John (09:00)

you know, protection for your rig or something, just like a byline or something underneath. So put the logo at the top, byline underneath, it instantly cleans up a lot of the clutter in the ad, tells you what the product is a lot clearer, and also would frame the product really nice too, like right in the center.

Joe Kim (09:21)

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I mean, if you had to use this image, you could potentially save it with some design elements and copy for sure.

Corey Grant (09:31)

And with that, was thinking about you could, it goes back to the planning process where you're to make photos. So before you like the pre-production of things, before you go out, we're going to need a few vertical images for Instagram ads. So to reconfigure this image, do it in a different spot that maybe isn't a crowded, like the end of the parking lot that maybe isn't so crowded.

Joe Kim (09:40)

Mm-hmm.

Yup, yup.

Corey Grant (10:01)

don't have the grill down in the background on the tailgate. Maybe take the strip or take the boards off the side of the rack. Take the spare tire off. Only have one pair of skis and for an ad like this, maybe a slightly closer up image that shows all the strips would maybe just one pair of skis. And then it and then you could have the logo front and center like at some point in the image and maybe.

John (10:04)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Kim (10:05)

Yup, yup.

Corey Grant (10:29)

then you don't have to use the logo like John was saying, but then you could put a tagline that says like, protect your paint or quit leaning your skis on your paint or something like that.

Joe Kim (10:41)

Yeah, yeah. And then if we're going to compare this to the previous video ad, right, this kind of shows the product in kind of its solution state. You know, conversely, it's like if you don't have one of these, your skis are going to be laying all over the parking lot, which of course I've done. So I think I understand the problem that it's trying to solve, but we're just kind of not communicating that amazingly.

Corey Grant (11:03)

or even splitting it and having like half of the image being the top half with the strip and a pair of skis. And it's protecting the paint and then another one showing a ski laying up a bear, even the same vehicle, just the bare paint.

John (11:03)

Mm-mm.

Joe Kim (11:20)

Yep, yep, absolutely. Okay. Cool. Yeah, this one's also pretty straightforward. And, you know, again, I kind of give it a C rating probably from the 106 likes, apparently people are clicking on it. So maybe it's working on retargeting. But yeah, it certainly does. Yeah.

Corey Grant (11:39)

It does solve a problem.

Joe Kim (11:45)

Okay, let's move on to what I think is a godawful ad. So this is an ad that I found on Twitter. Let's start with you. What's your opinion here?

John (12:03)

Let me take a look. First of all, it's just got a lot going on. You've got a title and headline. have, at least for a static image ad, you have a lot of text and you have a CTA. And then you have an image that, I mean, I guess this person.

Joe Kim (12:27)

John for the folks

in the cheap seats with the CTA.

John (12:31)

CTA is call to action. the learn more box there. then, exactly, exactly. And then the image of the gentleman there who I suppose is supposed to be, you know, an employee or somebody who would provide this service. I don't know. That's very, very confusing. And the other thing, you know, the headline at the top enable robust security without sacrificing performance.

Joe Kim (12:35)

Right, which you can't even click on.

John (13:00)

and connect and protect without compromising performance with a security first AI powered network. I have no idea what this service is clearly at security. What is this security for? Is it security for your home? Is it security for an online network, your personal data? Like what, what are they selling security for?

Joe Kim (13:09)

Right, right.

Yeah.

John (13:26)

There's just way too much going on and the message is confusing and it tells you next to nothing about the product or service.

Joe Kim (13:34)

Yeah, absolutely. you know, conversely, comparing against the other two ads that we saw, like, I remember, I, the reason that I pulled this one up is because when I saw it in my feed, I immediately said, What the hell are you selling? I don't even know. I mean, it's possible that if I mean, HPE green, like maybe that's, there's some kind of like industry acronym. So if you target this really narrowly to a certain

John (13:48)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Kim (14:06)

like industry, maybe. But yeah, again, I don't know what the hell you're selling. And if it is like super, super industry specific, then your targeting is probably bad. Because why did I get this ad? So yeah, there's just there's a lot there. Corey, you got anything to add?

Corey Grant (14:27)

got the AI buzzword again here.

John (14:30)

Mm-hmm.

Corey Grant (14:33)

Yeah, I agree. No idea what it's for.

Joe Kim (14:37)

from edge to cloud. So they got the cloud computing, the old buzzword in there.

John (14:42)

Okay, but that does kind of clear up a little bit more of what this security is for. But then again, that is what would that be in an X ad, Joe? Would that just be like the description?

Joe Kim (14:56)

that bit? Man, I don't know where.

John (15:01)

Or maybe that's just something. Yeah, well, if that's built into the image, I could go on about that too. It's it.

Joe Kim (15:01)

I think that's on the ad.

I mean, it's just like

a generic brown guy. So he ain't for diversity. like, I mean, like, who, who is he? Why? Why is he smiling? Like, is he your security guy? I don't know. But

John (15:27)

Yeah, there's, it's just not informative and it's, it's way too busy. It's almost like they had no creative ideas, no way to tell the story about their service or brand. So they did, you know, what, what most people would do and just kind of word vomit a lot of stuff onto an ad and say like, well, we gave them a lot of information here and there's nothing on there that makes me want to click to find out more.

Joe Kim (15:50)

Yeah.

John (15:57)

It's just a bit too much going on.

Joe Kim (16:02)

Okay, all right. So let's, let's try to be constructive here. Like, how would we fix this? I mean, maybe we should figure out what the heck it is that they do first. Let's go to H is hpe.com.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Okay.

John (16:19)

Wow,

it's Hewlett Packard. Okay.

Corey Grant (16:23)

Interesting.

Joe Kim (16:29)

I mean, it's computer stuff.

HPE Greenlink. Alright, let's click on this. Let's figure out what they're selling.

It brings the cloud experience to all of your IT, unlike private public cloud.

deploy and manage resources across your private and public clouds while retaining control of your data. Okay. So this seems like some kind of enterprise like.

Corey Grant (17:01)

encryption.

Joe Kim (17:03)

network security thing, right? So

I don't know too much about this kind of thing anymore.

They're using AI. I don't know if I would even bother with that. It's such a buzzword these days.

John (17:30)

It is a buzzword, but if it's a key feature of the product.

Joe Kim (17:30)

I mean it.

Yeah, that's fair. I mean, if you just said like hybrid cloud network solution, I think I mean, there's a lot of buzzwords in there too. But I think your target market would probably understand that. And you wouldn't be just like, what is your product at all?

John (17:47)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, I would just narrow this down to just cloud network security or your cloud network security solution. I mean, just make it really clear what it is. And again, this is a good instance where I would argue for a little bit more text in the image itself because, you know, there's really no way to just visually show a product like this.

Joe Kim (18:25)

Yep, yep. Yeah. And to give them a little bit of credit, it is really difficult to communicate clearly about really technical like B2B products with, you know, features that are complicated.

John (18:37)

you

Joe Kim (18:45)

But, I mean...

It takes a little bit more work, but something like protect your data with HPE Greenlight.

John (18:55)

Mm-hmm. There you go.

Joe Kim (18:57)

Right? Exactly. Yeah, explain this to me like I'm five years old, because I mean, frankly, like, when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm not that technical. So I might as well be a five year old. But yeah, really kind of like simplifying, talking about, you know, we're always talking about the quarter inch hole, not the quarter inch drill bit, right? So what is what am I going to receive as the benefit from the product or service?

Corey Grant (18:59)

Tell me like I'm five.

Joe Kim (19:26)

Yeah, and just kind of keeping things focused out.

Corey Grant (19:30)

That lower line of copy in that image that almost looked like a pop-up text, that text should have maybe been put into the body of the ad itself.

Joe Kim (19:39)

Probably at the top. Yeah.

John (19:40)

Yeah,

Joe Kim (19:41)

Yeah. Cause I think your target market for something like this kind of knows what cloud computing is. So you could say something to the extent of like, secure your cloud computing infrastructure. Right. And like, okay. If that's a cloud computing thing, you know, I, as a lay person would look at that be like, that's not for me. Goodbye. Whereas

John (19:42)

if I had the

Mm-hmm.

Joe Kim (20:04)

you someone who's like an IT admin would look at that and be like, that's for me. Let me go click on this ad. So, yeah, Johnny, you anything to add?

John (20:15)

I don't think so. I think that pretty much covers it.

Joe Kim (20:18)

Okay. Well, yeah, I think this is our first crack at this kind of content. If you liked the discussion and had some fun with us, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. And then we're going to try to do this about once a month. thanks for joining in and see you next time.