Saffary Zone

U-Haul is the kind of brand that everyone knows but rarely remembers in day-to-day life. Apple? Samsung? No matter what you’re doing, you remember it and will probably see them mentioned once a day as well as likely using one of their products. U-Haul? The only time most people really remember it is when they need to move or see one of their trucks driving on by. It’s a big brand, but not one people will normally think of when talking about anything beyond moving. The brand image it creates is still one that many are familiar with: it presents itself as a reliable help for all your moving needs, and it will be there for one’s most important points in their lives. Their brand image is of a company that is there for the long haul, and it capitalizes on one’s emotions to further cement that point. Let’s take their 2020 ad for U-Haul Moving Help, an ad that seeks to promote a service where they send movers to help people during their moves. The ad appeals to one’s emotions by showing significant stages in life from the first few seconds that they can help with. For example, moving after getting a new promotion, trying to get closer to one’s family (showing two grandparents video calling their excited grandkids), etc. The ad then shows that U-Haul movers are going to be there for just about any move and take care of any need. When a couple of the characters in the ad ask their friends/family at a barbeque for help for their move, they end up being unable to find help, albeit it’s portrayed a bit comedically. Here is where the U-Haul movers help, willing to help with moves across the country and provide extra muscle, all with apparently a smile on their face. The ad presents them as even more reliable than one’s family and friends, and definitely in it for the long haul. Usually I’d be the type to say that the ad is a bit sappy or over-enthusiastic for what the product actually is, but as someone who recently needed the help of a mover and who’s done moves without any help before… A good mover can make the difference between a fun move with your uncle and complete and utter agony that even mountain lions and black widows in and around your house couldn’t make you less reluctant to move again. If that sounds like hyperbole, let me just say: it isn’t. A good mover managed to do a solid 3 hours of work in 1 when I helped my uncle move a few weeks ago. It took my stepdad and I weeks to move our family’s stuff on our own, and I was much more in shape back then. It was absolutely horrible, to the point that even after two instances of seeing mountain lions in the street in front of our house and dozens of black widows across the house, I was still very reluctant to go through that process again. So whether the ad deserves to portray itself as helpful, necessary, reliable, and “grand” as it is, I actually have to agree.

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To be quite honest, the Google Pixel 7 ad for this year’s Super Bowl is one of the only ads I have seen that I have found enjoyable since before the pandemic started. There are plenty of other ads out there for the google pixel, many of which I have seen in the past and was underwhelmed by. The Super Bowl ad this year is honestly the only reason I would ever consider switching from my current phone (whenever its run is over) to a Pixel. This ad focuses primarily on the premise of editing out mistakes and unblurring photos taken with the phone. This isn’t the only ad put out by Google focusing on this concept or promoting it in this life, but this is by far the one that does the best job of it. There are two main reasons why this ad works so well, the fact they bounce off one another so well is partially a third reason for its success. The first is the fact this ad is one of the few recent ads that is not just comedic in a way that actually gets a laugh from a viewer, but is consistently able to do so over several jokes. Most ads you see on, say, YouTube, attempt to achieve some level of comedy, but only surface level, and if successful usually only are because of one joke. This ad pulls off multiple jokes along its run time well, my favorite bit being the cat editing dogs out of one of its pictures. Maybe it’s a bit corny, but that one got a good laugh out of me. The second thing that works with this ad is its choice of music and how well it’s edited into the video, as not only is it a damn good song, but every note also syncs up with the comedic beats due to the skilled editing behind it. This editing enhances the comedic and musical aspects of the ad, making it a great example of how to do an effective ad simply. Well, excluding the celebrity cameos, which obviously do bring a lot of publicity for this. In my opinion, it could have stood alone as a great ad even without them, but more publicity can never hurt.