Think I better dance now – The Tom Jones effect on advertising

As we catalogue the long slow death of creativity in advertising, it’s always fun to spot trends appearing among the larger advertisers.

This post features some of the latest offenders of ‘Eat / Drink this and you’ll start singing and / or dancing’ craze.

“Why? Why would that happen?”, I ask.
“Just because we can get away with it”, reply the agencies.

And because there are no ideas left. And people like dancing and / or singing. Don’t they? Look how popular Strictly Come X Ice Ballroom Dancing Factor Talent is! People love that stuff. They’ll defo love our advert featuring a random person eating something and dancing and or singing like in those telly programmes.

And so, we are faced with this:


Yep, he ate something and danced.

and another new one for 2014:

Woah, he drank something and danced / skated just like on the Strictly Ice Factor Dancing TV programme. Amazing.

One of the largest shared advertising videos of all time, dancing Evian babies, featured animated babies skating and dancing after drinking water.

Devoid of any new ideas, the’ve rehashed it for 2014:


Be careful when you watch this one, it’s truly awful.

Dancing is a winner, no matter how hackneyed it seems. Here’s the mighty Hugh Jackman (Marvel’s Wolverine) reduced to dancing as he drinks some Lipton Ice Tea.

Be careful what you drink / eat out there people. It may be infected with dancing.

Now, if only all ads featuring a bit of music and dancing could be as clever as this one.

You didn’t have to drink anything, just listen to some actual music provided free with your mobile contract. I get it, it’s easy to understand and beautifully filmed. Played Vodafone.

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