I've long believed that a great agency and client can do a great ad for
even the most unsexy, yet useful, product. For proof, feast your
eyes on this ad for Syncsort.
Let's put ourselves in the creators' shoes: how does one dramatize
mainframe data becoming Unix data? Rather than rely on a wing and a
prayer, they turned to metaphors.
We can almost see their thought process at work: Syncsort converts
mainframe data to Unix data. Conversion. Ah, like a quick religious
conversion. OK, so what sort of conversion do people relate to most?
Christian to Jew. Now what would be the most extreme example? Bingo!
Ordinarily we'd advocate more specificity for something this specialized
running in a magazine as general as "Computerworld." But not this time.
Just about everyone who witnesses the transformation of the Pope will zoom
in for a closer look. Readers of computer magazines are hard up for stuff like this.
The body copy carries across the concept superbly. The creators were
wise to let the pictures and headline rule, and not get into a protracted
presentation of product features. One suggestion: use of a good offer as
an incentive to call may raise the response rate. But somehow we don't
expect lead volume to be much of a problem on this one.
Will this ad offend anyone? You betcha, but so what? I'm the great-great
grandson of a rabbi and I think this thing's a riot. The secondary spin
may be worth a hell of a lot more than the bad will from a few vocal
non-buyers who have nothing but time on their hands. We applaud the client
and agency for having the courage to run one of the most arresting
conceptual software ads we've seen in some time.
Robert Rosenthal
