The Kleber Critique
Advertisements permeate our lives – from television and radio (and streaming services, if you don’t happen to be a subscriber) to web pages, eblasts and billboards (yes, they still exist). However, not all advertising is created equal. The following articles share K&As take on the good, the bad and the “uncomfortable” when it comes to ads related to home and building products. All opinions are our own.
What Building Product Brands Can Learn From a Subway Sandwich
Early this year, fast-food chain Subway was hit with a lawsuit alleging that their tuna sandwiches contained no tuna – and, well, no fish at all. While the company was ultimately exonerated, their response provides a lesson in how not to handle...
Change is Hard – Zillow shows in new campaign that they ‘get’ how home buyers feel
The stakes in Real Estate have never been higher. And that’s creating a feverish competition of creative one-upmanship among some key players... including RE/MAX, Rocket Mortgage, and now Zillow. In the old days, the ad wars were reserved for the Madison Avenue...
ADT Redeems Itself
Earlier this year we were highly critical of ADT’s Super Bowl ads, which featured HGTV personalities Adam and Drew Scott (aka “The Property Brothers”). Perhaps we should have held our criticism in abeyance while they rolled out the rest of the campaign. Though we can...
Your Brand is not Your Logo. (Re)branding efforts should focus on substance, not style
Our old friends Sears are in the news again. Having, against all odds, staved off bankruptcy, the venerable challenger home improvement retailer is trying to build a new brand image and distance itself from its troubled past. And what do you do when you want to...
Realtor.com Misses An Opportunity, And We Miss Elizabeth Banks
What was wrong with Elizabeth Banks? It’s a question we find ourselves asking Realtor.com (not that they’d answer) after seeing their new “Unreal” series of ads. If you don’t remember, Realtor.com retained the services of actress Elizabeth Banks to appear in their...
One Home Security Brand Scores During the Super Bowl, and One Doesn’t
Well, another Super Bowl is behind us, and with it are all of the over-thought, dubiously strategic, creative-for-creativity’s-sake commercials. As with every year, the time between the on-field action (such as it was) was filled with gems and duds in almost equal...