Nice announcement ad.

As is par for that course, it has no depth or persuasive value.

Luckily, that was the brief, I guess.

When you think of the great campaigns that have been done for Armies around the world, this isn't one

I don't know if a 'clever' ad is really consistent with the ad's target audience. I'm tipping your average chef thinking of joining the forces ain't much of an intellectual looking to 'get' anything.

It's an ad looking to recruit chefs. Visit the website that is at the bottom... you know the "/careers" address. Simple. What depth or persuasiveness does it need?
Also running at the size it would have, I didn't really think there was anything to get.
If you look headlines of the recruitment ads at the back of B&T they say what? "ART DIRECTOR $$$ NEG"
You assume that now that it's a full size ad it somehow needs to over complicate things?
Look at what Hegarty says about being a good advertising creative. It goes something along the lines of "Being a good advertising creative is about the art of reduction. Removing every thing that complicates the message"
It was an opportunity to cut through and do something interesting. Well done I say.

must be rigged.

I like the Art Direction for the NZ Army campaign.

The runners-up campaign was a hoax. It's an interactive idea for Nicorette; you blow into a microphone and, based on how hard you blow into it i.e your lung power, up comes a visual of your shitty looking or perfect lungs.

Bollocks. We've all known people who are fit who smoke like there's no tomorrow. Further, a tonne of non-smokers would be unfit enough to have a really really low power. According to this, if you're unfit then you're close to dying of cancer, and if you're a heavy smoker but you're fit from jogging or sports or whatever then your lungs are perfect.

So then, it's a bunch of arse isn't it. But that doesn't matter because the creatives are from the hallowed grail of Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiami Ad's Cool
so their work is automatically worth awarding.

Agreed 10.59pm.
"Be the best" ,out of Saatchis UK, captured the motivation behind young army recruits, picked up loads of awards and did so without the formulaic and predictable full bleed pic + tiny logo format that seem to be the sine qua non of creative executions the last few years.

Must have been a dud month.

Well done anyway.

Its a great award book junkie style layout though

'Now recruiting'.

This bird makes doing ads look so effortless. mark of a great creative.

Well done Kate, I like it. It's a refreshing change from someone yelling 0800 ARMY at me from the back of a armored personnel carrier.

If you're raising awareness that the army is after more than just soldiers, then job done. You don't have to be that smart to 'get' that do you 10.59?

9.55, for fuck's sake move on, it's 2008. Well done Kate. Nice ad.

does new zealand have an army?

I love it how ad agencies completely misuse their creative teams on clients. So you have a couple of blokes working on tampons at one agency, you had two of the most humourless women working on an energy drink at another, and now you have a chardonnay drinker who only buys fashion labels working on how to target 18 year old boys. I'm not saying that they can't do it - but surely wouldn't it be easier to give teams who are in the rough demo/socio-graphic the brief instead.

9:16 - I actually thought the lungs idea was pretty cool (when it was done by a kiwi agency for the asthma foundation and was a finalist at One Show this year)

9.37... and a complete arse at another agency who's not doing any work at all and spends his time posting his fuckwitted thinking on this blog.

9:59 - I believe what you're trying to say is that this has been done before.

A hoaxy idea that's been knicked from a major awards show a couple of months back. Great.

But that doesn't matter - they're from Miami Ad School, they're awarded Young Guns and they've PRed themselves on industry blogs. Never mind that the idea is a hoax and been done just a few months ago. Hmmmmmmmmmmm

9.03am What the fuck has time got to do with it? "Be the best" was good, this is not. End of story

strange for young guns to support a visual swopsie.

11.15 you don't get do you? You're an idiot. End of story.

9.27 NZ army is small. Like the Aussie SAS, the Kiwi SAS is world class. A NZ soldier won a Victoria Cross last year. 1st time a VCs been awarded for a while.

I remember when i was a kid playing toy soldiers with my brother saying, "You be the guy kneeling down with a bazooka - i'll be the chef." Ahh, those were the days.

11.15

Note your use of the words - "was" and "is".

Now note my earlier comment - "for fuck's sake move on, it's 2008".

End of story.

that's a toy?

I thought that was the NZ army.

best print for nz army was SAS one, 'class of.....'

that killed it.

THIS IS A SCAM AD!!!

NZ DOESN'T HAVE AN ARMY!!!

You have to be kidding me. More advertising indulgence.

Well done Kate. You're a class act with a big future.

This humdrum (ho-hum?) colour spread is probably a promising start for a youngster entering the ad business. And it was probably the best of a humdrum bunch of other stuff entered into the Young Gun submissions that month. But as an example of good advertising with an idea (let alone a persuasive one) it surely falls short. It is simply the use of the white space principle applied to (army) khaki. And who can fail to "get noticed" with the luxury of a colour DPS anyway? The lone plastic drummer boy is a gimmick of minimalism that is unlikely to singlehandedly lead the target audience into the website, let alone to be all they can be in someone else's oil war. But why not run a focus group with UFC, gangsta rap and gamer fans? Perhaps they'd love it...

I used to be a chef, now I work in advertising.

Oh well. Guess I'm not that smart after all.

every army in the world is recruiting. people already know this. the problem is, no-one wants to join up just so they can get yelled at and made to do stuff.

all this ad says is that the NZ Army is now recruiting, for cooks.

pretty weak. but then, if you campaigned it out it'd probably get on the wall in print/poster at Cannes. which says a lot really.

10.31 back again......about the figurine......it seems I am mistaken...(having only been able to see the enlarged image online).....I thought it was a drummer boy banging a drum, but apparently it's an army mess type chef stirring a pot of plastic stew....do you suppose the target audience spotted the difference?

Maybe being a cook is less scary than being a soldier on the front (firing) line, in which case this ad might pull a few enquiries after all.....which is good -- because if an army marches on its stomach, cooks may well be more important than soldiers...

I like playing with small plastic toy soldiers. Never noticed the mess hall chef though. Brilliant work guys.

A brilliant idea creatively but as far as attracting and motivating the target audience I think it may be ineffective.