Is a kettle boiling a good ad?
So would you watch a kettle boiling? The weekend magazines carriedied an unusual ad.
It was a plain, unbranded address for the url Life is too short.com.au.
When you go to Life is Too Short page you simply see a video of a kettle being put on the ring, coming to the boil and 
being taken off the hob, followed by the message “Life is too short”.
Afterwards, you get offered further videos – one of a jug of water chilling in a fridge. And another of a water filter doing its thing.
Only at the end of each video do you see that the brand behind the product is the Billi home water filter system.
It’s an unusual approach, and a long way from the hard sell one would usually expect when a brand is investing in full pages of Sunday magazines. I see that they’ve also invested in paid search on Google on the phrase “life is too short”.
I suspect that the approach delivers a much smaller number of people to the website than a more traditional ad. But I also suspect that those who do make it get much more fully engaged with the message.
It’s the work of Victorian agency Cornwell Design.
Good stuff.
Tim Burrowes
Linkedin
i’m in two worlds.
on one hand, it’s bold, brave – and very different from usual fanfare (both the press and the vid). On the other hand, the life is too short message was too esoteric and the vid – if you watched the whole damn thing – was the most boring experience of my life despite that that being the point they were trying to make.
User ID not verified.
So that’s what that site was.
I clicked through to the site when someone posted a link watched 10 seconds of it then skipped to the end of the video and when it was still just a kettle I left.
My honest feeling is that this probably won’t work due to the low number of users who would stay through even the first video. I only bothered skipping to the end of it to see if it was branded and thats because I work in the industry.
I’d love to see some post analysis around numbers after the campaign. I just cant imagine the branded message getting enough reach to drive a return for the client.
User ID not verified.
Of course without knowing what the brief or goals are who can say whether or not it will make the client happy.
User ID not verified.
i liked it.
User ID not verified.
joel pearson’s right, it won’t work. the few people who go to the site won’t wait, or will miss the brand message. And there’s nothing that will compel those who see it to act on it – and even if they do the ad doesn’t tell me why i should prefer that brand.
User ID not verified.
Too long. Nice message (not unique, but clear at least) but this should be after about 10 seconds, not 90 seconds! As Joel says, I only looked to the end because I’m in the industry and am being made aware of this campaign through Mumbrella – if I was the average punter, no way – boring as bat poo.
Can Billi please provide their figures that support the ROI on this campaign? I will happily watch a kettle boil if they are favourable!
User ID not verified.
That’s why Designers should stick to Design.
User ID not verified.
They are doing outdoor ads on trams and I looked at it on my iPhone, but hey, no flash. What a waste. #fail
User ID not verified.
I agree with Jodes…Cornwell Design are designers (very good ones too) but they’re not an ad agency. A very clever idea with great production values but probably too clever.
User ID not verified.
Life’s too short to go to a website without purpose. Can only imagine their numbers will be pretty poor. Cornwell should surprise us all with a compelling case study once the numbers are in.
User ID not verified.
Ohh dear, I lasted 14 seconds on the first vid, hmmm sorry guys, but clearly I am either not the target market, as in my life IS too short to spend watching Vids like this and try to work out what the hell it is your trying to tell me…or you just bored me !
User ID not verified.
On one hand this ad is quite clever, I saw it on the side of a tram a few weeks back and found myself driven by the intrigue, needing to know what the site was all about.
In the end I have to admit I was amazed to discover it was an ad for a boring old kettle.
The whole way through I was expecting a big climax, but never even got close to one. It felt a hell of a lot like an awareness campaign for a cause, never would of expected kettles.
User ID not verified.
Tim, you realise that the ads not for kettles right?
User ID not verified.
Awwww Anonymous (3:03pm) … don’t be too harsh about your iPhone being a waste and a fail for not being Flash capable.
User ID not verified.
It’s clearly a clever way to drive interest, but i think it broke a cardinal rule of not giving people a pay-off/reward for watching.
Having just felt duped into wasting 2mins watching a kettle boil, there is no way I’m about to reward the company with any of my money.
I’m going to find another way to wash the bitter taste away!
User ID not verified.
Errr….Maybe the brief was:
Let’s do a really left field, slightly esoteric ad that, due to its being so different then other ads, will get picked up by the media (like Mumbrella) so the ROI will come from the PR results.
User ID not verified.
Interesting and in product messaging and as an idea it’s very strong as it’s true to its USP but here’s where it all goes wrong and as pointed out already a comms agency rather than a design agency would have taken that idea to the next level in customer satisfaction, interaction and reward. Once people land on the site, the campaign idea of; Life is too short could be pushed further to; saving time, here’s what others are doing or what would you like to do? Answer and win – they could have build a whole campaign that pulled people in to participate around that thought – missed opp but at least they had a go
User ID not verified.
It’s a clever way to fail.
User ID not verified.
Hopeless. I looked at it 2 weeks ago and had no idea what it was for until I read this article. Now it has just annoyed me!
User ID not verified.
WOW – in a world where customer attention is scarce and hopefully valued it would be interesting to see how many customers shared and raved about that ad!
User ID not verified.
Snoring. I wanted something like a tropical destination or at least something funny / engaging. Talk about not meeting consumer expectations.
User ID not verified.
We live in age where blip verts are too long. Someone using the 12 times function on their Foxtel IQ have a greater recall of the ads in the breaks than the someone who sits thru the break. I would have throught if your premise was that lifes too short then speeding an ad up too 24x faster would have delivered a better result.
User ID not verified.
Also can anyone who watched all the way through put aside their disappointment and remember who the ad was for.
User ID not verified.
I thought it was clever initially and then disappointing. I saw the FPCs in the Herald and wsa curious so I googled Life is Too Short – only to watch a kettle boil and find out it’s a water system. Which I forgot the name of until I read it again in this post. Clever idea, pity it wasn’t for a travel company or something.
User ID not verified.
Oh, and I also watched about 10 seconds then skipped to the end in case it got interesting. It didn’t.
User ID not verified.
Fail…
User ID not verified.
Claire, you missed a word.
MASSIVE Fail
User ID not verified.
Zip Industries must be LTAO
User ID not verified.
@Lisa, thanks, so I did!!! EPIC could also be used 🙂
User ID not verified.
Well its certainly created some awareness for Billi – so job well done Steve, Kate et al…. R
User ID not verified.