Back To School Ads: A Refresh on an Old Classic

By Chloe, Ayres, Senior Designer

From July to September, every year, we are bombarded by back-to-school ads for new products and sales. Now, as a person who sincerely misses shopping for fresh notebooks and highlighters and all the accouterments of organization, I pay attention to these ads. But, when I sat down to write this blog piece, I honestly could not remember a single one from years past that has stuck out to me.

What does this mean? It means that today’s consumer forgets things easily, and that the back-to-school ad landscape is second only to the holiday shopping landscape in terms of vast expanse and difficulty in your ad emerging as “something different.”

CreativeBloq has identified 5 ads that have done things a little differently this year, and have been successful in making their mark on this year’s class of back-to-school ads.

What is so different about these ads is that they, instead of capitalizing on simply the playfulness of youth, capitalize on the authority of the youth market. By identifying people under 21 who are tastemakers and inventors, and entrepreneurs, these advertisers are acknowledging that young people are not simply consumers, but people who are driving progress and trends.

By tapping into Augmented Reality marketing, these advertisers are confirming that the way that the youth market chooses to interact with the world is shaping the future of advertising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8l4OmpxayA&feature=youtu.be

And, by writing the “adult” figures as the ones without the answers, these advertisers are confirming young people’s suspicions that they do know more than their parents – and what better way to sell to them than that?

To watch all of the spots and read a little bit more about why these ads matter to the future of advertising with children, please click on the link.

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