Putting strategy in the right place.

There's an old advertising expression that's rather pejorative. It goes something like, "pardon me, your strategy's showing."

I half agree with that sentiment. But, my other half vehemently disagrees.

Yes, strategy should serve as a jumping off point and no, it should not be interpreted so literally that delivering against it is at the sacrifice of engaging the audience with emotional, funny, sticky, pretty, cool or interesting stuff. And in most cases, it's a bad idea to write the strategy into the copy, but that doesn't mean it can't be done organically and be effective.

Here's my rule of thumb - in its final form, if the insight that inspired the brief in the first place isn't baked in sufficiently; if the very people for whom the ad was created don't see stimuli (ad) that resonates because it reflects the insight (presumably, their's) that got it there in the first place, then it's a miss. It might still be funny, pretty, cool, current or interesting, but it's probably not as powerful or resonate as it might be if it had all that plus a reflection or a refraction of said insight.

Enough philosophy, let's get on to the ad. This spot from Wilson uses Roger Federer to promote its BLX racquets.

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Not the best commercial ever produced, but a very clear, differentiated product proposition and a solid insight about how tennis players rely on equipment to play the sport.

The insight is about feeling. In tennis, what you feel when the ball hits the racquet is critical to your return, thus critical to your success with the match. If your hand goes numb from the racquet's vibration, that's bad. If you feel nothing at all, that's equally bad. Feeling is key.

The use of the therapist couch on the tennis court to illustrate the dual meaning of "feeling" is effective, as are the multiple mentions of "feeling" throughout. Sure, it's a bit corny, but it's unlikely to be missed or forgotten.

I'm also impressed they paid for Federer, used him to get attention and establish credibility, but then dedicated the rest of the spot to driving home on the product benefit in a memorable way. An alternate approach would've been 40 seconds of Federer slamming the ball around the court followed by a 5 second product plug. That would have been far less effective.

I'm not sure it's grand, but this is a good slam ON STRATEGY.