Is the New Joe & the Juice Smoothie Ad Any Good? EP38

Episode 38 Transcript

Welcome to the Marketing Combat Podcast. My name is Jason Donnelly and this beautiful man punching your screen right now, or if you're listening to this in audio, I'll just describe him. He's got a white button -up shirt. He's got a cowboy hat, just a luscious beard. Anyway, he's punching the screen and his name is Chris Kubbernus. Chris, tell us what we're fighting about today. Lush.

Today, I am Chris Kubbernus. Today we're talking about something that I get caught in my beard all the time if I'm not drinking.

Who's drawing a smoothie? Which is like, why are you guys talking about smoothies on the Marketing Combat Podcast? Because we're talking about Joe and the Juice, if you guys know that brand, has been getting a little bit of praise for their latest advertising campaign, advertising their smoothies, advertising the new smoothies that have just dropped. And we'll pop it up here somewhere so you guys can see essentially these ads, which are featuring basically dropped smoothie. Somebody who's dropped a smoothie on the ground.

It's splattered everywhere and it's in different environments and different scenarios. I think it's something we can all relate to. And people are calling it a very interesting, more Gen Z focused because Gen Z, they don't like advertising. That's what they've been telling us. Gen Z, they hate advertising. So you better not advertise like a normal advertiser. You better advertise like somebody else, like your best friend on Instagram. If you don't advertise like your best friend on Instagram, then you're never gonna reach the Gen Z and then your brand will die. That's what they tell us. Is it true? Believe we don't know.

I don't believe them. But anyway, they, Gen Z, they're so fucking special, man. They gotta be advertised to differently than everybody else. That's what I'm reading. That's gonna start a fire right there. That's gonna start a fire. So if you're new here to the Marketing Combat Podcast, what we do is we basically take a marketing topic, fight about it, somebody's for it, somebody's against it. The good thing is that that person who is against it or that person who's for it doesn't know until they get into it. So right now, I'm gonna take the position that this is horrible advertising.

the worst ever, no, it's not the worst ever, but it's bad advertising. Jason's gonna take it, but it is good advertising, and I'm gonna go first and tell you why I think this Joe and the Jewish ad is not great. Here's the thing. Marketing is about desire, desiring something. When you see a Porsche driving down a gravel road or a dirt road in a desert, something like that, you dream about the freedom, you desire the freedom, you desire the feelings that owning that vehicle are going to give you in reality.

It's dream fulfillment, it's wish fulfillment. And the same goes for anything. Like you see some person in a nicely dressed suit, cowboy hat, you see them on the open range, you see them smoking a Marlboro cigarette. You desire that in your life. That's what marketing comes down to.

It comes down to wanting that feeling, wanting that status that that gives you, that idea that it gives you, that thing that comes into your life. For example, if you're advertising some vacuum, some robot vacuum, and the ad would be basically about the freedom that you'd gain in your life, the time saving that you get in your life. And if you do that in a unique and interesting way, then you inspire people to buy your product. Joe and the Juice.

Thinking that Gen Z are so special to advertise to has decided to drop their smoothies on the ground saying just dropped. It's a very easy, know, come on guys, like I get it, I get the pun, like are we doing dad jokes now? But the smoothie on the ground, smoothie does not look fresh, it does not look good, it looks dropped. It doesn't do wish fulfillment, it doesn't do desire, it doesn't make me go aw, I wanna taste that smoothie. No, it may be relatable to a scenario that I've done many, many times and I'm disappointed that I've dropped my smoothie.

but it doesn't make me go, I gotta run out and try that smoothie because it doesn't look good. It shows the product in the bad light. It reminds me of situations that suck, not situations that are good. So it doesn't trigger a dopamine hit in me that I need to go try that smoothie. Joe in the Juice, you convinced me, you persuaded me. It doesn't do any of that. It basically is just like, we wanna do something unique, so we've done something unique. So that's why I think it's bad advertising and everybody in their...

goddamn grandmother in the marketing industry is like, this is such good, like Gen Z advertising, it's like, you guys gotta go back to school, listen to our other episode, you guys gotta go back to school and learn about how actually advertising works, and then we can talk. But yeah, that's my take on it. Jason, tell me why I'm completely an idiot, I'm wrong, and this is the best advertising ever. Chris, we've had a lot of conversations, but you've never been more wrong than you've been on this one, ever.

The biggest thing that's happening right now, forget Gen Z, Gen W, whatever you want to call these people. What do you these people? Anyway, yeah, don't worry about it. Whoever. I think everybody out there has been so inundated with social media, with ads, with television, with all of it, that the second that we see an ad, if it's video, image, text,

in some situations maybe, I don't know. We know it's an ad and we want to get past it. Joe and the Jews did something different because there's no one out there that says, you know what's really gonna be appealing? Someone throwing our drink on the ground. Like in no world does that make sense. But the second you see it, you say, I wonder what that was. You see the cup because it's very prominent in the video. You're like, or the images. You'll see it and you'll say, I relate to that. I understand that.

I've been there. Everything is just feeling very authentic. You don't think that that's an ad. You think it's somebody posting like, I had a shitty day. I dropped my drink, my Joe and the Juice drink, and the day can only get better from here. So I think everything about it is just, it shocks the viewer to say, Joe and the Juice actually, this is them posting this image of their drink on the ground. It disrupts everything. And it's so simple. And I think the best ads out there are the simplest. It's just direct to the point.

You look at it and say, what's going on here? I mean, I do want a smoothie. I do want a coffee. I do want one of their delicious sandwiches. And seeing that ad makes me stop in my tracks instead of another ad. Everybody's seen a smoothie. Everybody's seen a drink in a cup. Fantastic. We haven't seen a drink spilled on the ground unless it's from a friend saying I'm having a bad day, which you immediately want to see, at least personally, I want to see like

You're having a bad day. That sucks. Let me type up a quick, it can only go up from here kind of thing. So I think they're doing great. I think it's amazing. I think it's so simply stupid. So stupidly simple. Either way. Yeah. It makes me want to drink. It makes me want to drink. Does it really make you want a Joe in the juice? Like, let's be real here. Does it really, when you saw that, where you were like, really want anything, he doesn't even have the product name. So you can't even like go find it. I mean, what drinks are going to buy, Jay? Yeah. Chris found this one. I'm going to have one of their iced coffees, but.

It's not even one of the smoothies, but I'm still giving them money. Okay. So you think it's like a knock on the Okay. So like you think, okay, this is a brand that is interesting because of that I'm going to buy. So it's, it's beyond then just the desire for that one item. It's a, it's a knock on effect towards the brand. Okay. The brand is doing cool things. Therefore I'm going to buy. It could be right.

There's a lot of that. think there's a lot of something to be said about, okay, this is not actually a promotional item, promotional advertisement for this drink. This is actually a brand. Yeah, could be. I could see that. It's, it's, mean, well, have you ever seen, I don't know who did it, but hasn't there been car ads where the car was wrecked and it's, they're showing like how safe their cars are. So like the people inside are protected, but the car's messed up and you're going,

I wanna be in that car, cause it's safe if I ever happen to get in a car wreck. If they happen, guys talk to me, let's make them. Like, what feature are we looking at when we drop smoothies? Joe and the Juice has new smoothies. Yeah, okay. True. Good boy. Yeah, we've got new smoothies, my God. Hey guys, Joe and the Juice has smoothies. What do you think of the ad? Do you think it was brilliant, smart, dumb? Is it gonna get you to buy any smoothies? Tell us in the comments, send us an email.

Tell us anything. We just want to hear your voice. Let us know. And just a reminder, this is the Marketing Combat Podcast. I hope that nobody gets, actually I hope you guys get offended. Somebody get offended in the comments. Stick around, listen to the next one and we will see you guys soon. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. That's Joe and I'm the juice. You are the juice. I agree.