​Clever Creative: Turf-ic Green Screens

In today’s technology-driven society, why would you film at an actual location when you can do it in a nice air-conditioned warehouse covered in green screens? The Clever Creative for today is about Scotts Canada and how a well-kept lawn can double as your very own green screen. In this new ad, we see a rock-climber hanging onto the face of a cliff carefully choosing which ledge to place his foot on next. You may expect the ad to be for some sort of sports brand or extreme adventure company, but then the copy appears over the climber and you see mention of Scotts Turf Builder Green Max Lawn Food. This isn’t the only shock of the ad, because the next one comes when the copy reveals that this climber isn’t actually dangling off a cliff, but just laying on his lawn. Check out this turf-ic use of green screen technology in Scotts Canada’s latest ad.

Why our GEMites liked this clever creative:

To state the obvious, the ad is pretty funny. We especially love the ending when the graphics are completely taken off and we’re left with a man in climbing gear just dragging himself around on the lawn. We also love his ad because it had a unique and innovative way of showing the features of a lawn care product. The creative agency behind its inception took to local parks with some guerilla marketing efforts. Every lawn care company says their product will make your grass greener, but how do you prove that? Well, the company fed the lawns of high-traffic areas, like Toronto’s Regent Park, and let the product work its magic. In just a few days, the grass was remarkably greener. Then, the agency went even further by inviting passersby to take photos laying down on the lawn and choose a background to be apply over the grassy green screen. Here are just some of the images:

The ad itself was funny and inventive, but the creative agency behind it insured its success by incorporating another layer to their marketing efforts, which is why we think it’s so turf-ic.

Why our fellow creatives should like this:

Think of every lawn care ad you’ve ever seen, especially the ones for lawn feed. We bet that at some point in that visualization you saw a side-by-side comparison of grass with and without the product. That’s why this ad is so great, because it doesn’t do that. The company took a chance and decided that you don’t need to make comparisons to show how great your lawn feed product is. They think the only way to show the product’s features are to do what people have been doing for years. Take laundry detergents as another example. There are always some visual of the product being applied to stains and showing that the stains came out because of it. Scotts Canada decided to mow down those barriers and create an ad that shows the product’s features in an original way.

We think our fellow creatives should like this ad because it is innovative, and displays that the creatives were willing to take a risk. They realized that almost every lawn care ad looked the same and they chose to do something about it, setting themselves apart in the process. We think all creative people and agencies should take a page from these guys and make sure you don’t box yourselves in. Just because you’re in a certain industry, doesn’t mean you can’t be creative with your advertising, and Scotts Canada certainly proved that.

Let us know what you think, and look out for next week’s installment of Clever Creatives!

If you’re looking for some clever creative of your own, feel free to contact us.

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