Animation and Alcohol?

So Three olives walk into a bar... Oh wait.

Actually, the Three Olives Vodka has a new campaign based off of the old joke about three guys walking into a bar. I think the short advertisements are clever and fun, and really capture the brand's personality. So far, there are three animated clips on YouTube (for now) featuring cowboys, sugar daddies, and sportscasters. I found these videos from a post on AdRants, and though most of the comments on the post and videos were positive, there were quite a few expressing concern about the material and the fact that the ad was animated. Some of the comments were in regards to promoting an alcohol in an animation because it would appeal to children.

Despite this little gripe, the Three Olives website actually won't let you on unless you enter your birthday and are over 21 years old. If you type in a date thats over 21 years ago, you can get in though. Three Olives Vodka is a premium imported vodka from the U.K. and comes in over 15 different fun and colorful flavors, including Bubble(gum), Purple, Dude, Rootbeer and Triple Shot Expresso.

From the article on AdRants, "Explaining the campaign's approach, Proximo (parent company to Three Olives) Senior Vice President of Marketing Elwyn Gladstone said, 'It seems that all the fun has been taken out of vodka with virtually all brands scrambling for the same crowded, so-called 'luxury' positioning. The Three Olives brand is set apart from that stuffy niche because while we're seriously premium, we're also seriously fun.'"

The only problem that I can see with advertising such a fun brand of fruity and exotic flavors with little cartoons is that, yes, kids may be more attracted to it, but they won't be able to purchase it until they are 21 years old and I would say that the use of the videos to advertise the drink should be very successful to adults who want to go out and have fun when they drink.

Here are the links to the three animations.

Three Cowboys walk into a bar...

Three Sugar Daddies walk into a bar...

Three Sportscasters walk into a bar...

What do you think about Three Olives Vodka advertising with animations?

So Clever.

First of all I would like to start by saying that I LOVE SmartWater. I love the taste and the bottles and even the label, because it has a little saying on the inside of the bottle.
I can't say that I've really seen any SmartWater commercials or seen too many advertisements, but this YouTube video seems to have taken all the stops. This advertisement is trying to make a viral video, which according to wikipedia, is a video that becomes popular through the process of internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites and e-mails. Generally these viral videos include silly things like dancing babies, little animals, lip-syncing, and sexy hair whips, which is exactly what was included in this commercial. SmartWater uses these little tactics to hopefully create a video that will go viral, giving them massive exposure to promote their product.
I first saw this YouTube video on the blog, AdRants, and I must admit that it was pretty clever for SmartWater to take advantage of the video sharing media. They're also letting the public display their opinions in comments and the video has 26,772 likes and 4,636 dislikes. This kind of made me think about the groundswell and how big of an impact the public as a whole can affect this video and the spread of it, based on whether they like it or not.