Your target demographic is women. Got it.
Tab Energy. In all actuality, this ad should involve the question, “Do you like to eat a handful of sweet-tarts and wash it down with Robitussin? Then we have an energy drink for you!”
’Fuel to be Fabulous’ would seem to target a more homosexual market but the “deliciously pink drink because women need a different kind of energy” seems fairly specific. Women need energy to rip you a new one when they’re PMSing…or antiquing. Women need the energy to birth your babies and put up with your drunk friends who can’t believe that the Sawks aren’t gonna win another pennant…
Ugh…Being a woman is hard. Where is my TabEnergy? Or at the very least my amazingly smoooove Doc Ad?
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Some say he can make the jump from strategy to execution, skipping the concepting phase entirely. Others think he’s a paid actor who represents a team of experts including a slew of scientists, the military, and a few junior media buyers. Either way, we call him Doc Ad and he’s never looked better.
Well, the vacation is over and I’m back on duty. Everyone should take a couple of months off and just decompress. That’s what Doc Ad does when the stress of diagnosing ads just gets to be a little too much. I mean, come on, professional athletes have an off-season, why shouldn’t I? Anyway, let’s see what we have here…
Tab is back, apparently. Tab is the drink that Mom Ad used to enjoy back in the 70’s when Red Dye #4 was fine and saccharine was a lab rat’s best friend. Tab ran TV spots for years featuring women with gorgeous figures sipping the carbonated cola with a hint of lemon through a red and white striped straw. Tab clearly was targeting women, and that part of the story has not changed. Or at least not too much.
But now, in 2008, Tab has launched an energy drink designed for the ladies: Tab Energy. The tagline is “Fuel to be Fabulous”. $10 says they toyed with “Fabu” at some point in the process. Anyway, when I read this line, I have to think they have broadened their target to include gay men. That tagline almost demands to read aloud with a “girlfriend” lisp for proper emphasis. Try it… see?
So, I’d say the brief on this one is “Women, and men(-with-women-on-the-inside), are running just as hard as men, and want an energy drink that refreshes and revitalizes without dropping their standards of girlie-ness”.
What makes me chuckle is how similar the layout (cropped image, bold headline reversed out over the image) looks like a Miller High Life ad. But this works. The image is cropped so we do not have to see the lovely ladies face making it easy to imagine yourself in that moment. The martini (oddly, not a Cosmo?) and what appears to be a very expensive purse are in spotlight. You can tell the purse is expensive because it looks to be entirely impractical. There is a mathematical formula for determining this, but that’s for another day. And look at the colors in the shots. How many shades of pink can you count? And the headline is humorous.
Now remember, I am a doctor, so, take it from me, I think all humans need the same kind of energy. I don’t think the gals need some special fem-ergy to help get those high heels motoring. I think what the copy is trying to say (without saying it) is that the ladies don’t want to wield a Rockstar, or some other such grotesque tall-boy of a male go-go soda. And that makes sense. You’ve got Virginia Slims. You’ve got the VW Cabrio. You’ve got Sex in the City. The ladies like something that is distinctly their own. And gay men dig it too. So a little plaid pink can and a cute, smaller Tab logo does the trick. But according to most, it still tastes like it was made in a lab.
Doc Ad out.
I love FEM-ergy!!
Now, Tab. Women need a different kind of energy because….
So, I’m a little confused, is Tab Energy Fake, or is it a handbag?
Also, may I say, the one time I tried Tab Engery, I was suprised to find that the liquid itself is almost pink (a little more red, but still). I really hadn’t expected that.
I’ve never tried Tab or Tab Energy. But I like hot pink. So maybe I’ll just buy a can and carry it around with me.
Fake is for your fake ‘O”, Duh.
There’s so much going on in this ad. Advocating faking the o (BAD!), which in some way suggests her man is inadequate. There are the fishnets… The fact that he has a fork and she has no silverware (maybe she doesn’t need to eat?). There’s the “open” flower on the table, and the pink drink — is that that the energy drink or is she just going to need that boost in the morning?
Then there’s the phrase “deliciously pink.” And might I add that “Fuel to be Fab” is a better rhyme with the product? Why not that instead? I’m not sure if the kind of energy women need is the energy to put up with bad sex, but if it gets her that diamond bracelet and the $1000 purse, then I guess that’s up to her.
“Fuel to Fab” is the rhyme! Uhh…Duh. How could we (and the actual advertisers) miss that?
And of course he can have silverware, and of course she doesn’t need to eat – she’s fat! C’mon she’s a woman isn’t she?
Long story short, women are buy-able. They’re all whores for the right price – a purse and a Tab!
Yaaaaaayyyyy! Thanks Tab.