Saturday 1 March 2014

Ultra Reality: What would you do in this situation?

LG Meteor Prank
The LG, Korean electronics company created hidden camera prank advertisements to show off the clear image of their HD TV. Unknowing participants showed up to what they thought was a job interview, but were actually walking into the “ultra reality” of the LG TVs. Participants were secretly filmed, and their reactions to the episode have gone viral. LG successfully promoted the great image quality of their TV product.


In the online commercial advertisement, job applicants walk into an artificial office where an 82-inch Ultra HD TV is installed behind the interviewer, disguised as a real window displaying the city landscape. Interviewers begin the job interviews like normal. Before long, a huge meteor and a shining orange light slowly starts to be seen through the fake window by the interviewees. The reaction by all is panic, as the meteor drops and crashes into the city landscape, creating what looks like a huge dust cloud that sweeps over the office. The commercial ends in a comical relief, as participants find out they were only experiencing the "ultra reality" of the LG TVs.

For several years, the excellent image quality of this LG TV has been acknowledged by many certificate authorities such as Intertek (UK) and UL(U.S). Unfortunately, showing off the clarity of the product through a traditional TV commercial proves difficult to the customers watching the ads on their old TV, mobile phone or computer monitor. LG seemed changed its commercial strategy to a viral marketing strategy. The reactions were posted on YouTube and the audience attention was huge. Around 5 million views were recorded in the first five days, with over 10 million views after 3 weeks (23/Sep/2013).

According to the "SCORE" method of analysing advertisements, which I learned in about in my Integrated Marketing Communications class, LG's strategy had a considerable effect of attracting attention from its customer. I believe the key message that LG wants to portray about its product to people is that it achieves a high quality of image, which is very simple and clear. LG realizes it needs to concentrate on what it is good at; crystal clear images. This commercial's target audience could be, I believe, people between 30 and 35 years of age who comfortably use social media and have the economic capability to buy an HD TV.

The method for showing the crystal clear image of the TV was highly creative, which combined a hidden-camera prank with a "movie-like story". LG achieved its true goal of demonstrating the superiority of its product in an unforgettable way.

Joonam P. 
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at The University of Sydney Business School


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