There have been a wave of ads like the new ad for the remake of Carrie that seem to play on the fear factor, but this spoof from ad agency John St. takes it to the next level with an awesome dose of fear and humor.

What a great way to show your creative chops to drum up business.  There is something here though, your reptilian brain. A long time ago (maybe at the first Gravity Free conference) one of the authors of The Experience Economy spoke about the power of tapping into the reptilian brain to make an experience more memorable.

The reptilian brain is the part of your brain responsible for the fight or flight instinct and an exfeariental experience would certainly trigger the response!  The point being made at Gravity Free was this: in order to make it memorable it must stick and to get it to stick it must get deeply embedded in the mind. And in the LG, Carrie and John St. spoof you could certainly see how fear would leave a lasting impression (in the form of nightmares). But as we all know from branding 101, the idea is to leave a lasting positive impression.

In the case of many of the real ads (just like in hidden camera TV) they eventually reveal that it was a hoax. For LG TVs this works quite well since they want you to see that the colors are so vivid and real that you actually think there is a nuclear apocalypse happening outside the window of your job interview. 

The question is where to draw the fine line. It has to be scary enough that the wave of relief in the reveal leaves a stronger lasting impression than the fearful hoax.  But as the John St. piece shows, there are some things you just won’t recover from no matter how good the beer tastes.  

via FastCoCreate