Another year, another ad campaign - and we all know the routine by now.   We should do anyway -  they’ve been doing it for long enough.

We have the short eye flashes, the countdown to launch and the main advert, with or without glimpses of the house.   Fair enough when Big Brother was at it’s peak they worked very well - and IMO this years ads are amongst the best.

But are flashy graphics enough to sell Big Brother to the masses any more?

Well, I would say no - and in truth, they never were.    This style of campaign has been running since at least BB4, but over the first few years they were always accompanied by an additional more original campaign running alongside them.

BB4 had the eyes carved into various British landmarks while BB5 had the well remembered Black Friday campaign.  A year later and BB6 had the eye made out of boxes, while BB7 had the additional promotion relating to the Golden Ticket twist.

More than ever Big Brother needs to be winning back viewers and not assuming people will tune in just because it’s Big Brother - but the advertising shows little sign of any creativity.

Give the show a Slogan

Even something as simple as changing the voice-over could make the advertising much more effective.   Nowadays Marcus just gives us the time and date - but a meaningless slogan could be intriguing enough to encourage people to tune in and find out what it means, as they did in the run up to Big Brother 6 with the tag line “What happens next - You Decide!”.

And Big Brother 10 actually has two slogans at their disposal - but they’ve only appeared online.

Get Ready

“Get Ready” has appeared on the holding page since the eye was revealed.  It’s simple and catchy - and ultimately means nothing, but is enough to build the anticipation.

Simply changing the voice over on the main adverts from “The Big Brother Launch - Thursday 4th June on 4″ to “Get Ready…  Big Brother is Back.  Thursday 4th June on 4″ would in my opinion make those adverts much more effective - those two words could really make the difference.

Similarly, the phrase could be the basis of an entirely new campaign highlighting key aspects of the show similar to how BBUSA is advertised - “Get Ready for more fighting, more flirting, more secrets, more outrageous behaviour” etc.

And with them insisting on celebrating their 10th birthday a year early, it’s a perfect excuse just to use clips from previous series in their advertising campaign.   After all, “best bits” is something Big Brother does rather well.

It’s not what you expect it to be

The second slogan used online in the run up to BB10 is “It’s not what you expect it to be”, which raises expectations that this series is going to be different - which is exactly what the casual viewer BB has lost over the last couple of years needs to be told.

Although of course, if you expect it to be different, does that mean as “it’s not what you expect it to be”, it won’t actually be different?

Again simply incorporating that into the voice-over for the main ads could be enough - but a bit more creative thought and you might have an ad campaign which captures peoples imagination.    After all, adverts that aren’t what you expect them to be are often the most effective.

The adverts do not actually have to tell us implicitly why we should be watching, but they do need to do enough so that people want to find out the reasons to watch Big Brother 10 and hence tune in to the launch show.

Get Ready…  Join us at midnight.

It’s not what you expect it to be. Actually, it might be - we haven’t got a clue what you’re expecting.