 Hey it's Christian Martin. In today's video we're going to break down the new viral ad by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman and see why did this work so well. Here we go. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are both gigantic stars. Ryan Reynolds is in Deadpool and Hugh Jackman is none other than Wolverine. Last week on Twitter they called a truce to their long-running social media feud and released a video on YouTube that has gone on to have millions of views and it's no wonder why but today we're going to check out that video and figure out why it worked. Let's jump in now. Hey everyone Ryan and I recently called it a truce in our social media war and we promise to make ads for each other. So the first thing that stands out to me is number one is the word truth. If you have siblings you can probably relate to this calling a truce when you are little to seize the war. Now the reason this grabs people so much is because humans respond very strongly to conflict and curiosity and this has both. So number one we're thinking what is the truce about and why did they have a war and number two it's conflict okay so we see two big stars two people that we know in conflict with one another and we want to know why and we also want to figure out why are they going to make ads for each other. Yeah we sure did. I've been working 24-7 on an ad for Hugh's incredible coffee company Laughing Man and he's been working hard 24-7 I imagine on an aviation gin ad so I'm going to go first. Yeah let's roll it. Go on. So this is cool because we see them coming to a truce and we know that they were in conflict with one another before and we also know that Ryan Reynolds generally is very sarcastic and sometimes we think that the punchline is going to come so in this ad I'm watching it and I think he's about to pull some punches that we just haven't seen yet so I still don't know if he's going to turn on Hugh Jackman and end this truce or if he's genuinely wants to make an ad for him. You never know what's going to come out of Ryan Reynolds. Can a cup of coffee be a superhero? Because Laughing Man beans are born with a special power. Sure it's the best tasting coffee in the market. Yeah it awakens your senses with unbelievable flavor but it also lifts up communities around the world in the form of housing and scholarships and Hugh could be behind such a heroic company. Hugh guessed it my friend Hugh Jackman the loving and caring man who created Laughing Man make every cup count. Man that was really that's really professional I'd say cast a million dollars. I'm not quite ready to show mine yet but let's just cut for a second. No it's not almost finished just some color correcting a little bit. For a second let's just roll it come on I can't wait to see it. Go go go roll it roll it. Ryan Reynolds is a complete and total. The gin's pretty great though I'll have to try it someday. Sorry man I didn't think the truce was actually real. And there it is I knew the punch line was coming I just didn't know who was going to do it usually somebody breaks the truce and going back to that sibling story if you've had siblings you know you can call a truce but you can never really trust that the other person is going to live by it so in this case Ryan Reynolds genuinely made a nice commercial for Hugh Jackman at least during this video and Hugh Jackman just trashed Ryan Reynolds and so now we get to see his honest reaction so this grabs people because again more conflict and there's tension and we want to see what happens. One of the greatest things that you can do in advertising is to subvert expectations and that's exactly what has happened here so we see this nice commercial the first commercial it goes exactly the plan and then we think that Hugh Jackman is going to have an equal commercial for Ryan Reynolds and he just trashes him and that subverts our expectations we thought they had a truce it turns out they didn't and like I said Hugh Jackman didn't think the truce was real and this is just like me with my siblings you could never trust that the truce was real you never know when that person is going to turn so let's break down four more reasons why this ad works so well and why it caught the attention of millions of people the obvious thing is that this stars two huge celebrities and people like to watch these celebrities we already know like and trust them when you combine that with those two elements of conflict and curiosity of course we're going to watch the ad the second thing is that it's tongue in cheek they didn't take themselves too seriously it's funny to watch and it gives us a little laugh at the end of it now this type of video can be called post-modern advertising and what this is is it's an ad that functions as entertainment at the same time so we are so saturated with ads that it no longer works to just advertise a product now we have to actually put entertainment first so if somebody is not delighted by an ad it's not going to work very well so we want to do two things we want to entertain and educate on the product now one without the other if all you do is educate on the product it's going to go unnoticed people see too many advertisements and if all you do is entertain well that's not going to bring in any sales for the company which is fine if you're in the entertainment business but if you're trying to grow your company with ads try to combine those two elements together entertainment and education on the product and you're going to have a lot better time selling products so that's post-modern advertising when we combine the two in order to disguise the advertisement what they did was they used their truce as the context for this video and so we think we're seeing a truce being resolved but we're also seeing an ad at the same time so it's that kind of thing where you included an ad but you're almost unaware that you're watching an advertisement that's the best kind of ad the third thing that set out is something that's very classic in direct response advertising in copywriting and that is the a i d a formula that's attention interest desire and action the very first thing this ad does is get our attention they say they're coming together to resolve their truce next they build a little interest they say we made ads for each other and you start to wonder what these ads are going to look like and who is going to break that truce first and then we see the first ad we have a desire to see the second ad because we know something's coming we know that punchline is coming and we want to see how it plays out and then at the end we see action where the two products are displayed we can actually go take action and become consumers of those products so that's the a i d a formula that works for everything from writing emails to sales pages to youtube videos to sales videos to webinars to anything you can use that formula write any kind of marketing material see even big stars are going to use this a i d a formula now if we jump into the actual individual ads within this video we can see that the formula is there too so ryan reynolds starts out with can a cup of coffee be a superhero so that provokes our interest and curiosity we want to know well i don't know can it or we want to know what in the hell is he talking about so the statement is what's called a pattern interrupt it's absurd enough that it makes us stop in our tracks and wonder what's going to happen next because it's just not something that we're used to seeing next he builds the interest in this ad he says because laughing man coffee is born with special powers it's the best tasting coffee in the market so again that grabs our interest and we wonder what exactly is in this coffee we're starting to become engaged in that ad and we want to find out what happened next he builds desire for this coffee he says by buying laughing man coffee you helped lift up communities around the world and the proceeds from the sales give housing and scholarships to places that need it so that's going to desire for that product finally in this ad we have the call to action this is a classic mechanism in marketing and any kind of marketing message you're going to use a call to action now in this particular ad he uses a very soft called action and he says make every cup count and that's what's telling the consumer to go ahead and buy this cup of coffee because you are contributing to saving these communities and you're going to get a great cup of coffee with superpowers typically you're going to see called actions if you're scrolling through facebook and you see an ad there it's going to say click here to find out more or if you're watching a webinar or sales video it's going to say click below to buy now or click here to get 25 off your next order that's your more classic call to action in the marketing world so some of these big brands are going to use softer called actions like nikes just do it progressive auto insurance name your own price slim gyms snap into a slim gym so they're a little less specific but if you're running sales copy online you're generally going to be very direct with your call to action so you get the idea every good ad ends with the action that you need to take next now the last thing that stood out to me about this ad was the story there were two stories being told here at once stories or narratives with character and conflict help provide context that trigger specific emotions that connect a brand product or service with their potential customers humans are bred to learn through story and to remember through story so you can hear an interesting fact and you might forget that immediately after you heard it but if you hear a story about that fact chances are you can go to lunch with your friend leader and actually relay that fact to them so if you're trying to communicate a message try using a story and that's going to make that message a lot stickier so the two stories in this video we have the story about Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds coming together on their truce and that is the overarching story of this commercial but we also have the story about laughing man coffee and how they help communities so that's two stories wrapped into one in this video now if we're really going to break this down as an advertisement and gauge success on did this produce results there are some things that might not have worked so well with this ad so the number one thing is i'm going to remember this ad after i watch it but do i remember the name of the gym brand or the coffee brand so i actually do remember laughing man coffee i believe and i completely forget the gym i think it's aviation although they did produce a motion and built a relationship for their audience i don't know if they built a relationship with the actual products so the easy thing to remember from this video is how funny it was and less about the products which is fine if it's for entertainment purposes only so that's one of the things you gotta watch out for with a strong personality advertising your brand that happens with athletes sometimes people love the sponsored athletes so much that they might completely forget about the brand they're endorsing and not even remember what it is so we can see this happening in the recent super bowl commercials if you saw the super bowl commercials there is the pepsi super bowl ad we have steve corral little john and cardi b and it's definitely entertaining but if you've already chosen sides on pepsi and coke you're probably not going to switch sides just because of his ad you might have fun watching those celebrities but it's not really tied to the actual product there so at the end of the day you have to build a relationship around the product no matter how you do it you might use a celebrity to get there but not all celebrity endorsements are going to help you share your product so what else can we learn from this first i think they're doing it right by collaborating in the internet marketing world we call this a joint venture but it's basically when you have a product and somebody else owns an audience so let's say Ryan Reynolds has his gin product and he knows that Hugh Jackman's followers might be interested in purchasing that gin so he goes to Hugh and he says hey Hugh you want to strike up a joint venture and i'll give you a cut of the sales from promoting my product to your audience so what they did is they leverage each other's audiences and then you have Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman's audience watching this video and they're cross promoting each other's products so this happens all the time in the food space which is where they both are if you take a look at healthy food brand like real good foods they've collaborated with rsp nutrition chalk zero keto bark and many others so this is a popular strategy you can increase awareness of your product by creating a giveaway where you win free product if you follow both brands leave a comment on the post things like that so who doesn't like free food and you bring that to somebody else's audience you're going to pull in all of these new customers the second thing we learn from this is you always put context and story behind your product or service as Simon cynic says people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it now i don't agree with him entirely you have to have an amazing product so his binary message is very misguided but people do buy why you do things in a saturated market so if you're in a market like coffee one of the most saturated markets in the entire world you have to have a good story because people are going to buy based on values that means they must know like and trust the brand image so if they like Hugh jackman in the values that he stands for which in this case that's going to do a better job of selling his coffee than just talking about how good the coffee is so you see there's a lot in super saturated markets like cola cola's ads often have nothing to do with the product whatsoever one of their most famous ads they've ever produced was a bunch of people standing in a circle holding hands saying kubai hour or something so when you get to what's called level five market saturation which is where your product is basically a commodity you have to inject values into your brand messaging lastly we learned the aid a formula to create strong ad copy for marketing campaigns so i hope you like this video we plan to do more breakdowns of trending viral videos advertisements celebrity actions in the news and really break down what persuasion techniques are at play why do people like things why do messages grab on and spread while other messages are lost forever if you saw the truth video let me know what you thought did you like this video did you think it was a commercial or purely entertainment what do you think worked what didn't go ahead and put in the comments below and let us know what you want to cover next and we will see you on the next episode