Tough Under Fire

Why it works

A marksman loads a .30-caliber rifle, aims at a padlock hanging on a bull's-eye target and, in slow motion, blows a half-inch hole clean through it. The lock stays shut. "Tough under fire," the announcer concludes. Master Lock first ran the 30-second demonstration during Super Bowl VIII on January 13, 1974, paying $107,000 for the slot, and it is studied on two counts. Creatively, it is the torture test at its purest: one shot proves the claim with no celebrity, joke or jingle. Strategically, it is an early case for pouring a modest budget into a single annual event. The Milwaukee company came back to the game every year for two decades; by 1995 that lone spot consumed a third of its yearly advertising budget. Adweek reports annual sales climbing from $35 million in 1973 to $200 million by 1994 as the name became shorthand for padlocks. Its agency, Cramer-Krasselt, says the ad set Master Lock apart at a time when shoppers saw all locks as alike.