Slice-of-Life Advertisements: Do They Work? (with 3 Examples)

You’ve just created a new product that’s about to be released to the market or you have an existing product you think needs an extra boost. Now you’re thinking of the best way of promoting this product.

You’re maybe thinking of doing a promotional strategy that’s well-conceived, strategic and proven to resonate with your target audience.

So your marketing team suggests you do a slice-of-life advertisement. But before you give them your go signal, you want to make sure this is the right strategy for your brand. Other than listening to their presentation, you head on and do a bit of personal research.

And that’s how you landed in this post.

You wanted to know more about slice-of-life advertisements and want to be assured it’s an effective way to promote your product and boost sales.

Read on further to know:

• What a slice-of-life advertisement is
• It’s advantage
• Examples you can get inspiration from

By the end of this post, you’ll have the knowledge you need about this marketing technique to decide if it’s the best ad strategy that will help your product resonate with your target audience and bring in ROI for your business.

What are slice-of-life advertisements?

A slice-of-life advertisement is a kind of ad strategy that utilizes everyday scenarios to integrate a product into the daily dynamics of consumers. With this kind of ad, advertisers try to provide solutions or introduce efficiency using the product to the daily common concerns of people.

As the name suggests, slice-of-life advertisements portray a scene in the daily dynamics of the target market. It shows the common experience and problems they encounter and how they can be solved by the product.

Slice-of-life advertisements are usually done for daily essential home products like beverages, cleaning products, daily clothing and food, but they can also be effectively used for work dynamic products and services like management software or internet privacy services and also for school-related concerns like English tutoring needs.

Additionally, slice-of-life advertisements are also utilized for business-to-business dynamics like dropshipping, ecommerce affiliate marketing and Amazon selling to show how a product or a service can meet business needs and solve business concerns.

Filming these ads doesn't require a large budget, but since it’s overdone, you have to be creative enough to incorporate a twist to get people’s attention long enough for the ad to make an impact and move them to action.

A slice-of-life advertisement is commonly associated with social appeal. As said earlier, it portrays how a product can help with everyday needs and make life and work easier and more enjoyable.

But it doesn’t have to be limited to everyday needs. Slice-of-life ads can also be used to promote unconventional promotions like becoming a content creator or a digital nomad.

The goal is to create an attachment between the product and the audience, making them feel that the product will result in a “slice-of-good-life” if they use it.

Slice-of-life format

A slice-of-life format usually involves four components:

1. Encounter
2. Problem
3. Interaction
4. Solution

A common situation is painted followed by a common problem that occurs in that situation and then the solution is presented.

Advantages of slice-of-life advertisements

Why would advertisers use this method again and again if it doesn't them any good?

Engaging the target audience involves using the right advertising appeal - it has to be well-conceived and strategic, something slice-of-life ads can offer.

In general, the purpose of an ad is to move the target audience’s awareness of a need. The ad has to make them recognize a problem or an efficiency concern that your product will be a solution to.

In a workplace setting, the challenge could be an unorganized workflow that drags the progress and output of a team.

In a slice-of-life ad, a chaotic workplace scenario with a furious boss can be depicted. Then a workflow software can be introduced as a solution to streamline the work process. The ad can then finish off with happy working employees and a satisfied boss looking at a progress report.

Or if you take it to the current situation where many companies are arranging for work-from-home employees, close monitoring and communication can be posed as the problem. You can then introduce a video conferencing tool and remote work tools that also allow easy and efficient collaboration between users as the solution to their remote management needs.

By using slice-of-life advertisements, it’s easy to convey purpose and theme that allows ad execution that will resonate with the target audience.

Ads aim to influence consumers. What better way to do that than by presenting the viewers with a true-to-life scenario they can relate to - the best way to resonate with them.

Slice-of-life examples

In this section, we’ll give you several slice-of-life advertisements where you can get ideas. We’ll also include suggested concepts you can use for your campaigns.

1. Laundry detergent advertisement

This laundry detergent ad starts with a schoolboy who saw a cute pup stuck in the mud on his way home. His pity for the pup made him take his school shirt off to wrap it around the pup that’s probably feeling cold.

The next scene is when he brings home his new pet and his mom’s friend expresses her concern on how hard the mother will have to work to take the mud off the shirt. The mother then showed how unconcerned she was about washing the mud-ridden shirt because of the powerful laundry detergent she has.

This spice-of-life ad shows how moms need not worry about how messy their kids can get as long as their laundry detergent is good enough to make it spick and span again.

2. Adult milk advertisement

The third example starts with a 54-year old physically active guy saying some people feel he’s not as strong as he used to.

But he then goes to show how he can still jog, play basketball, play tennis, and do other strenuous activities with the help of his adult milk that helps build muscle mass so he can stay as strong as he used to even with his advancing age.

3. Household air freshener advertisement

This ad shows a common concern for homes with teenage sons living in them. These family members are usually physically active so they sweat a lot, and in turn, give their rooms a distinct smell.

The ad then shows how a simple spritzing of the air freshener can make the room smell fresh again. It finished off with a scene of their mom entering the room and feeling pleased with how good the room smells.

It subtly portrays how the air freshener makes mothers less stressed at home.

Other examples

If you’re in the digital marketing world targeting website owners and developers and have products like WordPress plugins and infographics makers, you can depict scenes about how these added features will impress clients and even increase your website’s worth when you check and value your online business.

If you’re targeting businesses that involve cold calling prospective customers, you can highlight how a predictive dialer can make the work easier. You can conceptualize your scenes around how easy people will be able to call you back if they’re decided on buying your product.

Do slice-of-life advertisements still work?

The simple answer is yes, slice-of-life advertisements still work and are effective in resonating with the target market. But again, since too many brands are using this technique, you have to bring in a unique twist to create a stronger impact with your viewers.

If you own a digital marketing agency with web developers, web designers, and illustrators for hire, you can still create slice-of-life advertisements showing how building and managing online businesses is easier if you delegate website-building tasks to experts.

Final thoughts

Whether you take advantage of slice-of-life advertisements or not is really up to you. You know your product better than I do.

But if it’s a product that can be used daily at home, at work or school, a slice-of-life advertisement will work for you.

If you brainstorm with your team enough, the creative spark will fire up until you conceptualize great slice-of-life scenes that will evoke emotions moving viewers to action.

If you get the right mix of scenes that your audience will relate to, they’ll easily see how your product can benefit them, and with good creative skills, resonate with them enough to make them convert.