• by Les Luchter , May 31, 2022

“I can feel it coming in the air tonight,” sings Phil Collins as airborne dust bothers a boy, mom and dog when dad empties a portable vacuum cleaner into the household garbage. “Oh Lord.”

Thus goes the first third of a :30 LG Electronics spot before the scene quickly gets happier, thanks to the “first stick vacuum that charges, stores and automatically empties the dust bin so you don’t have to.”

An integrated “Leave Dust in the Dust” marketing campaign for the vacuum, which does all its emptying via a docking station, also includes digital and social ads, digital out-of-home in New York’s Times Square, social media content and influencer marketing. The target audience is tech-forward millennials and Gen Z-ers, the brand told Marketing Daily.

The commercial is running on cable and broadcast networks, sports programming and CTV. Specific outlets include ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The View”; NBC’s “America's Got Talent”; “CBS Sunday Morning”; and Food Network’s “Beat Bobby Flay.”

Los Angeles-based The Woo Agency produced the campaign creative, while Ogilvy, LG’s agency of record, has rolled out an integrative PR strategy in support.

Officially called the “LG CordZero All in One Auto Empty Cordless Stick Vacuum,” the product was launched in October and sold D2C only by LG.com until expansion in May to major retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Target and  lists for $999.

Phil Collins’ iconic 1981 song “In the Air Tonight” has long been a favorite of marketers, with appearances in commercials by Michelob (1987), Mountain Dew MDX (2006), Dodge (2015) and over in the UK,  Cadbury 2007

The song has also made memorable appearances in the film “Risky Business” (1983) and the TV series “Miami Vice” (1984).