A Hard Day’s Fun: Give ‘Em Ragu App Review

I don’t know if you realize this about me, but back in the day I used to get paid to come up with ideas. Good ones. Things that would make people smile — in the smart kind of way — and like a particular brand more. Why does this matter? Well, besides reminding myself how cool I used to be, it’s my way of saying I’m kind of an advertising snob. Very few ad campaigns impress me. (Including the majority of the ones I worked on, but that’s just the nature of bad clients the business.)

When I find one that does, I’m totally loyal to it. I talk about it at the park bars, slip references into conversations with myself friends, buy the CD (think Bud Light’s Real Men of Genius), and think, “Man, I wish I’d thought of that.”

Enter the “Give ‘Em Ragú” app — which is part of their Long Day of Childhood campaign. Yes, the folks at Ragú hit the nail on the head. Not only did they come up with a great campaign, they figured out a way to make you (and by “you”, I mean your kids) the star of the ad. Well, the app, at least. (I used the iPhone version, though there’s a FB app and an Android app too.)

Once you’ve downloaded the app (free in the iTunes App Store as “Give ‘Em Ragú”), you start by selecting photos or video you want to be a part of your “hard day” creation (up to 7 pics or a video that’s at least 15 secs). With the iPhone app, you can just pull from your photo/video library (or your Facebook photos/videos, or even take them right then and there). Based on the 20 or so videos I created playing around, it’s fun to select pictures that fit a theme. Here’s why. The next step is where the magic happens.

The Ragú app asks you to describe your video so it can write you a song. That’s right, based on what you type, you’ll get a (very funny) song that compliments your photos. Fun right? (It’s kind of the kiddie version of Real Men of Genius…and that’s high praise coming from me.) I played around with different photos/descriptions and got at least five different songs to go with my pictures. I found that a short snippet with a few key words made the song match best.

Next you can preview the song — with your photos dropped in to the video — to see how it matches up with your pics. In my experience, 9 out of 10 matched up hilariously. (If that’s not a word, it totally should be.)

For instance, this evening Pink was in a crying, tantrum-throwing marathon. Rather than get upset, well…I left. Went out with friends. (Friends who knew me back when I did this kind of stuff and still think I’m cool.) Then, when I finally got home, I decided to find the pictures I’d snapped of similar kinds of days and turn them into a video. For the description I typed, “Cry if I want to!”. (While the app doesn’t give you a character limit, some of the other videos I created cut off the “title” when shown on Facebook — or I typed it funny, which certainly could have been the case — so I’d keep it short.)

I previewed the video, saved it to my Facebook Library (which means it posts to your FB page with the header being whatever you typed to get the song), then emailed myself the link. Here it is in all its glory.

Go ahead, watch it.

How can you not laugh? The photos (mine), the lyrics (theirs). It’s like I’m back to being part of an awesome creative team. Anyone know when the award show deadlines are?

Well, until then, I’ll be busy playing with the 2,344,525 photos I have on my phone. And turning them into Ragu ads. (See, I can’t resist. Here’s another one.) Because being a kid really can be tough. But being a parent is even more so. By the end of the day, I need a big dose of wine laughter. And the Give ‘Em Ragu app is an easy, fun way to sneak in a bit of humor.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Ragú through their partnership with Circle of Moms. While I was compensated to try the app and write a review, all opinions are my own.