This is sort of a time traveling post. STOP! Let’s go back in time to just a few months ago.
The new 2008 Chevrolet Malabu is being released on November 1st. As the press release says they will have a huge one day “take-over” of the biggest online portals.
On TV expect to see major coverage during World Series games and all over TV, on every billboard you see, and just about every place you can expect, or will not expect a major ad campaigns. As Ed Peper of Chevy states:
“We are introducing the all-new Malibu to America with a ‘no stone left unturned’ marketing effort. We want the entire country to know that this car, which is designed to be the best in the mid-size segment, is coming, and that it has bulletproof quality, coupled with beautiful interior and exterior design”.
OK! Let’s come back to December 1, 2007. Shhh! Listen!!! What do you hear? Nothing? Yea, what a waste of a campaign. I’d say it was like a rock!
Okay, it got my attention. I would have been more effective had they left the shot of her skin peeling out. I’d rather imagine what happened than seen it. Not that the gore and shock value can’t work, it’s just that it isn’t necessary. The rest of the ads for this campaign are pretty lame.
I can understand how Black Friday became so popular. Basically between stores opening at ridiculously early hours, offering all sorts of gimmicks, and news organizations covering such ridiculousness, which creates hysteria, Black Friday has become a part of American culture. Without the press, Black Friday would never exist.
So how do you get folks to shop online? How do you create Cyber Monday? Well if you are the National Retail Federation, you make press releases and hope the press catches on and helps you create a whole new term. I must admit Cyber Monday isn’t really original, but I guess that is the best they could come up with. And what does a press release stating that today is Cyber Monday get you? How about this headline I just read on CNN.com:
Online retailers are poised to log record-breaking sales today when hordes of shoppers go searching for sales on what has become known as Cyber Monday. According to the National Retail Federation, 72 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today.
And there you have the true definition of Free Press. When you use the press to give you free advertising. “Poised to log record-breaking sales today”? Wow! How the press can predict the future, or did they just copy that word for word from the press release. I’ll let you guess.
Just don’t tell this to companies like Pay Pal that do a lot of selling online. PayPal’s Susan Phillips said the busiest shopping day online isn’t Cyber Monday, but rather the second Monday in December.
Dissent from the ranks? They better get their act, apparently this attempt to make another national shopping day isn’t going as well as planned.
POST SCRIPT: 12/2/07
Okay so it wasn’t the blockbuster they expected, but they are certainly on their way to concocting yet another day of sales hype that has no purpose but to convince folks to buy, buy buy!! This year $10.74 billion was spent compared to last years $9.14 billion. That’s 17% more than last year.
Webnesia is the term I use to describe how companies market “new methods” based on ideas that are old, yet make them sound revolutionary. Take for instance behavioral marketing, or the privacy-invasive method of figuring out what sites and trends a person makes online and supplying them with an ad that might target them better. It sounds revolutionary but it really isn’t. It’s done all the time in every form of advertising, only difference is with the web it seems pretty cool. How is it done all the time? Ever watch the national news? All those pharmaceutical ads target the 60+ year olds. That is because the average age of the people watching national news are those over 50. Ever watch American Idol and see an ad for ring tones? Wow! an ad designed to target 20 sometimes. How ingenious. Considering how many 20 somethings are watching that show, doesn’t it make sense? But wait you say, what about the 40 year olds who watch American Idol? Well there are also ads targeted to them. With television you have all demographics watching so you can target different groups, but can’t have a one on one relationship like you can with a person sitting at there computer. Big deal! Advertising that works simply rings a bell with me. Sit 100 people my age down and show them a commercial and some will like it, some will not care. Even if you target specific ads to types of viewers you know are watching at that time. And now, the latest talk is of behavioral marketing which sounds really big and scientific and says that when you go to a web page, cookies reveal the types of sites you visit and give you an ad appropriate to what you seem to like. Amazing! How new!
And what does a company that sells behavioral marketing offer to entice us with this ‘revelation’? A recent email of “trends” sent to a friend by one of these marketing groups shows a chart of what percentage of internet users by age are willing to pay attention to advertising that is personalized to their age group. And it reveals that folks of particular age groups will tend to watch ads targeted at them. WOW! How do they come up with this cutting edge stuff? You mean if you show an ad for Acne cream, a girl who is 20 will tend to pay attention more than a women who is 50? WOW, that’s amazing (snicker).
Well… It’s a bunch of poppycock. First off, these companies that send these earth shattering cutting edge trends are the same companies that sell such software and marketing and want you to know it’s the ‘wave of the future’. Yea sort of like a car dealer telling me about cars and why I need them. Of course folks are willing to pay attention to ads that are targeted to them. And guess what? Younger people who are more computer savvy and more on the web are more interested in ads on the web targeted at them than folks who don’t know what the ‘delete’ key does. Do you think a fifteen year old would pay more attention to an add for Xbox over Geritol, or that you (if you were 55) might pay attention to an ad offering a CD of music by great bands of the 60’s over an ad for Ipod headphones? Whether it be on TV, or on the web, that is a given. Somehow these “cutting edge marketers” like the fact that you can target one person with an ad and think this makes the difference. It might, but if the ad doesn’t relate to them and what they are looking for, then it matters little, just as it always has. Revolutionary cutting edge marketing? Na, just common sense.
Apple has had some good ad campaigns, but the latest for the iPhone where people tell stories about how their phone helps them out is boring an does little for me. It’s one of those campaigns that wants to be cool and smart. It’s quickly become tired and makes me look for my remote so ican change the channel.
I’ll take the third answer for a thousand. Yea, you laugh. But does it tell you anything about Miller or do you simply notice Miller through the refrigerator glass door in the store and buy the Heineken you wanted. Then again do you even remember that it was Miller? Sure, some agency art director is running around in his black shirt, cool retro, purple framed glasses and goatee asking everyone if they saw his commercial, but what’s the average viewer think? Well, if the comment about this video on You Tube is any indication, it was a waste of money. It said:
Simple and effective. It uses technology as a tool, not AS the creative like most American spots do. And the message is universal and touches a nerve. This is part of a nice campaign that shows the effects of accidents and how it changes peoples lives and not for the better.
WOW! LOOK AT THAT SLOGAN IN THE TITLE OF THIS THREAD!
What a slogan. It’s Applebee’s new slogan. Doesn’t it just make you want to run down to your nearest Applebee’s, open or closed and savor the bricks that make up the building. Once I read it, my mouth started to water-up, tears started to well up in my eyes. Then I felt a little gas. What a joke. If this is how Applebee’s thinks it’s going to get the new generation interested, it better sell it’s properties now. Want to see bad advertising get even worse (as if it can)? Watch this new promo below. While you are, note how many seconds you make it through before you click it to stop. I made it to 13 seconds. The company that posted it says ” One apple bobbed above the rest. With our star now chosen, the mission is clear: Bring people together at Applebee’s.” Mission? More like the Challenger disaster.
Talk about bad. Hey that should be their new slogan! Has a much more realistic ring to it. Or even better? You better get it together.
“Despite $1.78 billion in ad spending, and its hiring of one of the leading ad agencies in the nation, Sprint Nextel continued to bleed customers in the most recent quarter, leading to the resignation today of Gary Forsee as chairman and president-CEO.”
Once again we see a failing ad campaign. Not just an ad campaign, but a 1.78 billion dollar ad campaign. What went wrong? Part of the answer si right in the quote above; “Despite $1.78 billion in ad spending, and its hiring of one of the leading ad agencies in the nation”. Very simply, spending lots of money and using what you consider “one of the leading ad agencies in the nation” can’t revive a brand if you don’t talk at a level people can relate to. To understand that all one needs to do is go back in time and look at one of the Sprint press releases concerning their new ad campaign. It said:
“To help educate customers and prospects by giving them the facts they need, Sprint is launching a new advertising campaign that includes a humorous ad created by Publicis & Hal Riney that uses actual footage from a spaghetti western film and that outlines the differences in Sprint’s mobile broadband network when directly compared to Cingular’s EDGE network. This creative advertisement is just one of many Sprint advertisements designed to outline the facts and communicate the power Sprint provides its customers.” (source:http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=13260)
So does the concept of a spaghetti western catch your eye? Does that tell you a lot about Sprint and how it relates to your life? Does it help you understand how Sprint offers more than other competitors? No you say? You are not alone. While this ad might have been very creative and had that magic ad word in its concept, “humorous”, award winning, funny ads that make you laugh often don’t give you a message that means anything and so creativity trumps usefulness and you walk away laughing but once again, don’t get the message. This is a perfect example of how companies waste billions of dollars on ad campaigns that have little meaning to consumers so little return. If companies would forget the term “leading ad agencies in the nation” and realize that most who are touted as ‘the best’ are nothing more than companies that won lots of awards, they’d understand why most ads don’t work. I could enter five spots today and win an award. Award systems are designed to let you win because you pay to enter, and we want you to come back so you always win something. It’s not far from what happens with carnival booths, except it’s $1.78 billion to play this game.
I’ve said this five billion times so might as well say it again,awards do not mean anything in advertising, just that people have egos and want recognition. But recognition is not ROI. And pouring dollars into ego never get you more than your resume out so you can find a new job. That is unless you work at “the leading ad agencies in the world” who hide behind ‘awards’ and ‘creativity’.
Of course word of mouth is key to this failure too. Word by consumers is that Sprint doesn’t work well and drops calls, that is if you can get a signal. Oh, and did I mention the lousy customer service that many former Sprint customers complain about? No advertising is going to help a poorly run organization. Don’t believe me? I just Googled “Sprint Sucks” and got 1.2 mil. hits. Read some of the stories and sites dedicated to Sprint and the publics perception of their service. Perhaps the agency should have looked into what was on consumers minds instead of giving them spaghetti. Even better, Sprint should have taking that pin they use in their ads and stuck it in their butt for a reality check.
Both of these videos are probably two of the funniest videos about what goes on in advertising that I’ve ever seen. I just watched it again and it’s still great. If you haven’t seen it, now you have.
