by mark January 30th, 2006
in Daily Thoughts.
One of the things that drives me positively crazy is the breezily dismissive reference to certain formulae for getting to extraordinary advertising. For example, you’ll find any number of advertising people who will tell you “babies and animals works every time.” As if there aren’t miles of Johnson & Johnson commercials with babies in them that are as ordinary as ordinary can be. And an equal number of tedious dog and cat food ads, not to mention the chimp shennanigans CareerBuilder is promising to inflict on us in the coming Super Bowl.
It’s not that simple. The secret to success is the idea behind the babies or animals in the advertising. Which brings me to the spectacular spot the kids and I saw this weekend while we were watching the Winter X Games.
Continue reading ‘Pet Peeves’
by mark January 26th, 2006
in Daily Thoughts.
A news story I read recently reminded me of an old (and entirely unpolitically correct) joke I once heard. The teller of the joke asked: “Why do women have such poor depth perception?” Having gotten the expected “I don’t know” in response, the teller then held the thumb and pointer finger on his hand as far apart as possible and said: “Because they’re always being told that this is twelve inches.”
The headline to the story was “Konica Minolta, a Photo Giant, Quitting Cameras and Color Film” and I immediately found myself saying “giant?” Okay, so maybe at one time this company’s business was sizable, but as brands go, I would put these two in the “average” class at best; one reason being the two brands’ advertising was of Lilliputian impact.
Continue reading ‘“Big” Brands?’
by mark January 21st, 2006
in Daily Thoughts.
The oft-heard advice to “stick to your knitting” has always struck me as wise counsel. I know enough about advertising to be useful on occasion. Other things that interest me–politics, economics, brain science–are probably best left to experts in those fields. But every once and a while something comes along that I just can’t resist commenting on, and this is one of those “somethings.”
I don’t know if this story ever appeared in the mass media. If it did, I missed it. Oddly enough, where I caught it was in Robert H. Frank’s regular Thursday column, “Economic Scene” in The New York Times. He was inspired to write it because another economist had used this story as the basis for a paper on cost-benefit analysis. Happily, Mr. Frank ripped this economist a new you-know-what. Unhappily, there’s still the story behind it.
Continue reading ‘Outrage’
by mark January 13th, 2006
in Daily Thoughts.
The “pros make it look easy” is a common refrain, whether it’s skiing, tennis, golf or extraordinary advertising. But it isn’t easy. It’s just obvious when it’s done right.
For example, here’s an ad in the notoriously difficult, hellbent on being tedious, financial services sector. Is the visual eye-catching? Yes. Is the headline on point? You bet. Fitzgerald was the one who said “there are no second acts in American lives” and while he may have been overstating his case in that regard, he would not have been wrong about about retirement plans. A point this ad makes with great style and impact.
by mark January 12th, 2006
in Daily Thoughts.
As many of you will know, I love to stroll down the train platform looking at all the backlit posters that hang overhead. For collectors of ordinary advertising this is equivalent of what the Galapagos Islands are for naturalists. And yesterday’s field trip was even more rewarding than usual. Because not only did I see two ordinary ads one right after the other (that’s hardly unusual), but in this case, both achieved their ordinariness in the exact same way.
First in my line of sight was a poster for the Colorado ski resort, Keystone. Nice shot of a guy in deep powder, absolute catnip to an avid skier like me. But then I read the headline: Pure. Simple. Pleasure. Now aside from wondering why anyone would spend good money to tell skiers that, a claim hardly unique to Keystone, I thought: What’s with the dots?
Continue reading ‘Connecting The Dots’
