Just because I didn’t post anything for nearly a year doesn’t mean I wasn’t stumbling across good fodder nearly every darn day. For example, back in June there was this article in The New York Times reporting that the department store chain Dillard’s was soon going to run an 8-page advertising insert in Vogue and Vanity Fair.
What made this newsworthy was it offered concrete proof that not all advertisers have completely abandoned traditional print as a marketing tool and more significantly that in this particular case, the creative was being developed by Conde Nast’s (the magazines’ publisher) in-house creative department and included in the media buy at no extra charge.
What made it worthy of comment, though, was that the theme line created for this effort–”The Style Of Your Life”–was so pathetically ordinary as to almost defy description. As were the ads that went with it, surprise, surprise. Which really concerned me. Because I couldn’t help wondering if when this effort failed to produce any significant results, would Dillard’s blame the lackluster (but free) creative? Or would its management conclude, as so many advertisers have lately, that traditional print advertising just doesn’t work anymore?
Clearly, Conde Nast considers the actual quality of the creative to be of such ancillary importance that it merits neither charging for nor, presumably, investing in. What else can we glean from a statement such as this one, attributed in the article to Richard D. Beckman, president of CN Media Group: “We don’t have to make money from our creative because we make money from our media.”? (And it’s a good thing too because if they had to live on the value of their creative, they’d starve.)
To be fair, I genuinely applaud the magazine’s efforts (self-serving as they may be) to keep traditional print alive. But I question if turning the creative into a bargaining chip is really any sort of bargain in the end. And surely, you’d think merchants like Dillard’s–of all people–would be the first to give credence to the time-honored caution that “you get what you pay for.”
Not this time. And as a result (or should I say ‘a fascinating coincidence’?) we have a company whose August sales were down 5% versus YA and whose stock was, as of 9.9.07, off 40.8% YTD. But hey, you sure can’t beat the price of that creative, eh?
At times it may seem like I get exercised over the most picayune matters. The ad you see here being a perfect example. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for comparison ads. Even if they’re of the invidious variety. But when an ad plunges headlong into factual misrepresentation, it’s time for someone to throw something–a flag, a fit, anything but a stone, I guess.
