The whole sex card has been played, and played and then played some more.  Go Daddy’s commercials are not innovative nor are they creative.  When their first commercial was banned from being aired during the 2005 Superbowl the company was served a PR steak dinner for free.  They rode the publicity all the way until now and I’m suggesting that we the people tell them that the ride is over. 

The American consumer is getting smarter, there is now more information available to us than ever before.  We need to be treated like the informed consumers that we are. 

I had no idea that Go Daddy was a domain registry site. While some of the new ads do a better job of telling us what the company’s utility is, their ads still make them seem like an adult website.  Even from a strictly business point of view I would tell them to be more clear about what it is they are selling.

Now I understand that all they want is for people to visit the site.  That’s all their TV ads are meant for and their success cannot be argued.  According to restistratstats.com Go Daddy is the largest internet domain name registry site.  It is also three times larger than its next competitor. 

So Go Daddy is taking the “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” approach to their television and web ads.  I just wish that firms like Go Daddy and Axe would rethink their over sexual approaches to their products becaue they really come off as corny in their ads.  The format of guys doing anything to get the hot chick is done.  And it is common knowledge between men, if another guy is wearing axe, not only is he likely to be a tool but he’s probably wearing too much of it. 

My message to these firms: Be creative and stop insulting us with these terribly corny ads.  Thank you.

Entrepreneur.com has a list of ten unusual ways to advertise, I am going to pick out my favorite from their list, and also show you some of the craziest ways people have advertised their products. 

Sign wavers - This is were companies pay people to walk around with their billboards or logos on.  They are usually waving signs and/or dancing to grab your attention.  I like this one because it creates jobs that don’t need much qualification and the people dancing make me laugh.  I realize politicians have been having people do this for years but it seems that retail firms have caught on as well.

Purchased word of mouth – Companies are starting to pay people to walk around town, ride up and down elevators and spread the good word about them.  I’ve never experienced this personally but it sounds like a good idea to me.  Some may call it unethical but I see nothing wrong with it.  Whether they like to admit it or not, a lot of big time Universities do this to recruit potential students/athletes. 

Publicity stunt – Nothing better than someone doing something crazy to get people’s attention.  Last year Starbucks closed it’s doors to the public from 5:30-9 pm.  They said they were training their employees to treat their customers better and they were willing to close down during their peak hours to show their customers they were committed to customer service. 

I recently read a story on CNN.com about a teacher who who sold ad space on his tests.  Only in Southern California!  Faced with district budget cuts Tom Farber found a creative way to raise funds to cover his printing costs. 

There you have it.  I think that in order to reach a broader audience firms should be thinking about different creative ways to reach people, and guess what, the internet is not always the answer!

This is where I need to take a step back, and remember its probably just a web ad.  But how do I get out of it?  Where’s the box with the little “x” in it? Then it hits me.  I have to sit here and watch the whole thing.  Seconds pass as my attention span flickers to the link of the story I want to read, or to my fantasy football team, what will they do without me?!!

Then, as soon as it started, its over.  I’m free!  Until I accidentily roll over the link to replay it. 

Web advertising is a work in progress.  We are seeing new, creative  ways web advertisors are trying to reach out to us. One of the ways that really gets my goat is when the ad prevents me from doing what I need to do online.  I think that the thought process of the ad people is flawed.  I understand that by keeping me from browsing at my leisure and forcing me to watch an ad, that the ad is getting my full attention, but for how long? 

People hate telemarketers for a reason.  They are intrusive and affect our everyday lives.  They call during dinner, when they know we’ll be home and they sometimes recieve very stern talkings-to about doing so. 

Why are web ads any different?  They know we want to see a page, so they stop traffic and make us watch an ad.  It is just as intrusive as telemarketers calling during dinner. 

What is so wrong with the old banner at the top or the side of the page?  If it’s something we are interested in, we’ll click on it.  If not, we’ll ignore it. 

I understand that the internet is relatively new, and advertisers have yet to tap the full marketing power of it, but some of their methods need to be reworked.  There are three important things to remember about people using the internet:

1. People are impatient.  If a website takes too long to load, then we will go elsewhere for the information.  Ads should not slow things down.

2. We like for the internet to be easy.  Don’t make things harder, it will only frustrate us.

3. Sometimes we are lazy.  If your ad is too complex we won’t pay attention to it.  Keep things simple (see rule 2).

There you have it.  Remember these rules when designing you web ads and I’m sure you’ll have hits like Barry Bonds.  Just remember, if you get too fancy, only bad things will come of it

The new face of your company

We need a spokesperson!  See if Gary Busey is available!

This sentence has probably never been said by anyone ever.  But it is true that a lot of companies feel like the best way to reach their customers is through a familiar face.

Companies go to great lengths to choose the right person to front their product.  If the celebrity that is chosen has some sort of scandal in the middle of a campaign, they will get yanked.

One of the most recent examples would be Atlanta Falcon’s quarterback Michael Vick.  3 years ago he was the “it” guy in the NFL.  He was fast becoming one of America’s most marketable sports personalities, when his dogfighting scandal surfaced.  His contracts with Nike, Coca-Cola, Rawlings,  and his team were all terminated.

Of course big companies like Coke and Nike were able to rebound, but had an up and coming company been attached to Vick, they would have had a crippling PR disaster on their hands

Another memorable celebrity/sponsor tiff would be Madonna and Pepsi in the 80s. Pepsi based an entire ad campaign around Madonna’s song “Like a prayer.”  Pepsi was less than displeased with the racy interracial love scenes and burning cross featured in the video.  Needless to say the campaign was dropped. 

Companies are really gambling when they place their product in the hands of celebrities.  With media outlets who’s sole purpose is to report celebrity news and most likely mishaps (TMZ, E!, Access Hollywood), it is important for companies to choose wisely.  On that same note, our celebrity obsessed culture is asking for famous faces to front brands.  It is truly a catch 22. 

Using a celebrity can have its advantages.  If you use the right celebrity the right way, it can really do wonders for your brand. For example: Old Spice using Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher to sell their Swagger deoderant. 

He has a squeaky clean criminal record and a hall-of-fame career.  What else could they ask for?

My conclusion on celebrity selling products is this: any kind of publicity is good publicity.  Even if the celebrity you choose messes up, as long as your company’s name gets mentioned (and you have good PR people) then you should have nothing to worry about.  Whatever helps get your name in the public eye.

ESPN has always had good ads.  They’re funny, irreverant, silly and sometimes witty.  I will say that half of the reason why I am permitted by my better half to watch ESPN so much is because of their ads.  And when I say “their” I mean ESPN’s commercials made for ESPN, not the ads for other companies. 

One of the possible reasons for my finding these ads so endlessly entertaining would probably be that I watch so much.  I am familiar with the characters in the ad, and that means I enjoy them that much more.  I think this applies to the use of celebrities or characters in TV advertising.  Brands use celebrities to rep their products because they are familiar.  

So I will present to you some of my favorite ESPN commercials.  Starting with one that features Mr. Shaquille O’Neal.

If you are a fan of Shaq, you know he loves to play off of his name.  If you don’t know Shaq you will just assume he is being a goofball and the spot will still be funny. 

Here is another great ad that features Carolina Panthers wide reciever Steve Smith and Seattle’s own Kenny Mayne.

I don’t have any sort of analysis for this one, I just think its funny.  It has a cartoon-like quality about it with Steve Smith showing up at Kenny’s cubicle, and then in the next second he’s back down by he water cooler.  I’ve always wondered how they shot this, it looks so seamless. 

I guess I didn’t really have a point for this blog.  I just really like ESPN’s ads.  The point could be that humor is an effective way to make ads stand out.  I’m not really sure.  I apologize for this blog post.  I just wanted to express my feelings (love) for these ads.

Here’s one for the road.

Now I undertand that movies need funding, and companies are just lining up to get their products in the next box office blockbuster, but it is important not to compromise the integrity of the film. To me it seems like they are just thrown in there carelessly, like the crew has pretty much wrapped filming and then they say, “wait we forgot to get the coke logo in our shot! ”  And what we get is the two main characters walking around the city with the red and white Coke logos around every corner.  It’s obnoxious and hilarious. 

Here is an example of poor product placement (look for it about ten seconds in)

The part that kills me is that he moves the can so we can see the label better.  I for one don’t see Peter Parker as a Dr. Pepper guy so that makes this scene all even less believable (less believable than a guy getting super powers? weird) to me. 

I think that good product placements enhance the storyline.  They should be woven seemlessly into the plot without the audience really noticing that they are there.  I have yet to see a film that does this gracefully.  Every Bond movie has a cool car in it.  They can put the car in the film, without the first couple scenes with the car looking like the opening to a car dealership ad. 

Here is a scene from the recent Bond Film “Casino Royale”

Now freeze the video at ten seconds and tell me that doesn’t look like a Ford commercial. The first time I saw this movie I got confused because I thought they spliced a reel 0f a commercial in with the movie.  I was genuinely concerned. 

Some movies accept that their sponsors are going to be a big part of the movie.  If a satirical approach is taken it can help ease the audiences mind when seeing these products.  Take this clip from Austin Powers:

They embrace the product placement and use it as a joke.  It may seem like a joke but the fact is Starbucks paid big bucks to be in the movie and they get a big endorsement from it reguardless. 

My hope is that one day product placements will become less obvious and I look forward to the new creative ways that they are written into movies.

Companies will go to any lengths to establish their brand.  The artist formerly known as Electrasol, is not only trying to change their name, but their brand.  Their new name? Finish.  Why?  We can only guess.  At some point it makes sense for long standing brands to revamp their image, but to change the name altogether, that could be a potential nightmare. 

From a marketing standpoint, this product didn’t really need a makeover.  I don’t think that people put much thought into their dishwasher or other cleaning detergents.  They want something that they know will work, and that gives them the best value for what they pay.  That being said, to associate your brand with something as expensive as diamonds could be costly (no pun intended).  People may see the diamonds and think, “this has to be expensive, I’m going with the something else.” 

On the flipside, associating with your brand with diamonds could be a positive.  People will see and associate your brand with quality, class and staying power.  It could be that electrasol is trying to reach a new demographic.  They may be trying to become a product only associated with middle, and upperclass families. It would be an interesting move, especially with the problems in the economy.  They may be counting on the fact that the demographic they are reaching out to isn’t going to be effected by the problems in the market, but if this economic downturn continues I think that the first thing on every shoppers mind will be savings. 

My feeling is that they wanted to revamp their image, and a new name was apart of that.  As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t really make sense to re-brand during an economic downturn, especially if you’re trying to make your product seem more expensive than it was originally.

A marketing or advertising technique that uses pre-existing social networks to raise brand awareness. 

That being said, Blentec, the company responsible for the popular series of youtube videos “Will it blend,” really understands viral marketing. 

They have a simple format for these videos, they take something that shouldn’t be blend it and blend it. 

Here is a sample:

This video contains several important elements to a good viral video:

1. It’s short, the run time is only 1:37.  This means we can watch it at work or in class without getting caught.

2. The concept is simple, they blend random products and because they have such a good product they are successful. 

3. They have a recognizable spokesperson: He may appear to be an average, aged man, but he’s just awkward enough to stay in your memory.  He isn’t the kind of person that should be on camera, and this makes him that much more entertaining to watch.

Each of their posts on youtube have over one million hits, proving the success of their viral campaign.  I’m not sure how many blenders they’ve sold, but their name is out there. 

This would not have been as noticable as a television ad.  It would have been like every other infomercial, bland, boring and cause for a channel change.  Their choice to make these ads viral show real business acumen and a true understanding of the power of a social network like youtube. 

1. Entertainment value – Is the ad entertaining enough to watch all the way through.  Will it make me forget about the show I was watching.  Great ads will do this. 

2. Clarity – Does the ad get its message across effectively.  Great ads communicate their message clearly and creatively.  Some ads have twists at the end, some drive their message home relentlessly (APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD) but the good ones never leave us confused. 

3. Effectivess – Not how much revenue the ad brings in, but how much it makes us want to buy the good/service it is advertising.  How convincing is it?  Smart companies use different angles to reach different people, and this is relfected in the advertising. 

Now that the terms  have been set.  I give you the top 3 ads of 2008. 

3. Geico – “Watching” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ5ZfxdPVzo Geico consistently puts out great ads.  This can be attributed to the fine people at The Martin Agency (Geico’s ad agency).  The Cavemen, the gecko, TRS (the real scoop) all have have a right to claim this spot, however this ad isn’t one of their “series” and really stands out.  The cover of “watching me” really makes this ad. 

2. Microsoft – “I’m a PC” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi1se9rH7S8    Whether you find your allegiance with Mac or PC, you must agree this ad was well done.   A myriad of different PC users are shown in an attempt to destroy the “pocket protector” squarebear image that Mac has tried to brand PC users.  I think that an ad war between these two tech industry heavyweights will provide customers with better viewing than the Pepsi/Coke wars back in the day. 

1. Nike – “Leave nothing” ft. Troy Polamalu & Ladanian Tomlinson http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nike+troy+polamalu+lt&search_type=&aq=3&oq=Nike+troy        Nike prides itself on its advertising.  They have created some of the most memorable ad campaigns in recent history (Just do it, Like Mike etc) but this may be their best yet.  This ad features two prominent names in the NFL (Troy Polamalu & Ladanian Tomlinson) going through the different stages of their lives, until they meet on the field as adults.  This ad is very well done;  the story is told without words, and the music they chose helps build the emotion in the ad and it builds and builds towards a dramatic climax.  The whole concept is innovative and it really blew me away.    My description does it no justice, so please watch  for yourself.

Let me also say, that having interned in an ad agency, often times the client will dictate the direction of the ad, and turn to the agency to only say yes.  They don’t really want to hear what you have to say, they just want you to support their ideas. 

The opinions I express about these ads are not about the agency or the client, I’m just saying the formula is bad.  These commercials could have resulted from a client, or an agency wanting them to be this way who knows, we won’t judge them. 

But before I give you a video example of one of these atrocities, let me first run down the basic formula for car dealership TV ad:

1. The first thing you will see will be a shot their lot, with some text at the top of the screen telling you the name of the dealership.  Note: This will look like it has been drawn on the screen with soap.

2. Next you will hear a voice that is shouting at you (usually male) , telling you all of the reasons why you shoud come check out their lot.  Usually this will include some sort of strange voice used to catch your attention.

3. Throughout the ad (probably around 30 seconds) there will be shots of their best inventory, and usually it will end with the owner of the dealership doing something goofy and telling you to “come on down!”

Now each commercial is different, and these rules  aren’t exact, but this is pretty much every car commercial I’ve ever seen in my life.  Here is a link to a Dave Smith Auto commercial that follows the mold I laid out.

You may be asking, why is this method wrong?  They are effective aren’t they?  True.  But they still are the number one cause of channel changing in my household, and for that reason alone, something must be done. 

So why not embrace the low budgetness of it all and make something that looks extremely low budget as a satire?  Make it look so bad that it is awesome.  We all know the people you use in the ads obviously aren’t trained actors so why pretend.  This ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTSa4cbcDHY) is going in the right direction.  It is extremely corny, but it’s so corny and silly and it made me chuckle a little bit.  But they still tried to make it a little serious, and I think that’s why all the comments at the bottom are still so negative, because it came off as contrived.  I will leave you with what could be the most ridiculous ad ever, not only because it has a seven minute run time, but also because, well just watch (you don’t have to watch the whole thing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mFMepFRfcs