Very Negative Advertising

Spoliers! This is not a real news event. It is an ad for the game, Homefront. Now that we have that cleared up, lets explore how this happened.

"We really need to get people's attention. Are there any topical events we can cling to?"

"Well North Korea is threatening an attack, but it would be very irresponsible to..."

"Great, we can use that. We'll make it a fake news event. Worked for Orson Wells."

'Who?"

"Never mind. We'll stick it on YouTube. Big picture of Hilary Clinton to make it seem legit."

"The Secretary of State? You can't just use her imag..."

This thing is gonna go big. I bet it'll go viral. Stupid people will even post this thing on their blogs.

Oh come on, that's never gonna happen.

Couldn't have said it better myself

original here

Mojave Monday

Much has been written about Microsoft's massive campaign to promote Vista. I've even mentioned it a few times myself. But Apple did it better and funnier. And I bet it didn't cost them $300 million. (Note: Adhack is NOT a Mac Fanboy. He is writing this post on a PC.)

I'm a PC

Okay, Microsoft's next big ad has hit the airwaves. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is. I'll wait.




Okay, now what do you notice besides that fact that this spot actually has a message?

Figured it out yet?

Someone or someones got to fly all over the world on Microsoft's dime. And I'm pretty sure they traveled first class.

There is a breed of Creative Director who views every assignment as a possible free vacation. The bigger the budget, the grander the trip. They will come up with really strange creative ideas to make travel necessary. Coffee house? We need to fly to Costa Rica. Tennis shoes? Wimbledon! Brake pads. Uh…..the autobahn! The funny thing is, these guys could afford to pay for their own trips. They just don't want to. (This also explains why they can expense $75 lunches, and you still haven't been paid back for that slice of pizza you bought at the airport.)

As for the spot itself, it's ok. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Travel the world?

Cloudy Windows

Today Microsoft will unveil round 3 (4? 7?) of its $300 million campaign designed to convince people that…

What?

What are they trying to do? Get us to buy Windows-based computers? We already do. In droves. Oh sure, there’s the Cult of Apple. But their numbers don’t even come close to Microsoft’s. Apple’s advertising IS better. But so what? There are tons of small companies that do great advertising. But you don’t see massive corporation ns freaking out about it. If a small chain of sandwich shops puts together an award winning print campaign, you don’t see Subway changing their whole marketing plan.

I’m not sure why Microsoft is doing this. The Vista launch was screwed up, but so what? Windows 7 will be out in a year or so, and Vista will be a forgotten memory.

And why the mismatched ads? The "we switched their OS with Folgers Crystals" Mojave crap. The weird road trip with Jerry and Bill. And now, a direct dig at the “I’m a PC” spots. Why?

They seem to be acting like a CD I once knew. He was always in a state of panic. Every morning he came into the office hating everything that we had done the day before. We needed a new direction, new ides. Turn left, turn right, back-up. Always running, always chasing.

I do hope that Microsoft finds their way. $300 million is a fuck of a lot to spend on therapy. But hey, they can afford it.

Jerry and Bill part 2

The dynamic duo is back in the second episode of a bizarre ad campaign. This time the guys are hanging out with some “real” people. Definitely funnier than the first. Still without much of a point.

And what is with the 4 minute running time? When it takes that long to send a message, you might want to rethink your message.

This is how I imagine this campaign was born:

MONDAY MORNING AT A BIG ADVERTISING AGENCY. TIRED CREATIVES ARE ARRIVING AT WORK. THEY HAVE BEEN WORKING LATE NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS TRYING TO COME UP WITH A BRILLIANT AD CAMPAIGN FOR MICROSOFT. THEY HAVE TONS OF GREAT IDEAS, AND THEY FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE NAILED IT.

THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND THE GENERAL MANAGER (WHO HAVE NOT BEEN WORKING NIGHTS OR WEEKENDS) APPROACHES THE CREATIVES.

CD: We solved it!

GM: Yes we did.

CD: Tom and I were having dinner and we both realized we have to use Gates.

GM: He’s the brand.

CD: Right, and then we threw out some names and the one that stuck was…

GM: Seinfeld.

CD: That’s right Jerry Seinfeld.

CD PLAYS A LITTLE AIR GUITAR.

CD: Boom, bah, doo, bow, bow!

GM: We’re gonna do real stream of consciousness stuff. Cutting-edge. Outside the box.

CD: So thanks for all your hard work, but we won’t be needing it.

THE CD AND THE GM WALK TO THEIR OFFICES

CD: Doo, doo, doo, dum, dum!

Bill and Jerry

If you’ve ever wondered what trying too hard looks like, take a gander at this:



Wow! I mean…wow. What the fuck were they thinking? THIS is the “I’m a Mac” killer? Seriously? Let’s break it down.

90’s TV star is walking through a mall. He sees Bill Gates shopping at a discount shoe store.

Get it? He’s a billionaire! Shopping at a cheap-ass shoes store. Ha!

Jerry and Bill talk about stuff that is not funny and has nothing to do with computers.

See how creative we are. We are so out there, we don’t even talk about our product.

Bill says that he is a platinum card member of the discount shoe store.

Cheap Billionaire=Comic Gold

The picture on the card is Bill’s mug shot from his college days.

Now that is funny.

Bill and Jerry leave the mall. Jerry mumbles weird shit about computer that are tasty. Bill adjusts his shorts to indicate that the tasty computers are on the way.

We are so cool. Those Mac commercials actually talk about what there computes do and why they’re better. We are so hip we don’t even mention our OS by name. Surfers RULE!

In conclusion, I’d have to say it’s the most effective computer commercial since the Mac 1984 Superbowl ad. I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to run out and buy a Powerbook today. I am terrified that I have entrusted my photos and music to the boneheads who approved this spot!

Note: Adhack is NOT a Mac fanboy! He is writing this post on a PC.

Want a bite?

The Corn Growers Association is concerned about the public’s perception of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Apparently, they want us to stop worrying about a highly-processed sweetener that is in almost everything we eat.

To this end, they have produced some commercials to explain that HFCS is super-good happy food. Here’s spot number 1:



I like how they used the Microsoft Mojave method of portraying anyone who doesn’t like their product as a totally fucking moron. But what I really love are the undertones. Seriously, the garden setting? The woman tempting the man with something sweet and red? “Want a bite?” The phallic popsicle? This thing is swarming with symbolism. Somebody spent a lot of time thinking up this one.

Let’s look at spot 2:



Hmm, nothing wrong here. Just WHITE mom telling AFRICAN-AMERICAN mom that she is bad at raising her children. Nothing wrong with that. Hey what’s a little racial warfare when you’re trying to sell food additives? You can't let tolerance and understanding get in your way when you’re trying to sell something that IS ALREADY IN EVERYTHING!

Vista looks bad

It’s seems that even the mainstream ad blogs are spitting on the new Vista campaign.

Last week I pointed out how lame the Mojave hidden-camera, switcheroo tactic was. And now, Advertising Age has an article saying the same thing. (And we both noticed the similarity to the Folgers Coffee Commercials.)

It just goes to show you that even with a $300 million budget, you can still end up with of crap.

Read the article here.

It is NOT Hammer Time.

Today I’m going to talk about ten years that shaped the word. Ten years that gave us parachute pants and hair mousse, nu-wave music and Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, today we are going to take look at the decade that will not fucking die. The 1980s.

The 80s seem to be everywhere these days. JC Penny’s “tribute” to The Breakfast Club is just the latest in a series of marketing campaign that seem to require extensive knowledge of 80’s trivia.

Now before I go any further, I would like to point out that I was alive during the 80s. I lusted after Molly Ringwald. I Wang Chunged. But I have let go. The past is the past, and I am comfortable with the fact that the 80s are over. But I am clearly in the minority. Every day I see 1980’s fashion, music, trends, style, fonts, movies, celebrities and TV shows used as shortcut to cool.

But cool to who?

The Penny’s spot is targeted to teenagers. So why would you reference a movie that came out 23 YEARS AGO! No one in your target demo was even ALIVE back then! (Here’s a little test marketing. Go up to a teenager and say, “Booga, booga, booga, oo, ha, ha, ha!” I’ll bet that close to 99% will not get the reference and will quickly run away.)

There is an answer to why this decade is still us, and you’ll probably find it right down the hall. Take a good look at your creative director. How old is s/he? Mid-forties? Fifty? So back in the era of acid wash, your CD was at the peak of their creativity. They were plugged-in to pop culture. They were experimenting with new ideas and new design.

Then it all came crashing down. They got older and richer, and suddenly, they didn’t want to play anymore. The new trends looked scary and confusing. And so they locked down. Collectively, they decided that culture had peaked in the 80s. Music would never sound so cool. Clothes would never look so hot. Movies would never be so…radical.

And so today, when a CD is asked to come up with an idea, frequently it will have some connection to the 80s. “You know what’s hot? Leg warmers!” “Make it look like that scene in Ferris Bueller.” “Is Boy George still alive?” And the headline will say, ’Read My Lips. All New Faxes!’”

Bogus. Totally bogus.

Not big in Japan

TechCrunch has an interesting article on the failure of American social networks (MySpace and Facebook) in Japan. According to the post, a lack of understanding about the Japanese market has kept these American imports from squashing the local brands.

Keep in mind that these same social networks are supposed to be the future of advertising. As I write this, consultants all over the world are preaching the religion of social network marketing to high-powered ad execs and clients. And yet, this “future” is being sold to the rest of the world with the same understanding as the guys who thought it would be a good idea to sell Chevy Novas in South America.

The era when we could take an American product and ram it down the rest of the world’s throat is over. For a marketing trend to succeed today, it has to be global. Not run it through the translator and stick an Asian girl in the background global. Truly global.

Microsoft Vista: Round 2

The second volley in Microsoft Vista campaign has been fired. It’s a series of online videos called The Mojave Experiment.

The idea is to let a bunch of ordinary citizens try out Mojave, Microsoft’s new OS. But guess what? It’s not really a new OS! It’s really just Vista! So all these people are raving about good old Vista! Ha!

Sound Familiar? It should. It’s the Foldger’s Crystals commercial! (“We’ve secretly replaced their coffee with Foldgers”) So they get zero points for originality. And they are still saying it’s our fault! Vista was fine. Vista is love. The only problem was our stupid misconceptions. Thanks a lot Microsoft.

And this is supposed to be top of the line advertising. You’ve got one of the largest companies in the world, a major ad agency and (I assume) and army of creative ‘gods” and this is the best you can do? An insulting strategy stuck on the an old coffee commercial?

I weep for the future.

Note: Adhack is a NOT a Mac fanboy. He has been a satisfied Windows users for many years.

Be Bold!

Remember ad folks. When you have no strategy, no benefit and no budget, go for attitude.

(Original here)

Microsoft plays hardball

Microsoft is on the offensive. Apparently, they are sick and tired of Apple taking shots at Vista and have decided to roll out a $300,000,000 campaign to support their struggling OS.

According to zdnet, the first ads were shown at a Microsoft employee’s-only meeting last week and received rave reviews.

So what is the message? Is Microsoft going to apologize? Are they going to admit their mistakes? Will they hand out free software to early adaptors? Is Bill Gates going to visit every office in America and show us how to install device drivers?

Apparently not.

Zdnet posted a teaser ad pulled from Microsoft’s site that may give us a hint about the new campaign’s message. Here it is:



There you have it kids. Vista doesn’t suck. It wasn’t released too early. Microsoft wasn’t slow to respond to customer complaints. The only problem is that we are too fucking stupid. That’s right. If you don’t believe that Vista is the best operating system on the planate, then you are as dumb as the people who thought the Earth was flat.

I love it when ads insult me. Really makes me want to rush to the mall and buy their shit.

A. New. Trend.

In this blog I complain a lot about clients, creative directors, and AEs. I’ve even take a swipe or two at art directors. But I tend to leave my own kind (copywriters) alone.

So to even things out, this post is all about lazy copywriters.

I have noticed a new trend in headlines. You may have seen it yourself. Instead of normal punctuation, every word is followed by a period. So the headline Looks. Like. This.

Now there can be a legitimate use for this style of writing. It could give a simple statement a sort of rhythmic, pizzicato feel. But I see it used so much that I think copywriters are using it to avoid writing headlines.

And I don’t mean award-winning, who cares what the image is because the words sing so well you could be looking at a picture of pig shit and still want the product, headlines. I mean simple, old-school headlines.

Let’s say our client has cut the product’s price in half. So you sit down, and a few beers later you have come up with, “All the features at half the price!”

Crap? You bet, but at least it is a coherent sentence. The lazy copywriter will quickly pound out, “Half. Price. Same. Product.”

Now I have two problems with this. First, it’s strategy as headline, which may work in Europe (see yesterday’s post) but not here. Second, if the punctuation is to be believed, you are supposed to read this sentence like this, Half…..Price….Same…..Product. (It’s as if you were reading the headline off a monitor as someone slowly typed it out.) I’m pretty sure that’s not the effect the writer was going for.

So if you were about to create a headline that has an equal number of words and periods, STOP! Because. I. Am. Tired. Of. Reading. Ads. That. Look. Like. This!

WTF Ralphs?

Okay, you took your well-branded Ralphs Club Card and changed it to the Ralphs Rewards Card because…hey that’s what clients do when they’re bored. But what is with the card design? Seriously, it looks like something you might see in a high school yearbook.


And what is with the ads?


You want to change your look? That's fine, But don't let someone's "very talented" niece or nephew be the designer.

Scenes from a SkyMall

Hey it’s working! I can feel it…wait, something’s wrong! It’s...it’s crushing my fucking bones! Turn it off! Turn it off!

Okay, it’s off!

OH MY GOD! IT’S NOT STOPPING!

Mouthwatering Monday

These billboards are all over LA. I feel for the copywriter who has to work on them. I image that he or she has a legal pad filled with lists like this:

Perfectly Plump
Breathtakingly Beautiful
Super Scrumptious
Really Red
Unbelievably Unctuous
Absolutely Appetizing
Judiciously Juicy
Fanatically Flavorsome
Decidedly Delicious
Supposedly Succulent
Famously Firm
Sinisterly Spicy
Terrifyingly Tender
YouBetIts Yeasty
Cautiously Crunchy
Meticulously Moist
Bodaciously Bold

You say tomatoes

Over at adage.com, there’s a piece criticizing how supermarket and fast-food companies are handling the latest tomato scare. According to the marketing gurus interviewed for the article, these companies should have used the internet to quickly communicate the problem to their customers.

I think they’re being a little bit hard on the food companies. How can we expect these giant, national and international corporations (and their million dollar marketing departments) to know how to use something as new as the “internet”?

And let’s give credit where credit is due. Here is how my local fast food palace informed me of the tomato problem:



Think about it. To create this eye-catching drive-thru sign, someone had to master both the ink-jet printer and the tape dispenser.

Original article here.

iAd

You would have had to have been very busy today to have missed the news from Mr. Jobs. Apple is going to release the new iPhone 3G on July 11th.

As I type this, fanboys all over the world are drooling at the thought. And soon, like Star Wars’ fans flocking to Episode 7, they will begin lining up at their local Apple Stores. But as this is an advertising blog, I would like to focus on one small aspect of the phenomenon.

If you go to Apple’s website, you will see a picture of the new phone and two simple statements. Twice as Fast. Half the Price. Let me repeat that. Twice as Fast. Half the Price. Now Apple could have chosen a lot of lines to sell their new phone. But they chose to focus on two very straightforward, very simple messages. No fluff. No wordplay. This is a textbook example of what should be done when your product has a strong selling point. Don’t cloud the message with a bunch of advertising-speak. Just clearly communicate the benefit.

Unfortunately, a lot of people in our business tend to think that all ads have to bury the message. You can’t just come right out and say what you’re product does. You have to somehow sneak it into the reader’s mind. Sometimes this is necessary. Like when you’re selling a parity product or when your product is the worse in its market.

But when your product can run circles around the competition, do not hesitate. Pick the fewest words, the cleanest font and the simplest background. Then climb to the top of the highest mountain you can find and deliver your message to the people.