Super Bowl Vigilantes

Super Bowl Sunday is a great day for sports, a huge day for advertising, and a lousy day for the First Amendment.It's the one day of the year that every interest group and every advocacy group has its thought police on duty (see this from USA Today) looking for any ad that might be "offensive" to them. It's the day that advertisers and agencies fold like single-ply toilet paper when some

Philosophy or Donuts?

Several years ago, a very sincere guy who ran a chain of donut shops came to see me. He wanted to do an advertising campaign."We're different," he explained. "We're a commune. Everyone who works here owns an equal part. We work cooperatively. It's a model for how businesses should be run. It's a vision of the future. I think people will really respond to this if we do an advertising campaign

Branding's Final Absurdity

There's very little fun left in the ad business, but one of the big chuckles we still get (secretly) is watching our clients go through idiotic "branding" exercises.These con games last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes. Nonetheless, there are very clever companies out there making zillions of dollars convincing

David Lynch on New Media

Thanks to Jay Tannenbaum for pointing me toward this and this.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Guest Blogger: Obey Your CPM

A cranky post from guest blogger Roger Lewis.Here is an excerpt from AdAge's article on agencies of the year with an A grade or better."AKQA's work for Coca-Cola's Sprite grabbed attention with a campaign that invited consumers to participate in the marketing process through a national contest to create a theme song for TV spots featuring basketball star LeBron James. According to AKQA, the site

Hate To Say I Told You So, But...

New research from Media Life magazine confirms what TAC has been saying for quite some time about ad skipping. TAC has estimated that about 1.6 to 1.9% of spots are missed because of TiVo-ing and the like.Here's what Media Life (Jan 11, 2008) says:"Nearly all ads are viewed in DVR homes. "For the longest time the great fear among the broadcast networks and advertisers was that ad-skipping

Interporn

On October 15th, 2007 TAC predicted there would be a firestorm over the influence of internet pornography on children in the upcoming year.Now, Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy has announced that all ISPs that feed houses and schools will be required to provide a filtering system to protect children from explicit pornography and violence. Of course, Australian civil

Smelly Volvo Families, Part 2

On September 17, 2007, in Smelly Volvo Families, TAC predicted,"Volvo is making a classic marketing mistake. They are trying to be someone else.Instead of positioning themselves as a new, safer, more stylish Volvo they are aiming to be the second best BMW. I'm sure there's some marketing genius/account planner telling them that safety isn't enough and they have to make an "emotional bond" with

Calling All Geeks

Can any of my brilliant readers who use "Blogger" explain why there is a question mark next to 2007 in the column on the left, and why we can't see post names listed by month when we click on 2007? Your help will be appreciated and you will receive a TAC merit badge.

More Research Crap

According to Online Media Daily consumers are 47% more engaged in ads that run in television programs viewed on line than those watched on a TV set. The research was conducted by Simmons, a unit of Experian Research Services.Bullshit.If any other industry was as irresponsible with its claims as the research industry, they'd be thrown in jail.Here's the part I love: "The study defines "engagement"

Sky Still Not Falling

From The Hollywood Reporter, Dec. 27, 2007: "A study by Palisades Media Group (owned by Nielsen) suggests that despite the growth of digital video recording devices, DVRs are not drastically affecting the viewing of commercials, even time-sensitive or seasonal messages."Now there's some big news. We've only been reporting this for months. See "Nailed", "The Sky Is Not Falling" and "Sky Not

Research Knuckleheads

Pollsters were wrong -- some by more than 10% -- in their predictions of the outcome of the Democratic primary in New Hampshire.You'd think that with all the money these guys make, and the inflated sense of importance they have, at least they could count correctly. Answering the question "how many?" is so much easier than answering the question "why?"And yet gullible marketers still rely on these

Ads About Ads

One of the dumbest trends of the past year has been ads for ads. You run a "blind" ad (it gives no information about your product or brand) in the hope it will lead people to a website where you will deliver the message.In other words, you use your ad budget hoping someone will get the message somewhere else. Here's why it's such a stupid idea:1. First of all, while you have their attention why

Who's In Charge of the Bagel?

In a recent post (Web Films vs Bagels) I whined that an expensive internet program Ritz-Carlton was embarking on was less likely to be effective in building their brand than serving me a fresh bagel.Guest blogger Roger Lewis has some thoughts.The issue for Ritz is who is authorized to make a decision about product and service that affects brand image. Specifically, who could have made the

Murder Most Productive

In Death by Branding TAC asserted that Southwest Airlines was on the way to ruining their brand with "branding."What makes their campaign so awful is that they're trying to convince business travelers that flying Southwest will make us more productive. Right. That's the big airline issue for me. Not price. Not schedule. Not comfort. Not reliability."Bob, what airline you wanna take?""I don't know

A Good Laugh

One of the so-called advantages of the web is that you can be more precise in your message. You can move at "internet" speed.So it gave me a good laugh to find this on my Yahoo home page this morning.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

TAC Maintains Perfect Record

Nothing The Ad Contrarian has ever written or said about politics has been correct. He kept his perfect record intact with the prediction of an Obama win in New Hampshire.When it comes to politics or driving directions, listen to what TAC says and do the opposite.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Death By Branding

Southwest Airlines better be careful. They have been a great example of how the best way to build a brand is with product advertising. They are now on the road to proving how the best way to kill a brand is with "branding."Here we have an airline that offers the worst flying experience in the nation. But they haven't wasted their money trying to make us love them. Instead, they have wisely spent

Words And Pictures

Here's how to tell that the media have fallen in love with Barack Obama. It's in the photos.In the past few days, worshipful pictures of Obama have appeared on the front page of The New York Times and Newsweek. Yesterday a huge, beautiful Norman Rockwell-like picture appeared on the front page of the Times. It was Obama reaching out for the hands of beatific supporters. An American flag is draped

Change vs Experience

The pundits are reading the polls from Iowa and telling us that Obama beat Clinton because people were more interested in change than experience. Now Hillary is altering her strategy to represent herself as an agent of change.TAC predicts this strategy will fail in New Hampshire. Like so many marketers -- and candidates -- TAC thinks they are confusing cause and effect.People didn't prefer Obama

Conundrum For Some

Last year, in The Ad Contrarian book we wrote... "with increased fragmentation, any medium that can deliver a large audience—even if it is not as large as it once was—should be more valuable than ever."The New York Post reported a few days ago that even though audiences for individual shows have declined, tv costs have increased significantly."...In the fourth quarter, advertisers on average paid

Customer Service? Don't Mention It

When have you ever seen a Nordstrom ad that mentioned customer service? How about Tiffany? The answer is never.You never hear great service companies flogging their service in advertising. It's only the terrible service companies -- the electronics stores, the banks, the software makers -- who talk about their wonderful customer service.Companies whose advertising strategy centers on "great

End of the World, Revisited

On August 1 of last year we wrote a post called "The End of the World." The subject was media hysteria, particularly as it relates to the advertising business, but also as it relates to the reporting of other trends, such as disease and climateFor a nice follow-up, I recommend reading "In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm" from The New York Times yesterday.Oh, and Happy New YearSUBSCRIBE TO THE