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