A vent...or maybe an observation
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
I have a pet peeve. We all have a few and I’m no different. One of my bigger pet peeves is the abundance of idiotic radio and tv commercials out there, locally and nationally. I’m not talking about a couple either, I mean a boatload! Let me give you an example: Last night, while watching a local channel here in Minneapolis, a 30 second spot came on with a young attorney promoting his firm. Now, I’m no Marketing guru but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the next thing I saw was probably not a good move. The attorney started singing an obnoxious little ditty regarding how his firm will be the “rock in your time of need.” Then his colleagues entered camera range and started singing background vocals.
Hmmm...what’s wrong with this picture.
I could understand if the attorney was doing some sort of parody or making fun of himself, but that’s the thing...he wasn’t! He was being sincere! I know that’s exactly the kind of attorney I want to turn to in “my time of need.” What an idiot. Why on earth would someone spend prime-time money on and ad that insults the intelligence of his potential customers?
Here’s a tip: If you don’t have the money to pay for an ad firm, don’t try to whip up an ad yourself. Today, marketing and advertising is all about branding, positioning, and identity. With this commercial, no matter how impressive this firm’s track record is, they now are going to be labeled as unprofessional and amateurish.
Moral of the story: Respect the intelligence of your customers when advertising your product or service. They are probably a hell of a lot smarter than you are.
Rant concluded.
Thanks for reading.
Mike
PS: I have been getting blasted for not including any pictures in my blog. I’ll try to get some in with the next post.
PPS: Yes, I am using MacJournal 4 to publish my blog.
Hmmm...what’s wrong with this picture.
I could understand if the attorney was doing some sort of parody or making fun of himself, but that’s the thing...he wasn’t! He was being sincere! I know that’s exactly the kind of attorney I want to turn to in “my time of need.” What an idiot. Why on earth would someone spend prime-time money on and ad that insults the intelligence of his potential customers?
Here’s a tip: If you don’t have the money to pay for an ad firm, don’t try to whip up an ad yourself. Today, marketing and advertising is all about branding, positioning, and identity. With this commercial, no matter how impressive this firm’s track record is, they now are going to be labeled as unprofessional and amateurish.
Moral of the story: Respect the intelligence of your customers when advertising your product or service. They are probably a hell of a lot smarter than you are.
Rant concluded.
Thanks for reading.
Mike
PS: I have been getting blasted for not including any pictures in my blog. I’ll try to get some in with the next post.
PPS: Yes, I am using MacJournal 4 to publish my blog.
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posted by
Michael Wray
at
2:14 PM
4 Comments:
Are you sure the guy wasn't selling cars? You know, maybe he was talking about Chevy trucks (strong as a rock...or is that built like a rock?)
When I was growing up, the traditional bad commercial was a guy named Dave Pierce (I'm amazed I still remember that) who put on some awfully bad commercials. But then again, I think it might be a requirement for local car commercials to be bad. But then again, most local advertisements tend to be poor, whether it be due to inadequate recording or just a huge cheese factor, they tend to be noticeably bad.
I think the key of this presentation being that local ads are "bad".
Could not agree more with your rant. The obvious attempt to get a new or potential clients attention has a rule that everyone seems to go by today: Whatever it takes even at the expense of your integrity.
By the way thanks for creating MacJournal - Love it! (no singing required!)
-Jon
Chad and Jon-
Thanks for writing. Nice to read I'm not alone in my "observation."
Here's my latest commercial observation (and I would assume this would be applicable from no matter where anyone is reading this): Is there be about a billion jeweler ads on the radio these days? And it's not that there are so many different jewelers with spots on the radio but they _overadvertise._I don't listen to radio much more than the next guy but I swear I hear a jeweler ad about every other minute! (slight exaggeration, but not that slight). And it's ALWAYS the talentless Founder or CEO of the company who think they are actually making a good impression. Just pathetic.
Mike
I spend about 3 hours a day commuting to and from work, so I listen to a fair amount of music during that time. Most of the time, I come armed with my own CDs (or iPods), but I occasionally listen to the radio.
The radio station I've been listening to lately is a new channel called 102.3 Max FM, which seems to have pretty low over head, with no formal DJs, and also few commercials. And the few commercials that I can remember, tend to be local auto commercials. Sorry, no jewelry ads, it must be something local to Minnesota!
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