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February 2, 2009
What Happens When Every Ad Is Pretty Good (Or Pretty Bad)?
Ed McMahon (shaky hands and all) and MC Hammer hawking Cash4Gold. What has the Super Bowl sunken to?
I am not going to comment on Super Bowl ads specifically, but technically, this post is about the ads. For me, the last several years have seemed like an immense letdown, with few shining stars standing out in a sea of apparent mediocrity. However, in retrospect, I think that perhaps what really has happened is that all the ads are now "pretty good" by American football-watcher standards...and that means that everything seems pretty undistinguised.
Slapstick humor (Bud), weak value propositions (Cheetos), poorly executed concepts (Cars.com, Toyota), and just plain bad ideas (Teleflora) were certainly plentiful. Yet, so were some elegant executions (Pepsi Mean Troy or Coke Heist). But do I really think that any of this will truly help sell the products? (My answer is obvious.) And that is the point.
When the original Apple 1984 ad aired, it was a seminal execution...a high-tech marvel that positioned the brand without really talking about the product. Since then, lots of brands have tried that approach, but guess what...if everyone does weak positioning....all the messages get lost in the primordial ooze we call ad clutter. Next, breakthroughs like the Budweiser Frogs or Terry Tate Office Linebacker are getting harder and harder to produce. Brilliance apparently does not grow on trees. This year, Sobe tried to shine in 3D. Too bad most people didn't have 3D glasses at hand when the ad aired. Perhaps it is time to return to the clarity that Xerox demonstrated in its Brother Domenick spots from three decades ago, which is sort of what Hyundai tried. But, our ad-addled brains don't always reward staid execution with high recall marks. Maybe Alex Baldwin is right...our brains are being manipulated into dysfunctional mush.
Which leaves the possibility that the most successful ads were the ones never run. Fedex saved enough money to fuel its fleet for a few hours. PETA got hundreds of thousands of views for an ad banished from broadcast by NBC. And GM can take the money it saved and pour it into engineering products that buyers might really want.
OK, enough for now. I have to go mail in that old set of cufflinks of mine to get my $0.17 check...it will help me through the recession.
Posted by jcioban at February 2, 2009 10:32 AM
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