Filed under: Crap Campaigns In History
This is what happens when [marketing] people forget that to stand any chance of making people give the teeniest shit about you, you don’t communicate what you want people to know, you communicate what they want to know.
That said, I bet the person behind this was some media planner who told them:
“People riding the underground don’t want to make eye-contact with other passengers so they look around for things to occupy their attention, like long-copy ads. This is the perfect opportunity for us to run an ad that fully explains the symptoms of ADHD to a highly captive and engaged audience”.
I’m telling you, I can literally hear that being said.
Maybe it could have worked if the ad wasn’t addressing people in the first person.
Maybe it would be less bloody ridiculous if it started with the words, ‘Do you know someone who …’, but it didn’t, instead they used long-copy to try and connect with people who have an inability to focus on anything for more than a few seconds.
Shame on the media planner for only focusing on the medium not the audience.
Shame on the client for only focusing on what they want to say, not how they should communicate it.
Shame on the underground sales team for only focusing on their sales targets, not effectiveness.
And to anyone who say’s, “but you’re writing about it, so that proves its successful” … may I suggest you visit here, because you’ll find a place that appears to value disruption more than it does meaningful resonance.
A man on a beach.
You can tell he’s cool because he’s wearing a hat.
And his shirt is untucked and unbuttoned.
And he is bare foot.
He’s staring up towards the sky with a look of awe on his face.
You don’t know what he’s looking at, but it’s got to be something amazing.
He’s too cool to be impressed by any old rubbish.
Next to him is a cello.
Yes, a cello.
For reasons I’m not able to fathom, this musical instrument is able to stand perfectly straight without anything – or anyone – holding it.
Oh, and it’s also translucent.
Yes, you can’t get much cooler than that.
Next to the cello is a massively big woman in her underwear.
Seriously, she’s huge.
Maybe he’s a midget, but I’m pretty sure she’s super-tall.
But she’s not on the beach, she’s kind-of in a nondescript place.
I hope it’s somewhere warm because she could get a terrible cold.
She’s looking wistfully in the distance. As if she dreams of one day meeting a man on the beach who has a translucent cello.
You think I’m on drugs don’t you!
Or at least had too many cough sweets and got drunk on the minuscule alcohol content they hold.
Don’t laugh, that’s actually happened to me.
But no I’m not.
I’m not even overly-tired.
I have just described the utter bollocks of a Japanese lingerie brands ad running in HK.
I don’t know if a Hong Kong agency created it or if they are just running it there, but apart from a few exceptions [mainly people, but a couple of agencies] … it reminds me why I once described that place – in terms of adland, not the culture – as the big ideas ghost town.
Look at it.
What the fuck it is trying to say?
I have no idea, but what I’m fairly certain of – especially given the brand is named ‘Bon Luxe’ – is they’re desperately trying to appear ‘sophisticated’.
The cello.
The beach.
The hunk.
The woman.
The Eurasian heritage of the models. [because god forbid any pure Asian appears in the ads!]
The pompous ‘passions for perfection’ line.
The fake french ‘good luxury’ name.
It all smacks of some blinkered brand manager who doesn’t know the difference between natural and contrived.
Maybe someone should tell them the quickest way to look cheap and tacky is to try and fake sophistication.
And before anyone slags me off, a woman sent me this ad and she basically said what I’ve just ranted about for far too long.
And for the record, she’s hideously attractive so it’s not jealousy.
Plus she works for Tiffany, so she’s sophistication personified.
Annnnd – to put the cherry on top of the perfect life – she is married to a bloody race car driver.
No, I have no idea why she’s friends with me, but that aside … if she thinks it’s pants, then I think it’s fair to say I certainly can as well … so there.
God that was a long winded rant wasn’t it.
Well at least it’s Friday.
Happy Weekend.
So I recently watched the latest series from the wonderful journalist, Louis Theroux.
If you don’t know who he is, you don’t know what you’re missing … though I have to say I prefer his Weird Weekend documentaries compared to the new and mature version of himself.
Anyway, one of the programs was on US sex offenders and he mentioned there was an app that listed all the people that appeared on the sex offender register.
Because I was interested – not scared, I would appear on it thank-you-very-much – I tried to download the app and when I found it, I saw this …
Now maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t know many brands – especially luxury brands – who would voluntarily like to be associated with one of the worst groups in society.
That said, maybe it was not an unfortunate accident … maybe someone actively placed LV in the app because they uncovered the insight, ‘When a rich sex offender is discovered, they need help to get out of the country in style’.
I know … I know … that’s sick and horrible. Sorry. I actually feel bad about saying that but not as bad as I’d feel if I worked on LV and they suddenly discovered where their highly curated brand was appearing.
So the organisers of the Singapore Women’s Leadership want me to nominate myself for their award.
Last time I looked, I had a couple of balls and a penis hanging pathetically and limply from my body.
[That’s a nice image for you isn’t it!?]
Seriously, how could they let this happen?
What does it say about their standards and values if they send nominations to men to put themselves forward for a woman’s award.
I know we want to live in an equal opportunity World, but this is ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as people who nominate themselves for awards, but that’s by-the-by.
All the had to do was alter the bloody copy of the email by a couple of words [ie: get rid of ‘to nominate yourself”] and they could send it to as many men as they liked.
But they didn’t.
They went with convenience rather than accuracy and relevance.
I just hope the eventual winner of this ‘prestigious’ award never finds out, because nothing would undermine the value of their title than discovering the organisers have standards lower than an NRA spokesman.
Filed under: Bank Ads, Comment, Crap Campaigns In History
… have a look at this.
Yes, it’s a bank trying to sound supportive and inspirational.
Actually, it’s not just a bank … it’s Citibank, the company who has been bathed in all manner of scandals from wrongful selling of financial products to the wrongful use of their customers cash and countless things in-between.
If you can’t read the copy properly [which in some ways, you should be grateful for], here it is in all it’s patronising, contrived horror-story glory …
If they were being honest, they would add the following at the bottom of all that fawning praise for the next generations potential:
“… and Citibank will turn down your dreams for helping the World with cures for illness or opportunities for technology because we only help the big boys unless you are willing for us to weigh you down with so much debt that you’d have to turn into the next Google to stand a chance of actually making your dream a commercial reality.”
Though now I come to think about it, the next generation won’t even get a chance to be turned down for a loan, because Citibank will have burdened their family with such high mortgage and credit card debt, they won’t be able to be sent to a school or university that can help them nurture their dreams, ambitions and hopes for a better, happier future.
I find it fascinating that banks – after all the widely acknowledged shit they have done and caused – continue with this head-in-the-sand approach to marketing.
If Citibank were as clean-as-a-whistle, I’d get it [though they should be telling people that rather than some meaningless, bland corporate-talk beigeness] but they’re not and they’d stand far more chance in getting people to believe them if they followed what I call the 8 Mile strategy and took on all the stuff people could say about them, to rob them of the power that they have over them.
But sadly the financial industry don’t admit failure or fault. They have been told by their highly paid lawyers, it’s better to stick it out, regardless of the anger it causes, than try to put the past right and face paying out money.
And that is why I hate banks.
I shouldn’t hate banks. What they do – in theory – is a wonderful thing … but those days are long past, which is why society has to put up with this sort of marketing bollocks that does more to alienate than attract. But they don’t care, because it’s to keep them in the delusional bubble they reside in which is why the only good thing I can say to Citibank about this campaign, is that at least they’re not HSBC.
Bank advertising. The scariest thing you’ll see this halloween.