Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Crap Products In History, Culture, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Money
A while back I wrote about how McKinsey advised a client that the best way to boost their sales was to incentivise their distribution network.
That wouldn’t be so bad if the client I was referring to wasn’t the infamous Sackler family – creators of Oxycontin – and the result of this decision wouldn’t be that tens of thousands more people would end up becoming addicted or die from what has been labelled as one of the most deadly over-the-counter drugs ever produced.
But I recently saw something that could be just as evil.
Maybe not so directly dangerous, but messed up all the same.
This …
What the absolute fuck?!
It’s bad enough someone decided to use Paw Patrol to sell some shitty kids drinks … but to then make that drink come in a bottle that has been purposefully packaged to resemble a champagne bottle is just asking for trouble.
How did this get through?
I mean, isn’t this just a modern version of candy cigarettes?
No doubt whoever is behind this horrible use of exploitation and manipulation is being watched with admiring eyes over at McKinsey right now.
But if you think that was bad, there’s worse.
Something that has confused me to the point where it feels my brain may explode.
Sure it doesn’t involve addiction or death – at least not directly.
And sure, it doesn’t revolve around making kids get comfortable with iconography that in later life may have negative affects on their health and wellbeing.
But at the same time, it’s even more messed up than all that.
Something that makes you question that values and tastes of all of humanity.
Here we go …
What the hell?
I mean seriously, what the hell!!!
No doubt Vaynerchuk will now be releasing copious amounts of video footage of him telling artists how they need to follow his ‘system’ to earn ludicrous amounts of cash for their work.
Who would pay this?
Worse, who would pay this for an NFT of his doodle?
And why? Why would anyone think this is a good idea.
Hmmmmmn, unless the person was Vaynerchuk in an act of PR gaining?
Now I’ve said it, you can picture it can’t you.
To assume any other reason is basically an admission we’re in end of days.
So while I apologise for ruining your week from the first day, please remember – I didn’t come up with this crap, I only write it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Corona Virus, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Fear
Once upon a time, it felt like there were a lot of movies where a passenger on a plane had to step up and take control because all the pilots had fallen ill.
It would always feature a member of the flight crew discovering the Captain and co-pilot were sick or unconscious, followed by a nervous public announcement asking: “Is there a pilot on board?”
Eventually someone – typically an Alpha male type of man – would step up and the movie would then focus on the story of them being talked through how to land the plane … which they’d do without a loss of life and everyone, especially the glamorous female flight crew member, would fall in love with them.
Sometimes these movies were comedies – Airplane for example – sometimes something more serious, but that was the general premise of all of them.
Now there have been stories where this situation happened, or at least in terms of a passenger having to help land the plane annnnnnnd – as we learnt on the Netflix Fyre Festival documentary – you can learn to fly a plane through Microsoft Flight Simulator … but frankly, the idea of being thrown into a situation you have never been in before, with hundreds of lives at stake and a time limit for success to be executed is something that must be pretty much everyone’s worst nightmare.
Why am I saying this?
Well because I saw the lowest rent version of this situation recently.
Or, said another way, the ‘training wheels’ version of this situation.
This.
Yep, that’s a ‘be talked through your own haircut’.
Be TALKED through.
Not video. Phone.
Hahahahahahahaha.
And then they charge you $14 for it.
What if you have a complicated haircut?
What if you need it colouring and can’t tell if it’s right?
What if you end up spending hours talking them through the cut?
OK … OK … so it’s someone taking the piss, but as funny as it is, there may be people who would actually pay for this.
No seriously.
Not simply because of the state pandemic hairstyles got in – though obviously I wouldn’t know this – but because we shouldn’t forget, there’s restaurants out there who charge you a full restaurant price to cook your own steak on the BBQ.
I’ll never work out why some people think that is a good night out.
Sure you don’t have to wash up, but you do have to pay a lot of cash for something you could have done – for much cheaper – at home.
So you heard it here first. Next pandemic lockdown, invest in the phone haircut business. They will be the future … or they may end up as a z-grade horror movie on Channel 5.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Brand Suicide, Comment, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creativity, Culture, Equality, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Women
Years ago I worked on the shampoo brand Sunsilk.
I know. Me.
A bald bloke.
Hahahahahahahaha.
Back then, it was in a two brand fight for dominance with Pantene.
They went back and forth trying to get one over the over.
Apparently the brands had legally agreed how each one could show the ‘shine’ of the hair they washed in TV ads. A slight deviation that allowed each one to build their own distinctive look.
Back when I was on it, albeit for 2 mins, Sunsilk was a big, mature brand.
A powerhouse.
So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this:
What in gods name is that?
What is it?
It’s like the worst Barbie ad I’ve ever seen.
An ad that claims to ‘rethink’ pink but doesn’t really rethink anything.
Oh they may think they are, but the people behind this need to know you can’t just say pink now represents possibilities, future, strength and shiny [gotta get those haircare ad cues in there, even if it makes even less sense to the premise of the ad] … you actually have to make it mean that.
It’s a commitment.
A focus.
Acts beyond advertising.
So sadly, when you make an ad so bubblegum it looks like the bastard love child of the movie, Legally Blonde and a packet of original Hubba Bubba, you’re not really going to convince anyone.
On the positive, they cop out by saying ‘pink is whatever we make it’ and so I would like to tell the people at Unilever and Sunilk they did exactly that, because they have made pink brown.
Shitty brown.
Am I being mean?
Yep.
But then this is a multi-billion dollar company who has profited by putting women across Asia in cultural jail by promoting white skin as the right skin … used COVID to maximise profits for their antiseptic products and continually used stereotypes to promote it’s products … so I don’t have much sympathy for them.
Especially when they’re now trying to connect to young women by saying ‘pink’ is powerful while using all the same tropes, styles and themes that means what they’re actually communicating is ‘pink is the same old girly cliche they’ve been profiting from, for decades’.
There’s some absolutely incredibly talented people at Unilever.
Including some very good friends of mine.
There’s also some brilliant systems and processes within the organisation.
Sadly, there’s also a blinkered reliance on some questionable research methodologies, which results in a lack of self awareness so they end up with work like this.
They have done some brilliant work in the past.
Some truly brilliant.
But – in my opinion – not so much right now. Made worse with the sort of underlying messages that undermine people rather than elevate them.
If it wasn’t for their huge distribution and pricing power, it would be interesting to see what would happen to the brand.
But the thing is I want them to do well.
I want them to make work that changes and positively impacts culture.
They’re a huge spender on advertising.
They have the ability to change how culture feels and how the industry is perceived.
A Unilever that does great advertising is a Unilever that will have positive knock-on effects in a whole host of other areas and industries.
I’d even be willing to help them – for free, for a time – if their starting point was about building change through truth rather than their messed-up, manipulative version of purpose.
However given they made this ad after saying they wanted to stop the stereotypes in their advertising, it appears their view of reality is more blinkered than a racehorse.
Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Comment, Communication Strategy, Crap Campaigns In History, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Focus Groups, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail, Nike, olympics, Planning, Pretentious Rubbish, Relevance, Resonance, Respect, Shanghai, Wieden+Kennedy
Toothpaste.
It’s all kind-of the same isn’t it.
OK, so the manufacturers would disagree – which is why they keep launching different variants with all manner of ‘secret ingredients’ – but to the average person on the street, not only is the product pretty much the same, so is the advertising.
I get it, toothpaste ads must be hard … but even that doesn’t justify this shit from Colgate.
Cop a load of this.
Yep … ‘Made for greatness’.
Not made for great teeth, but greatness.
Hmmmmn … that’s not an over-claim whatsoever is it?
It’s a toothpaste.
For teeth.
TEETH.
And while teeth have a big role in our lives – and culture – THEY HAVE FUCK ALL TO DO WITH YOUR ABILITy TO CLIMB A MOUNTAIN.
Or a flight of stairs for that matter.
Now I appreciate I’m biased because in 2012, we did Greatness for the London Olympics … but have a look and tell me which you think is better … more resonant and more appropriate?
Yes, exactly.
And that’s before you have been reminded about the two lead NIKE Olympic ads from 2012.
God, even now Jogger gives me chills.
As I said, I get how hard toothpaste ads must be, but if Colgate want to do something right and interesting, they should give me a call – as I literally have 3 great ideas they can have. For a price. On the bright side, I promise you that whatever the price we agree on, you wont have to pay with your dignity like you have had to do with this.
Oh god how I’d love it if they did that, even though we all know it’s not going to happen.
So I’ll leave you with this.
Colgate … I am sure this passed all manner of internal research tests.
I am sure you this makes you all feel you’re doing something really important for humanity.
And while healthy, bright, strong, clean teeth are important – and Colgate plays a big role in that – it would be so much better if it helped make the brains of the people who approved this, as bright as their teeth, because maybe they wouldn’t have churned out the advertising equivalent of a root canal without anaesthetic.
Call me Colgate. Seriously. Please call me. I can put a billion dollar smile on your face.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Creative Development, Creativity, Culture, Egovertising, Embarrassing Moments, Management, Marketing, Marketing Fail
OK, so the heading on this post is decidedly fake news … but you will be ecstatic to know it is the last week of this blog for 2022.
Better yet, because NZ has quite long Christmas holidays, it will be the last post until Jan 31st – albeit with a post on Jan 16th to commemorate 23 years since my Dad passed away.
So after this week, you get about 6 weeks of blog post freedom.
Talk about ending 2021 and starting 2022 on a high …
I know, you’re welcome.
But it’s not all good news as you still have to get through this week of blog posts PLUS they’re going to be full of sentimentality, so you’ll probably need 6 weeks to recover from them.
That said, I’m not a total beast, so I’ll gently throw you in to the big, pile of steaming vomit and because of that, today’s post is about this …
Yep, Norton – the anti-virus people – sent me an email about their new logo.
Their new logo that looks almost identical to their old logo, except …
1. Replacing N with n.
2. Using a solid ‘tick’, instead of the weird graphic one.
3. Changing the orange ring, to a yellow one.
4. All placed on a white background instead of a black one.
And while having four differences could indicate some big changes, this doesn’t.
On face value, people would probably not notice any change at all … which is maybe why Norton – I mean, Norton – sent the email out.
So we’d know, because otherwise we wouldn’t know.
Which makes you ask why do the name change in the first place … or why send an email about it to people who literally don’t give a shit.
I mean, what do they expect me to do?
Suddenly buy their entire suite of anti-virus products?
Or try and buy a t-shirt with their new logo emblazoned on the front of it?
Or possible just buy them as Christmas presents for friends and family?
I’m happy Norton are happy with their non-change, logo change.
I’m chuffed they still take some pride in their appearance after all this time.
I’m thrilled they don’t mind paying a couple of mill for minute changes.
I’m ecstatic they’re so easily pleased and must be a dream to buy presents for.
[read: $10 gift voucher from the local hardware shop].
But frankly, I buy their software to stop me getting this sort of corporate virus email, so please Norton, pull yourself together and don’t bother me with this sort of rubbish again.
Thanks.