My buddy Mark Dimassimo was pissed. He’d been watching an inordinate amount of tennis and he’d reached his limit with the constant repetition of ads. Not that the ads were bad the first five, ten or twenty times he saw them. But around the hundredth time he was subjected to the same, singular “tennis” ad that each company had deigned to produce in order to be “relevant” during the tournament, he was, as I could tell form his tweets, texts and messages, about ready to hurl something toxic and large at his television machine.
And brother, I can relate.
Read MoreFor as long as I’ve been doing this, people have been telling me that the surest path to marketing success was to always be “fishing where the fish are.” That is, put your message where the people you want to reach, are.
And that makes sense, right? If you’re talking to motorcycle riders, advertise where motorcycle riders are. If you’re talking to Moms, put your message where Moms are. And if you’re talking to Moms who ride motorcycles, well, you get the idea.
And this advice has served advertisers and their agencies for centuries. I would bet that if you dug deep enough into Pompeii’s ashes you would find an ancient Roman vellum purporting delivering this aphorism in some Latinate version of corkscrew advertising-ese.
Read MoreMy friend Dave Marinaccio likes to say that even bad advertising works better than no advertising. And he’s right, of course. For as Woody Allen famously said, 80% of success is just showing up – and advertising, in one sense, is simply about showing up when your competitor does not.
What Dave doesn’t mention about bad advertising is that “showing up” is about all it has going for it. It’s sort of like drunk-dialing your x-girlfriend. Yes, you’re making yourself top of mind with her (awareness!) and you’re occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everyone else (attention!) – but you’re also rambling and mumbling and cursing and vomiting and being fairly incoherent. But hey! You’re showing up!
Read More