Thinking outside the box?

One of the campaigns I see a lot of lately is for LaQuinta Hotels. The heroes of the spots are effective in business because they stay at the hotel. They get their ducks in a row, bring home the bacon, and think outside the box.

That's my favorite. Not because it's better than all the others, but because it's ironic on so many levels. The visual is amusing, with all the other executroids crowded into a huge box, unable to come up with an original big idea. The suit in charge says "We need ideas, people. Think. Think!" (It's the second "Think!" that gets me.)

Jerry's suggestion is "synergistic integration." It makes me laugh, not only because he makes the visual for it by interlocking his fingers into a double fist, he drops a marketing speak bomb that these executroids supposedly haven't heard of, he offers no explanation of what it is, the suit in charge calls him a genius, and it's obvious that the actor has no idea what synergistic integration is.

All these bad elements combine to make to make an amusing commercial. Usually, I'm not a fan of badvertising. This is the exception to my rule.

Does badvertising sell?

As painful as it is, I’m contemplating an issue I never thought I would.

Can bad advertising (or “badvertising” as we coined it back in college) be a good strategy? After all, if people are talking about the brand, if a bad jingle is memorable, if I’m including a link to one of the worst ads in recent memory in this blog, does it ultimately prove that badvertising works?

The spot drawing my ire is actually one the company brought back. Subway's Five... Five Dollar Footlong, which almost caused me to contemplate pulling a Van Gogh two years ago, is back. Much to my dismay.

The spots are horrible. There's damn little creativity involved. Just a jingle which sticks with the unsuspecting victim. The spots are in heavy rotation during the baseball playoffs, as part of Subway's Anytober Promotion.

I can't wait for Halloween. And I hate Halloween.

The first commercial that sparked the badvertising debate played repeatedly during early round NCAA tournament games. It was overdone. It was poorly acted. Though the song was terrible, it was infectious.

Kinda like the plague, but without all the death.

If you haven’t figured out which spot it is, you don’t watch much basketball. If you do, I don’t know how you missed it.

During our discussion, not one person said they liked it. In fact, the level of hatred spewed by everyone involved in the conversation led me to believe it was money badly spent. A quick cruise around Twitter proved it.

I mean, someone had to green-light the spot without thinking, “This is the best spot that we could produce.” Someone had to go out of their way to produce a memorably bad spot. That had to be the goal. It had to be strategy. Right?

I think no one would purposefully produce a horrible commercial, with a more horrible jingle. (I certainly wouldn’t.) It just isn’t effective. Or so I thought until a few admitted to having the song stuck in their heads.

Which leads to my conundrum: If you remember the jingle, and more importantly, the brand, does that mean the ad is effective?

I don’t think so. But I think that’s the risk when your goal is to create badvertising: losing customers. I didn't eat Pringles for years because of their ads. The question remains: Will someone avoid a brand simply because the commercials are bad?

Or just me?

Fiat fails with new spot

I love when advertising takes risks. Fiat didn't take a risk, not creatively, anyway.

It did, however, really stretch the truth in the "Drive In" spot that I've seen... and seen... and seen... and seen today during the Kansas City Chiefs game.

It's been shown so many times I'm expecting to see "This NFL game is brought to you commercial free by the Fiat 500."

I know it's not uncommon for a commercial to stretch the truth a little. Hell, it's not uncommon for a commercial to fib. But this one is, as my Grandma says, "a corker."

Art direction wise, it's a black and white spot with the 500 in color. Yeah, we've never seen that before. The spot says "something comes along so powerful and constant..."

No kidding? I thought the car looked winded driving on the concrete of the drive-in. By the way, I've never seen a concrete-covered drive-in. Gravel, yes. Flat concrete? No way. And every one of them has those bumps where the car parks. The 500 doesn't look like it could make it up the bump without getting high-centered.

The spot continues with "...so revolutionary in design..."

Really? It looks like the bastard love child of a Smart Car and a Cooper Mini. Not exactly "revolutionary." The rims are about as revolutionary as it gets.

The spot gushes further "... it defines a generation. It becomes a cultural icon."

If this roller skate becomes a cultural icon, I'll eat my hat. This spot is designed to market "the arrival of an icon" to the American consumer. We hold iconic cars in high regard. And they usually differentiate the cars with innovation, unique design or power. Think 1957 Chevy, 1965 Mustang, or the 1970 Pontiac GTO.

In the spot, the generation that this thing is supposed to define rolls into the drive-in, then immediately leaves the car. Does that happen at a drive-in? No.

This car is anything but iconic and the spot is anything but creative. Both the car and the ad have very high opinions of themselves. Both take themselves WAAAAAY too seriously.

Short on Creativy? Use a Really Bad Pun

I understand the need for humor in advertising. It entertains. It helps the audience remember the ad. It may differentiate your ad from the clutter.

The are a few things to which I have aversions. One is midgets. I don't know why. It's kinda like a phobia, I guess. The second is badvertising, a term we coined back in college.

You may not have seen the Title Max spots unless you stay up late to watch Poker After Dark. I record and watch it while the kids and wife are still asleep.

I've seen two ads for the lending franchise starring Verne Troyer. He played "Mini Me" aaaand... not much else. I realize he did have a role in one of the Harry Potter flicks, but it was a while back and at the risk of using a pun, it wasn't a big part.

I understand he's just doing this for the gig, because squeaking "I got my title back with Title Max" isn't exactly stretching the old creative legs. Obviously he got tired of waiting around for Mike Meyers to get his shit together and write the fifth installment of the Powers trilogy.

The most egregiously bad part of the spots, besides the tag, I mean, is the premise. The spot shows our hero struggling with the obvious physical limitations of being his size. In one, he's shown struggling with the fact that he can't reach the buttons on the ATM. In the other, he's in a tree and reaching out on the very farthest limb for the money that obviously grows on trees in the Title Max world.

In both, the voice over asks Verne the same stupid question, "Short on cash?"

I'd really like to know what advertising genius who pitched this. He needs to be verbally smacked upside the head. I'm not being sexist when I say "he." No female copywriter would come up with something this lame.

Creative falls on its ass

I've been guilty of this too. In school while working on creative. Pushing the creative envelope to make an impression.

That's all well and good. When you're trying to get a job in the advertising industry and you have to impress a creative director.

But Summer's Eve, and more specifically, its agency, The Richards Group, is well beyond trying to impress anyone. They're in the business of selling product, not creating a conversation about racial stereotypes or questioning the validity of using hand puppets to simulate talking vaginas. Which is all they've done with their "Hail to the V" campaign.

The brand is taking a beating. Industry folk are talking about the campaign. Most of it centers around the question, "Is it true any publicity is good publicity?" This Adweek piece panned the spot, despite the fact that it pushed the envelope.

Ask Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who was responsible for the Groupon Super Bowl ads.

It hurt the brand. It was creative, yes. No denying that. But the decision to go-ahead, even with the benefit of hindsight, was so ill-advised. In short, this was amateur hour.

What's Up? Chicken Butt!

This is a stock answer I've used to have fun with nieces, nephews, children of friends and drunk people at the bar for years. It's a joke, and admittedly, a bad one. But it's funny once in a while.

Now KFC is putting ads on the backsides of female college students. It's a joke, and I claim, an ad which is in bad taste. But it's funny not at all and is badvertising in the strictest sense of the word.

Now, I'm all for advertising where your target audience is likely to see the ad, but I think this pushes the limits and is only trying to make news, not do good advertising.

The ad has a picture of the Colonel and says "Double Down." That's the extent of it.

I'm sure it was Harland Sanders' dream when he built his chicken empire to have his likenes on the derriers of liberal arts students across the country.

Guys in their late teens and early twenties are the ones most like to buy this culinary gem. So KFC its product where they feel the audience is looking.

But I think the ad is disjointed. I'll explain. Let's take a look at this morsel.

The awkwardly named Double Down is two chicken breasts with bacon, cheese and sauce jammed in between. No bun. It's bunless. The advertise on the asses of young women, targeting young men. Get it?

Neither do I. I think it's creating a stir just for the sake of getting the name of this thing in the news. The medium overwhelms the message.

While it goes just far enough to create a stir, I think the campaign misses an opportunity. if it wants to objectify the female anatomy, wouldn't it make more sense to advertise this sammich on the front of their t-shirt rather than the back of their pants?

I'm just saying...