Dead Tree Media - Traditional Advertising Reviewed by an Internet Marketer » Accenture

Accenture: Nothing says tech consulting like a surfing elephant [VIDEO]

Jeff Ferguson — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:00:28 +0000

There are boat loads of really smart people over at Accenture, which is why I’m wondering how this commercial saw the light of day.

It’s actually a cute little concept. The surfing elephant gets an easy smile and ties in with their question about “who says you can’t be big and nimble?”

Two things… for one, they used the Kinks song, “Well-Respected Man,” which is one of those deceptive little songs that sounds like it’s being nice, but is really a swipe at conservative businessmen in the UK (and their parents). The first verse is OK, but the second is where you can start to see some of Ray Davis’ classic wit:

And his mother goes to meetings,
While his father pulls the maid,
And she stirs the tea with councilors,
While discussing foreign trade,
And she passes looks, as well as bills
To every suave young man

I guess it could be worse… I once saw a trailer for “A Very Tigger Movie” that used Semi-Charmed Kind of Life and one of the cruise lines used to play Lust For Life by Iggy and the Stooges, both are about drug use. But hey, at least they’re catchy, right?

The other thing I’ve kind of got a problem with is the line, “Who says you can’t be big and nimble?” Well, everybody says that because it’s pretty much true. Sure, there are a few companies that pull it off, but for the most part, any time you’ve got more than 50 people working for a company, you’re more wrecking ball than mongoose.

At least they’re not using the Tiger Woods ads anymore…

- Jeff Ferguson

WSJ (wha?) rates the best and worst advertising of 2009

Jeff Ferguson — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:56:15 +0000

Dead Tree Media just arrived on the scene, so we’re not going to do a “Best of 2009″ edition. Partly because it would be presumptuous, but mostly because it sounds like work. But that won’t stop us from linking to a few Best Of’s to fill in some dead space on the site.

Wall Street Journal, one of the old ladies of the Dead Trees, posted its list of the Best and Worst Ads of 2009 (link). It’s a fairly decent review of the year for sure. I can’t agree with them on some of the non-dead tree winners (the skating babies thing was cute, but it was a novelty at best). but overall it’s a decent read.

The one I’m having a little problem with was giving Accenture the red ass for its Tiger Woods campaign simply because it had Tiger Woods in it now. Turns out that campaign has been running for over six years and nobody seemed to have a problem with it until we found out that Tiger was a bigger hit with the ladies that we would have guessed. I mean, you could have given it a “worst” rating because the ads are kind of poorly written and unimaginative, but to say they are suddenly bad because of Tiger, that’s just lazy.

I won’t tolerate laziness on this site and… what? Oh I led with lazy. Shit, never mind…

Guest Post: Accenture proves that the best jokes are accidental…

Jeff Ferguson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:00:37 +0000

Today we have the first in a series of guest posts here at Dead Tree Media, this time by Steve Sarner of Tagged (link).

* * *

It’s been over 2 weeks since his solo car crash and the Tiger jokes are already getting old as is the debate about corporate endorsements and whether to maintain or drop celebrities who get in trouble.

That said – the Accenture / Tiger Woods poster ads that blanket nearly every airport in the nation now lend themselves to some special ad copy irony – such as:

“It’s not a setback. It’s a test.”

“High performers shine, even when the sun doesn’t.”

“How can you plan ahead when you can hardly see ahead?”

And since Accenture is likely frantically working with the vendors to remove / replace these displays – there’s no better place than Dead Tree to archive this one from MSP. The ad copy – “Opportunity isn’t always obvious” -combined with the phallic cactus photo offers perhaps the most ironic Tiger ad of all.

About Steve Sarner:

Steve has more to lose than me submitting for Dead Tree because although he used to be on the “buy side” like me – today he sells digital media and that means he might actually have to face some of these clients or agency types that might want to switch from dead to digital. I’ve known Steve since my Kimberly-Clark days and over the years he has a pretty good record of joining start ups that are successful enough to be bought out by larger companies. He’s also worked for “Big Media” such as News Corp and Fox Digital but today is back in the start-up mode in San Francisco with a successful – not so little – social media site called Tagged (link) where he runs the revenue production. And like me – Steve is a consumer and part of the target audience for many ads. Unlike me he avoids automobile commutes as much as he avoids bad dead tree advertising.

All of Tiger Wood’s dead tree friends are running for the hills…

Jeff Ferguson — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:01:05 +0000

I awoke from my beer induced haze this morning to see the AP headline, “Gillette to limit Woods’ role in its marketing” (link) and even with some of the alcohol rolling around in my body, I said to myself, “well that took longer than I thought it would.” Not just for the sponsors to start running for the hills, but also, Tiger should have outed himself as a fuck up a long time ago.

A friend of mine, who dated some pro athletes awhile back, was asked what she thought of all this back when it first started coming out. She replied, “well, I know professional athletes, so none of this is surprising.”

I think we were initially surprised that it was Tiger pulling this shit because it was golf, and golf is boring as hell… and I play the damn game. I always thought Tiger a little boring, a little too perfect. I like my golfers like John Daly used to be, drunk, drugged up, fat, and crazy as hell. What’s ironic is that this train wreck, who used to take out a fifth of Jack every day for awhile there, is chiming in with advice on how Tiger should save his marriage (link). Man, when John Daly is giving you marriage advice, you have officially hit rock bottom.

Dead Tree advertisers love themselves a big ole’ star to hook themselves onto; however, they also tend to run like scared little children when that hero’s true colors come out and they fuck up in a grand fashion, like our friend Tiger Woods truly has been lately. But man that took awhile… huh. Maybe if Tiger got himself a drug habit or worse (gasp!) a homosexual lover, then they would have dropped him faster than Lindsey Lohan can drop a fifth of vodka. Apparently a dozen or so extramarital trysts don’t really shake them up too much. Hell, they guys that run these companies are probably calling to welcome him to the club.

I saw on Mashable yesterday that Accenture starting pulling him out of the picture (link). I was walking through DFW earlier this week, and in the American terminal they have this big interactive, touch screen where you can get news, weather, and whatnot, all sponsored by Accenture. I look up and see that Tiger had his own tab on the screen and touched it fully expecting a collection of news articles about all the craziness lately. Instead, it’s a collection of puff pieces and videos about his humble beginnings and I was suddenly reminded that Accenture was yet someone else that was in bed with Tiger.

So here goes Gillette, Accenture 86’d him yesterday, AT&T realized it sponsored a golf tournament with the guy and freaked right the fuck out (link), and Gatorade made some wussy statement about their involvement with him changing… apparently they were already planning on phasing him out (link). Nothing personal Tiger, best of luck with the marriage thing.

Wait a minute, now I see what’s done it… that’s right, Tiger is getting out of golf for awhile (link). “Tiger, we were cool with you fucking your way through every big busted blonde you can find, but you do have to keep playing golf to get our advertising dollar.”

Keep is classy, Dead Tree Media, keep it classy…