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Walker from Brown and Browner Advertising says, “Doing That Crap Is Going to Cost You”

Jeff Ferguson — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:00:09 +0000

Derek Walker claims he is the “janitor, secretary and mailroom person” for Columbia, S.C. based agency, brown and browner advertising, but one of the big agencies should scoop him up because he’s really got something with his post on Advertising Age this morning.

Here’s the heart of his rant:

“doing crappy work actually costs more in the long term. We all know it — or at least we’ve had an idea it does — but no one wants to say it aloud. Well, I’m singing like a canary.

Crappy work can suck the life out of an agency and the money out of a client’s budget.”

Here at DTM, I’ve made it my quest to point out the crappy advertising of the world. Not just because I’m insulted by the poor quality, but because I, like Derek, know that it’s actually doing damage on a lot of fronts. The clients suffer, the agencies suffer, and the consumer suffers.

Hell, I would actually take that step farther and actually blame part of our economic woes on crappy advertising. Sure, a big chunk of the problem had to do with greed over at the banks, but it wasn’t just the banks that went down hard with the economy; it was pretty much across the board. Think about it, if the advertising for a product sucks, people buy less of that product, which in turn causes companies to cut back or even close, people lose their jobs, and the virus of bad advertising spreads like a catchy pop song.

So, both agencies and clients, do us a favor and put your damn backs into your job. America is counting on you.

- Jeff Ferguson

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DTM Commentary: Chrysler, Focus On The Family, and the Superbowl

Jeff Ferguson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:45:47 +0000

I first started writing this post awhile back when Chrysler announced that it was going to advertise during the Superbowl. I noticed right after the announcement that there was a lot of chatter on Advertising Age and a few other sites that showed some real outrage over the idea of a company that received bailout money from the government using some of that money for such a massive media buy.

Then, earlier this week, there as an announcement that the fundamental Christian group, Focus On The Family, was allowed to purchase media time during the Big Game as well. There is a certain amount of outrage around this announcement as well, but it’s more about the fact that CBS has a long history of rejecting advocacy groups like PETA and MoveOn.org and they’re letting this one squeak in the lineup.

However, one thing I think people are missing here is that another thing to be outraged about for the Focus On The Family media buy is very similar to the Chrysler issue – money, or spending money unwisely.

Dead Tree Media isn’t a news site, it’s an opinion site, so here’s my opinion of this whole mess.

First of all, getting pissed at Chrysler for advertising at the Superbowl because it took bailout money is kind of crazy. When the government bailed out Chrysler, the citizens of the United States basically became part owners of the company. It is in our own best interest to make sure this company bounces back and bounces back big because it means they will pay us back, with interest… just like a bunch of banks did in 2009 (to the tune of a profit of over $55 billion, by the way). Now I’m not saying we should all just blindly go out and start buying Chryslers, but shouldn’t we want to make sure that a company we’re invested in so heavily is doing everything it possibly can to succeed? Yes, I get it, you’re pissed we did the bailout in the first place, but having it fail miserably at this point would be a lot worse.

I know what you’re thinking, at $2.8 million for a 30 second spot, and probably less than twice that for the 60 second spot Chrysler bought, that’s a pretty hefty spend. Here’s the thing though, media buys for the Superbowl are mother expensive because they talk to an absolutely mind-numbing amount of people at once. Seriously, doing ads during The Big Game has been known to make or break businesses, crash unprepared servers, sell out inventory, and so on. The spots are not expensive just to be expensive, they’re expensive because they friggin’ work like a charm.

So, go Chrysler, go. Go balls. Go big. Make it work so we get our loan back and then some.

Now, Focus On The Family is a couple of different stories. For one, it’s going to be a damn advocacy ad – period. CBS says they’ve “reviewed the script” and it’s cool. However, the ad is going to feature Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who in an interview in 2007, talked about how she was advised to abort her pregnancy for medical reasons, but she held tight and had this Christian football machine. That’s enough of a hint to tell you the ad is going to be a pro-life message… oh, and the fact that the advocacy group has already admitted that the ad will carry a pro-life message.

I don’t care what side of this argument you’re on, this is really just about setting standards and holding to them no matter who comes a knockin’ and how bad business is right now. So, CBS, if you’re going to let Focus On The Family buy a spot on your network carrying a pro-life advocacy message, then you have to let PETA and MoveOn.org do the same thing. It’s really that simple.

Now here’s the money thing. Besides the fact that this whole thing appears to be an instance of CBS letting an advocacy group in the door because they need the cash, Focus On The Family is having its own bailout-type issues. No, it hasn’t been given bailout money from the government. However, they did lay off a large amount of their staff over the last couple of years because of poor cash management.

People in California might remember the group Focus On The Family because they spent over $600,000 trying to get the anti-gay marriage proposition, “Prop 8″, passed here in 2008. (Plus, some auto parts heiress that sits on their board threw another $450,000 at it as well). They spent so much money trying to get that passed that they had to lay off over 200 people. So, apparently, the “family” in Focus On The Family doesn’t include gay families or even families that work for Focus On The Family.

Focus On The Family has stated that the money for the Super Bowl spot came from another donor who wanted it specifically to go to this cause. You know why they said that? Because they knew the question would come up. Here’s why I’m pissed at them, beyond the purely political stuff; if you have donors that are willing to throw that much money at your cause, use some of it to hire back the people you had to lay off because of the last cause you over-backed.

Apparently, people will freak the hell out when Chrysler tries to get people in the showroom by buying a Super Bowl ad, but when Focus On The Family does it for pro-life purposes, despite the fact that people at their offices are losing their jobs, “go them?”

People of Earth, that’s kinda effed up, and CBS, get your shit together.

DTM Commentary: On sizzle, steak, and car parts (Martin Scorsese sex tape edition)

Jeff Ferguson — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:00:41 +0000

I don’t watch TV like I used to, I simply just don’t have to time. Plus there is a crazy person living in my house, but that’s not really television’s fault, although she does work in… you know what? I’m going to start over.

I was watching the Golden Globes last night and between watching Rickey Gervais kill in front of an otherwise stunned crowd and Robert Deniro tell one of the more awkward jokes I’ve ever seen at an award show (the bit about the Martin Scorsese sex tape of him and a roll of 35mm film stock), there were a ton of commercials for me to either enjoy or hate. Over the next week I’ll get to some of the hatred, but for now I wanted to call out something I’ve noticed in a lot of car commercials.

Back when I still attempting to become a copywriter, I heard my college professors say over and over again, “sell the sizzle, not the steak.” The idea is basically that you’re supposed to sell benefits, not features. Later on, when I was taking my screenwriting classes for no other purpose than to get my ideas laughed at by other failed screenwriters, I had another professor scream the mantra of “sell the sizzle, not the steak,” so, I know it’s still being taught out there.

However, to watch a lot of car commercials lately, I think there are a lot of copywriters who either never heard or forgot that sage advice. The commercial that set me off was for a luxury hybrid of some sort (I want to say Cadillac, but I’m actually not sure), and twice within that 30 second spot I heard them refer to the car’s “40 gigabyte navigation system.”

In case you’re not feeling me yet, the mention of a “40 gigabyte navigation system” is selling the steak, not the sizzle. The sizzle would be what that navigation system is good for, such as not getting lost when you’re trying to find your drug dealer’s crash pad… or taking the kids to the zoo, I don’t know what you family folk do with your time.

The car manufacturer actually doesn’t matter in this instance because I hear this kind of shit all the time. Trucks love to do this one and oddly it always has to do with the suspension for some reason. Guys who buy trucks must just get off on being told that the truck they are looking at has some sort of “sport tuned suspension” because it comes up way too much. When it comes to suspension, I just need to know if it’s strong enough to hold my couch when I sucker a friend of mine into helping me move.

Here’s the rule when it comes to listing the features of a car, keep it to horsepower and MPG. The first one is obvious. Sure, it’s at technical detail, but it’s one that just about everybody understands. The latter is a new addition to the rule as everybody loves to chat up how fuel efficient their cars are these days. If the feature isn’t one of these two things and you want to talk about it, you officially need to sex it up a little bit or I don’t need to hear it in the ad.

Let me be frank with you car manufacturers and copywriters, in these modern times, nobody knows what the fuck anything in their car does anymore. When I was a kid, my dad took a lot of time to show me the basics of how a car operated. He didn’t want to make me into a mechanic, but at the very least he wanted to make sure I could fill the radiator or change a flat when necessary. But now, people think their cars run on pixie dust and good intentions.

You can rattle on all day and night about all the cool specs in a car, but you’re wasting your breath. All you need to do is be funny or sexy, fuel efficient, and have a place to hook up their iPod and you’ve sold them on your car. Despite all your feats of engineering, people are just going to pick their cars because they like the color and it has extra cup holders.

Every now and then some douche bag tries to start the old “foreign cars are better than American cars” argument and it just pisses me off. Not because I’m a fan of American cars or not a fan of foreign cars, but because it’s a stupid fucking argument. I’ve had both of the years and have had wins and losses no matter where I go. My first car was a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix that is probably still running somewhere and my last two cars have been a Chrysler and a Ford and both of them ran like a top. I’ve been in accidents in both a Honda and a Saturn and both saved my life just as well. I also had a Buick that slowly disintegrated before my eyes, but then again, I had a VW that did the same thing and an ex of mine had a Kia that was perhaps one of the most poorly built cars I’ve ever seen.

My point is, they’re just friggin’ cars. We may do a little research into the features when we’re actually shopping for a new ride, but most of the time, we don’t even really understand what all the fancy numbers mean, so just save it for the showroom and show me the pictures of the mechanical wonder going really fast over the dry lake bed, I like that one…

DTM Commentary: How to piss off a Brit chick in no time!

Jeff Ferguson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:30:01 +0000

I’m a big fan of when people just don’t get things. I love it when there is a lot of discussion around something and people somehow just go the wrong damn way, for hours, days, whatever. It just kills me when people take up arms to stop something and when that something changes, they feel like they’ve really made a difference in the world and pat themselves on the back with little letters and postings.

Here’s a really great example of one group of people trying something with a really specific response in mind, getting that response from the crowd they expected, exactly the way they thought they would, the original group removing the issue at hand like they had planned to all along, and the crowd thinking they have accomplished something.

So, to prove that outdoor advertising actually still works, the Outdoor Advertising Association and ad agency Beta put up this bus ad and one other one making fun of football fans, then directed people to visit BritainThinks.com to share their feelings on the matter.

Almost instantly, the shit storm… scratch that, the TOTALLY EXPECTED SHIT STORM started and people flocked to the website to flick right the fuck out. Plus, as a bonus, the freak out spilled over onto a British site for working mothers, Mumsnet.

Beta left the ads up for a few weeks to let the pot simmer appropriately and then had them removed. The working mums over at Mumsnet declared it a victory over sexism and even issued a thoroughly British, mock apology over the matter. Man they were proud of themselves for that one. I dated a British chick for a couple of years and that tone is no stranger to my ears.

Following me so far? Let’s sum up. Beta and the OAA put the ads up to solicit a response and they got a big one. They knew going in that the ad above and the one about football would cause an uproar. The only way it wouldn’t cause an uproar is if people don’t read outdoor ads anymore. They clearly do, because people freaked out.

Who is the winner here? If you said Mumsnet, you would be incorrect. The winner is Beta and the OAA who can now present some fantastic data on the response that outdoor ads can cause when done right. Trust me, these guys are sitting in their offices, writing their hands and laughing manically because they just pulled off a whopper.

What’s that Mumsnet? “Oh, but no, they didn’t count on…” Yes, yes they did.

Now, the people that really should get this are people in the advertising business, including people who write about advertising for a living. Let me be blunt, it is Advertising Age’s job to “get it” about the world of advertising.

Instead, in their original post about this matter, they actually said, “Talk about stirring the pot for no good reason!” No, no, it’s a fan-fucking-tastic reason to stir the pot, to prove a point about the effectiveness of outdoor advertising. Then, Ad Age posted another entry to announce that the ads came down; but instead of just saying, “Wow, apparently outdoor still works fine!”, they buried the lead and made it more about the mock apology from Mumsnet.

So, Ad Age and Mumsnet, what do you think really happened here? That Beta and the OAA really took down the ad because of your outcry, or because they had the answer they needed? I know your fragile sense of self relies on the former being true, but sorry, your opinion and outrage here mean dick.

It was just business.

DTM Commentary: Jay Leno Says He’ll Quit Too

Jeff Ferguson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:00:17 +0000

According to WWTDD (link), Leno is now saying he’ll split from NBC too because of the poor way they’re handling the whole Conan thing. If that’s true, that’s noble of him, but i think it’s too little, too late on this front. Another piece of news I caught this morning was that apparently Conan’s deal with NBC has it worked out so that, even if he goes to another network, he still has to make his $20 million a year. So if he went to Fox for $15 million, NBC would have to make up the $5 million. The guy that hosts “Tosh 2.o” on Comedy Central was on KROQ this morning and said, “Conan should make a deal with Fox for $1.00 so that NBC has to pick up the entire tab.” That’s funny and insightful, man.

What does the Leno thing have to do with Dead Tree Media you may ask? Well, when it comes down to it, all of the shit that is happening is really about advertising. The entertainment business is still a business after all and while you may think you’re getting your network programming for free because you can skip past the ads with your Tivo, all that content still has to be paid for, from the guy who rolls the tape at night to my constantly out of work ex-girlfriend who somehow still calls herself an AD because she once worked on “Without A Trace.”

When NBC tried this grand experiment of putting Leno on at 10pm, they basically killed the lead-in to the news and to the Late Show by doing away with five nights of hour-long dramas. Without a good lead in, both the news and Conan suffered in the spot. When those two lose viewers, they lose Dead Tree Media ad dollars and the whole house of cards comes down.

The guys at NBC probably thought they had discovered a gold mine… they only had to pay Jay, Conan wasn’t as expensive as Jay, and they didn’t have to do one-hour dramas anymore. Hour long dramas can be pretty expensive, which is why really great, creative shows like “Pushing Up Daisies” and a few others don’t make it long because they cost too much to make and they just couldn’t get the advertising to cover the cost. This, by the way, is why you get a lot of cop dramas in that spot, they’re actually pretty cheap. They can shoot on the lot, there aren’t a lot of special effects, and outside of some rotating guest stars, the people in them are never really big names.

So, NBC really fucked over a whole hose of people with this decision, not just Conan. All the folks that worked on the hour-long dramas, from the actors to the grips, all fucked. The people on the news, probably just as fucked, but not as expensive, so we’re not hearing about it right now. NBC itself is probably losing a shitload of ad dollars through this mess, which means more people will be losing their jobs. The list can just on and on. Meanwhile the dude at the top of NBC keeps getting promoted.

[singing] There’s no business like show business… no business I know… [not singing] Got that right. If someone in a political office caused that much of a loss in revenue or that many people their jobs, they would be burning him in effigy in front of the White House.