One is for rebellious children of all ages.
The other one is for…rebellious children of all ages.
Belly of the Beast
Gotta write some more copy before I smash the state.
Author Archives: sfeinberg
What makes an ad look old?
I was leafing through Penthouse while getting my hair cut and…
Wait. It’s not what you think. It was the April 1974 issue of Penthouse, part of a big moldy stack my trendy barbershop found and keeps on hand. As a sociological artifact it was fascinating, on a lot of counts, most of which are not appropriate to discuss in a family blog.
Being the focused adman I am, I skipped right by Miss April, the Penthouse Forum and other appeals to my baser instincts, and focused on the ads. They seemed older–far older–than their 35 years, and I tried to figure out why. One obvious reason is that most of them were for cigarettes, but cigarette advertising wasn’t banned until relatively recently, so that wasn’t it.
There was the grainy, dirty quality of the photo reproduction–but now that look is slavishly recreated for its retro appeal. Ditto the haircuts and outfits (and ‘staches on the guys).
ThenI realized what it was that dated those ads as surely as carbon dates rock: the typography.
Windsor. Remember Windsor? Sam Scali used it for Perdue then everybody got on board.
And Avant Garde. Lots of Avant Garde Extra Bold. Which now looks very not avant garde. And everything tracked super-tight so all the letters touched and the kerned characters got so intertwined they were almost x-rated.
I stared at that type and got a whiff of antiquity. Which is ironic because a few weeks before, I had been in Rome and while walking through the Coliseum, I had admired all the, um, Roman type chiseled into the ancient stone and thought, 2000 years later, that it looked remarkably fresh.
Nothing says “We care” like a good ™ at the end.
You’re in good hands with Allstate.™
Reach out and touch someone.™
When you care enough to send the very best.™
When companies try to get all warm and fuzzy, often it’s the two little letters
in superscript that give the show away. Yo, all you $500/hr. intellectual property lawyers out there: isn’t there a way to protect ownership other than stamping the equivalent of “Hands off my themeline” all over your stuff?
The answer:
NO SCHOOL ON TUESDAY
What, in that stew of facts, could possibly be more relevant to the average parent? Or more exciting to the average child?
Your final exam in Marketing 101 consists of this question:
You need to send out a newsletter to parents and children of all California public schools to let them know of an upcoming event. Here are the pertinent facts:
1) The state has received a $500 million dollar anonymous gift to fund science and math education for every student, K-12, in the state.
2) All teachers, principals, and other administrators will gather next Tuesday in Sacramento to undergo special training for this initiative.
3) Leading scientists and mathematicians from around the world will be in attendance.
What is your headline for the newsletter?
NB: There is only one right answer.
Answer in the next post.
My thanks to Dick and Barbara Holt for supplying me with this wonderful thought experiment.
What if we made periods a happy time?
This is hardly breaking news, or even a new insight. Rather, it’s a bitterly funny data point on the endless cluelessness of marketers when it comes to women.
Ir comes in the form of a letter written by Wendi Aarons to the Always brand manager (male, of course) at Procter and Gamble. It’s well worth your time to read the entire screed, but here, to whet your appetite, is the opening salvo:
Dear Mr. Thatcher,
I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core™ or Dri-Weave™ absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.
It only gets better from there. Given the fact there is a whole ecosystem of consultants, research firms, academics, agency leaders etc. who specialize in telling the Mr. Thatchers of the world “what women want,” it’s amazing that these tone-deaf marketing efforts crop up so often.
Even with a wife of 29 years and 3 daughters, I don’t profess to know what women want.But here’s a suggestion:
Pretend you’re talking to a guy.
Whatever you lose in feminine sensibility, you will avoid sounding like a pandering, condescending idiot. If men had menstrual cramps, saying “Have a happy period, bro” would get you killed.
And if this turns into a depression, we’re golden!
CMOs continue to the say the darndest things. Wal-Mart CMO Stephen Quinn had this gem in this week’s Ad Age:
“We were fortunate that this recession came along. It played to our positioning really well.”
Yes, Stephen, it’s true. Wal-Mart was very well-positioned for customers facing job loss, foreclosure and loss of life savings. Nothing like that Katrina thing where all the shoppers were cooped up in the Superdome!
Christ, it’s enough to make one yearn for the return of Julie Roehm.
Adventures in media, continued.
After your Metro-North ad has been used as a poker table, anything can happen. In this case, the ad became infinitely more attention-grabbing than its hackneyed right-side-up version.
A temporary breach in the firewall.
“Good fences make good neighbors” was how Robert Frost put it. “Don’t shit in your own backyard” was my father’s version. They were both right and that’s why, as a matter of policy and self-preservation, I usually don’t post about specific happenings at my agency. Nor do I use this blog as a vehicle to promote our work.
But today I’m making an exception. We launched our new Seiden agency website this morning and I like it a lot. Not too self-conscious, not hard to navigate, easy on the eyes. I’m sure in 18 months it will look like a Pontiac Aztec to me, but right now I couldn’t be happier.
Stimulate this.
One of the many odious aspects of focus groups is using the term “stimulus” to refer to the creative work being subjected to the group’s malevolent scrutiny.
When I think of a stimulus, I think of a cattle prod. Or a latexed digit going where I don’t want it to. Which is maybe apt, since another odious focus group term is “probe,” as in “Let’s probe to see if this image is polarizing.”
Painful. Dehumanizing. Clinical. Stimuli are meant to provoke reaction. But often the reaction they provoke, in the stimulated and stimulator alike, is: please please stop.
Belly of the Beast 