It’s not about marketing – or is it?
March 25th, 2005 by Bill
It’s not about marketing. Or, maybe it is - in which case, you’ve really got to wonder about the state of marketing today. As an example, I recommend Seth Godin’s post Shortcuts. I think this should be printed out and framed. As a different example of the same dull mindset in the calcified regions of marketing, I present the following …
I bought the DVD of the movie Finding Neverland. On the disc, there is an ad for a vehicle of some kind. This ad is what is known as a PUO ("Prohibited User Operations") meaning if you want to watch the movie you have to watch the commercial - no skipping past it.
I’ve see more and more of these appearing on DVDs. Initially, it was just restricted to "Coming soon" trailers for new movies and DVDs. But now I’m seeing products showing up, like cars and so on. So for me the question arises, if my response is in any way representative, what are they thinking?
My response? I’m pissed off. This means I’ll think twice before ever buying another Miramax movie on DVD. Odds are, I won’t buy one. Placing an ad on a movie I have paid for - well, that’s the best argument I’ve heard for downloading the movie illegally. (You probably won’t get stuck watching ads if you do that.)
And what about the product they were hawking? Talk about ineffective marketing - I’d tell you what the vehicle was except I can’t remember. It may have been a mini-van. I just can’t recall.
Why don’t I remember? I suppose, in part, it’s because I was so angry when the ad started to play I just didn’t pay close attention. But I think it’s mainly because it was Generic Vehicle Commercial 1-B. You know, there are about three or four vehicle ads that every auto maker users, over and over, each as memorable as a speech in the Canadian parliament.
Seth Godin likes to use the word "remarkable" when talking about really good marketing. Well, the ad agencies for auto makers have made an art of "unremarkable" marketing. Given the price of gas these days and the utterly uninspiring way vehicles are marketed, it’s a wonder people are still driving.
Here’s the real question … Just how did this bad commercial get onto the Finding Neverland DVD? Was it really about marketing? I don’t think so – unless, as I suggested before, marketing is now about doing a very poor job of selling products and services. I think it got onto the DVD because marketing, and business generally, is now about connecting the dots regardless of what the final picture may look like. In other words, I can understand how this idea got approved.
The boardroom. The presentation. So many DVDs will be made. Between rentals and purchases, gazillions of people will see the ad. We estimate a huge number of impressions in all regions. Great reach; low cost per impression. Fabulous ROI. Honest. This one can’t miss.
Mind you, they neglected to factor in the number of people they would piss off and what the costs of that would be. And they forgot to judge the impact of a forgettable commercial most people would see just once.
But someone got to keep their job for a little longer and, if only briefly, look like a hero with an idea that, in the world of morons, looked innovative. And the real results will get shovelled into all the other ineffective ad results at the end of the year so no one will be quite sure which of all the bad ideas was the really, really bad one.
The sad thing is I probably wouldn’t have been annoyed by the ad, I might even have enjoyed it and watched it more than once (and there would have been no need to force me to watch it) had someone said, “Well, since we have this opportunity, what can we do that would be really different and entertaining?†Or, as Seth would put it, what would have happened if they had done something remarkable?
Tag:Business, Advertising, DVD
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