A Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
After watching a dozen or so iterations of the Esurance super-spy cartoon-hottie “Erin” (oh that’s right she has a name. You’d best find yourself over at Erin’s World and upload some fanart, jerk) save the world and sell insurance over the past year, I am confronted with an atrocity.
I’m starting to really like these ads. There’s no real reason for it. I should hate them. They are flimsy, they have nothing at all to do with the products and services of their client, they are aimed squarely at an audience that doesn’t buy insurance (teens and early-college), and they’re just plain dumb. But they look cool. For cool’s sake. There’s pent-up, nagging romance between the heroine and that random guy (the “mysterious stranger,” apparently not cool enough to garner his own name) that occurs between episodes‚Ķ did I say episodes? Oh shoot, I did. Here’s the thing: Television spots are dead. Let me say again big and bold so it sinks in.
TELEVISION SPOTS ARE DEAD.
The human mind can only perceive a limited amount of messages per day. Ten thousand, I think. Maybe 100,000. Marty Neumeier knows, anyway. The advertising industry is in its death spiral right now, and TV spots are going to be one of the first casualties. In a world where we are constantly bombarbed with messages, we simply begin tuning them out. Write down, right now, the last five television spots you saw.
…see what I mean?
You’re certainly not going to see television advertising go away. Not anytime soon and baring extreme change in American society. Currently the entire model of television business is built upon splicing advertising in between chunks of entertainment. That’s how it began, anyway, nowadays the entertainment itself exists solely to fuel the machine. The entire business model of television would have to change for commercials to disappear. Instead, they will simply cease all matter and impact. They will be ignored and eventually forgotten by everyone who does not work in television or advertising.
Because of Tivo, and DVRs, we can now skip these annoying ads flawlessly. And we are. In droves. This is one of those moments where I want to scream to the heavens “Wake up America! We don’t want your stupid ads! And look, we’re giving you concrete proof of that!” Ask me which I prefer: Watching The Office with commercials, or paying $2 on iTunes to watch it over and over, commercial free? Now ask yourself the same question.
As more and more people tune out advertising, it has been advertising’s response to simply become more invasive. There was a time when I found guerilla marketing exciting as hell. A few years later and, as a tactic, it seems nothing more than a cleverly disguised lie. Disappointment rains down from those who’s curiosity is piqued only to discover another Ovaltine ad (we’re reminded of this fact every Christmas, and yet how soon we forget). Hiding advertising only to spring it on an unsuspecting audience is every bit as disingenuous as the lowest sleazeball marketing campaign touting products that make you younger, sexier, healthier, smarter, all with just a pill!
There are two answers for this problem and they are staring us in the face, plain for all to see. First: Let advertising die. Just let it go. No-one would rather see billboards over trees (no-one remembers 90% of the billboards they pass, and yes I just pulled that number out of my ass), no-one wants to listen to Man/Woman Talking or Two-People Talking radio spots anymore (XM and Sirius are proving that), and everyone would skip television commercials if they could. Also banner ads with dancing people (I’m looking at you, CNN.com). No-one is going to miss advertising, and it has been on life support for a few years now. Give it one last visit, say your farewells, and then tell the doctor it’s time.
Advertising must give way to communication. Communication is what drives the populace to make decisions these days. Two-way communication, not the top-down bragging of some bloated company. We’ve become immune to spin, like the boy who cried wolf advertising has created an entire generation of cynics. Everything is an ad! Stop it! Talk to me! Talk to us. Let us talk to you. Open and honest communication breeds trust. Trust breeds sales. Disingenuous advertising does not (in the long term, anyway), and will only drive people away.
Solution two – and here’s where we come full circle, folks – is simply “entertain.” Entertainment will make people remember you. Think of the ads on television you like the most right now. Since some of us are in advertising, I’ll forgive the few of you who actually think of shining examples in product description. No, the ones we remember are the ones which make us laugh, or make us think, or shock us, or perhaps make us cry. And that has very little, if anything, to do with the product or service. Like the sassy little super-spy who “sells” insurance, I remember them because they’re just stupid and fun. This solution has yet to be mastered, since I would still not buy insurance from Esurance, but the potential for greatness is there. Earlier I referred to the Esurance spots as “episodes” and why not? Why not turn 15-, 30-, and 60-second spots into micro-entertainment that sells a brand, a culture, a tribe, as Neumeier would call it. If you distilled The Office into 30-second bits of comedy, ran them in sequence, and aired them on a regular basis you bet people would take notice. And you might just sell some paper at DunderMifflin.com (if they didn’t skip your ad on Tivo).
In a few weeks Americans will gather ceremoniously around their televisions to watch a great American tradition: The Superbowl Ads. They will eat and talk and run to the bathroom while the game is on, but once those commercials begin they’ll be glued to the tubes, watching the end of an era. The spots they will remember they will remember for being entertaining, or being moving, or for being one part of an open and honest two-way conversation. They will forget, promptly, those ads which do none of the above. And there will be many.
Farewell, old friend. Your absence will be noticed, but not missed.
January 16th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Whew. I thought I was the only one that liked the e-surance cartoons. I hate myself for it, but I can’t help it. Would I buy their insurance? No.
Since I got Tivo I have watched more commercials on YouTube than on TV. The best way for an advertiser to penetrate my television commercial shield is to make something so remarkable (funny, amazing, touching, gross, etc) that I will make the effort to go see it. Even that doesn’t guarantee me being able to connect the company to the ad.
The antidote isn’t more (or different) television spots. For a company to stand out, they will have to make great products and be remarkable companies. An ounce of customer generated buzz is worth a ton of company driven back-patting. *AFTER* that people will pay attention to your commercials: think Apple, Nike, etc.
January 17th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Saying that TV spots are maybe stagnant isn’t as provocative as proclaiming DEATH, so I’ll just skip over that bit despite the fact you almost immediately go back on the claim. You’re trying to sell an idea just as much as eSurance is selling a product, and hyperbole goes along with the process. But a couple points:
they are aimed squarely at an audience that doesn’t buy insurance (teens and early-college)
Seriously? You might want to drop Progressive and State Farm a note. They clearly have no idea they’re completely wasting their time.
Early-college students also don’t need money.
Why not turn 15-, 30-, and 60-second spots into micro-entertainment that sells a brand, a culture, a tribe, as Neumeier would call it.
And so on. While many of them were strictly mascots, more than a few of these characters were involved, even if on and off, in storylines of some sort over the course of their usage. Now, my point has less to do with the fact that you’re not presenting any sort of new idea than with pointing out that maybe you’re just not noticing how common it really is and to put forward the possibility ‚Äì I’d even say likelihood ‚Äì that if everyone were doing it, you’d just get bored of that, too.
The problem is not one of format and needing to create stories or whatever; there’s nothing wrong with one-off ads. The problem is that most advertising is just plain bad.
January 17th, 2007 at 5:37 am
This reminded me of something I heard at a speech put on by Hallmark. It was a lady speaker and she used to work for them doing commercials for their “Hallmark Presents” TV specials. I can’t remember her name.
She said they’re aim was to, “Make people feel good about themselves, then make them feel good about Hallmark.” She showed some brilliant examples.
What a great concept.
VR/
January 17th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Ah, Su, where would the world be without your love-to-hate-everything attitude? A better place, maybe? Shat on Paul Rand’s grave lately?
Anyway you must have been looking to read a different article and accidentally read mine, explaining why you’re so upset that I didn’t write the things you were looking forward to reading. Thanks for letting me know they weren’t there. Now isn’t there some n00b on SpeakUp you should attacking for their bad grammar?
January 17th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I’d like to interject and add something else about television advertising: the frequency, or more specifically, how just about every advertiser gets it wrong. Maybe I watch an above-average amount of television (at least in the background) but I get so tired of seeing the same commercials and it usually causes me to resent the company, even I’ve never actually paid attention to it.
Apple gets it right. Everything: the badass iPod Shuffle commercials to the Get a Mac ads, are played just infrequently enough that it’s like a treat when they come on.
Now look at anything T-Mobile, anything Cingular, or pretty much any cellular provider. They are too dull, too often. Cingular’s “fewest dropped calls” commercials were a little clever at first– and if you’re like me, you might have looked up from what you were doing when the commercial went completely silent– but after seeing it multiple times every half-hour I don’t think anyone cared about it, or thought about what it was for, or wanted to walk into a Cingular store to support them for this bombardment.
Just a sidenote: have you seen the commercial for Cingular where there’s two guys singing the lyrics to “Rock the Casbah” as “Lock the Cashbox” or something equally stupid? As far as I can tell, the commercial is advertising ringtones that sound like songs… which every carrier has provided for about three years now. Am I missing something?
As for the Esurance– I never really have paid attention to it. It’s sort of too busy and has too much going on so it cancels out– if I’m focused on something else I don’t bother. It would be effective, I would imagine, if it were played before the previews at a movie theatre, where you have undivided attention. But I hate the very notion of commercials before previews before a movie… but that’s another rant entirely.
January 17th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Kevin, you’re welcome to make that rant anytime.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Shat on Paul Rand’s grave lately?
No. But then I can’t think of a single reason I’d ever go anywhere near it. I didn’t think, by the way, that it was possible to troll your own comments area, but you seem to have managed it. I don’t recall saying a single word against Rand, but rather what is a not particularly good logo that was revealed long after he was dead, which is frankly irrelevant. It’s good there’s a record around, no? As a bonus question: Who actually launched the first insult there? Yes.
Also for the record: correcting grammar is just tacky, and the single time I’ve done it at Speak Up was in response to some twit who was doing same while churning the errors out himself. I won’t apologize for being a fan of the object lesson.
Anyway.
You seem to be operating under the impression that what I’ve said above is completely irrelevant to your little unresearched screed. I’ll leave that for others to discuss, if they like. But I do find it amusing that you actually think the car insurance industry, which has a captive market(in that most states require you have some level of insurance at all times) would bother going to such lengths as creating entire divisions and campaigns marketing to people who “do not buy their product.”
Back to your regularly scheduled.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am
When I adopted my son about seven years ago, I made a vow he would not grow up a video game junkie or a couch potato. The year before he graced our home, I sold our only TV. For the first two years of his life, he knew nothing of Television. This was one of the best, most liberating things I had ever done, yet it was also the most difficult. I found that I had withdrawal symptoms just like a smoker, or alcoholic would. It took me a year to get used to finding something to do, instead of sitting down and vegging out. We know have two TV’s, both with rabbit ears. We only get two channels and only one without fuzzy lines. I now have two son’s and they are as different as night and day. My youngest one can sit and play on the computer or on his cousins Gameboy for hours. He is only five but can figure out just about any game you plug in. My oldest however, can’t spend 5 minutes in font of a video game or the TV. It bores him. He is constantly building things out of whatever materials he can find, playing out side, soccer, basketball, fishing. It really is amazing the difference those two years made without a TV. I often wonder how much further along our society would be if the TV had not been invented. Carl Sandburg was right, it’s nothing more than an “Idiot Box‚Äù.
Now that was a rant. Sorry
January 17th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Lest we forget:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOvFIxUz2XY
January 17th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Nate, I think Su was adding some good stuff to your provocative post. There are some holes in your argument. I think what you were trying to say is that television commercials aren’t, but bad advertising should be, dead. Amen to that.
But I wouldn’t chase off readers that take the time to give you helpful feedback. Even if it’s tinged with a little hate. You’re good at pissing people off in a very entertaining way. If you can razz somebody enough to get them to add their intelligent opinion to your post, you’ve succeeded.
January 17th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
The really brilliant advertising is both entertaining and a product demo. Take, for example, the iPod Shuffle spot where people change their clothes (or is it where clothes change their people)… but whichever, every new person clips the product to the garment. Followed by a killer tag line: “Put some music on.”
The entire iPod campaign has been entertainment as product demo.
My theory on why they used silhouettes: So that everybody could imagine that their black.
January 18th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Change in advertising is already in progress. Agencies who are not stuck in a timewarp know this. Check out “GameKillers” for Axe Dry by Bartle Bogle Hegarty. It’s was a program produced by the agency and aired by MTV followed up by traditional advertising. Best of all it was meant to entertain and sell product benefit. Unfortunately not all brands are as smart as Apple, Nike or even the Got Milk campaign.