:smack: D’oh! You’re probably right! I hadn’t made that connection, perhaps because I’m not a big Grateful Dead fan, but also because the guy in the ad is pretty skinny and Garcia was not, at the end. But I’ll bet that’s what they were going for, and I didn’t get it.
Thanks, Ethilrist.
Huh?
Are you saying that Bazooka Joe bubble gum is always on the upper left shelves and Whoppers are on the lower right?
I don’t belive that that is true in any of the stores I shop at.
Carrot Top’s fans, such as they are, tend to be college-age young people, which also happens to be the age group that most frequently places collect calls. Hence, hiring him as a spokesman for a collect calling service makes a kind of sense. It doesn’t really matter much if the ads are grating: no one is going to think of the phone company as “cool” no matter who they get to do the ads, and if you’re in a pinch and need to make a collect call, you’re going to go with the service you remember, whether the spokeschimp is cool or not. "Wait a sec, how did that go? ‘C-A-L-L-A-T-T’ … "
Yes, from 8 to 17 years old. The major consequence has been that I now feel funny living on a street named for a tree or number rather than from someone’s literary oeuvre. “East 151st” pales beside “Ovenbird.”
The reason I don’t understand marketers is that anymore, it looks like they’re mostly marketing to other marketers. There is a disconnect with the public; presumably, they’re just sheep with money, there to be snowed under and manipulated.
I don’t understand what you’re saying: marketers are marketing to the public (and, yes, they’re just sheep with money, but the marketers know what makes the sheep spend their money).
Knowing why they’re doing what they do is for the marketers, but is irrelevant to making the ad work.
And the ad did work. We’re still talking about it.
This thread reminds me to eat some Cherry Garcia before I go to work. Thanks!
As the head of marketing for my company, the reasoned posts by folks like TKOS, RealityChuck, Nonsuch, msmith537 and others are spot on.
With different products you are attempting to accomplish different things. With commodities, such as ice cream, you are attempting to:
Differentiate yourself - i.e., get the consumer to believe you are NOT a commodity, either by providing a feature-based difference (e.g., Tartar Control Crest, when it first came out, did something other toothpastes didn’t do) or brand-based differentiation (i.e., we’re cooler, funnier, whatever…). Ben and Jerry’s clearly tries to use brand-based differentiation - we’re a green, people-oriented company that makes great ice cream…we’re like you.
Stay front of mind - per everyone else’s posts. The reason some ads are so irritating is for precisely that reason - as Oscar Wilde put it: “better to be spoken of poorly than not to be spoken about at all.”
I guess marketers hate me (rather, people like me) because if a commercial annoys me I will go out of my way not to purchase the product, service, etc.
Nope - not likely. It probably just means you weren’t in there target cohort. If there is a product/service/whatever that is more “front and center” in your thinking - say, skateboards for a 13-year-old kid, or diet food for someone concerned about their weight - it is very likely that you will watch annoying commercials, simply because the topic is on your mind.
Put it this way: if you are happy with your stove, you will dial out stove commercials. If you are considering buying a new stove - or at least are dreaming about an upgrade - you are much more likely to watch and get that brand name for that stove stuck in your head.
Now, DVR/Tivo changes everything, because you can fast forward past commercials without them having a chance to lodge in your subconscious…
<ahem> THEIR target cohort… :smack:
I wonder how many people are so brand-loyal that they’ll see the B&J commercial for chocolate ice cream, go to the store and then decide against buying whatever other brand/flavor has the best immediate appeal.
A B&J commercial may get me thinking about ice cream, but I’ll make my decision based on what’s available and appealing at the time of sale.
There’s also one for “Phish Food” - two guys are in a rowboat surrounded by sharks, one of them says he’s going for a swim, the other guys says something along the lines of “You can’t swim out there!” and then hands him a life jacket as the guy is stepping out of the boat.
It took me a second to get, but I thought it was clever. (I personally favor B&J’s “Karmalsutra,” so will probably not be purchasing any “Phish Food.”)
It is only partially true that the point of marketing is to make you remember the product. First, let’s address the real point of marketing. The point of marketing - at least in a for-profit company - is to increase profit, by increasing sales. To do that, it is *necessary *to make you remember the product. *Sometimes *it is also sufficient. If you want to buy but can’t remember the product, marketing has failed. If you remember the product but won’t buy, marketing has failed.
Take for instance Viagra in the early years. It had no competiters and people knew pretty much why they would want it. Or Rogain. Remembering the product was both necessary and sufficient for their marketers.
But if your adverts make people remember the product in a negative fashion say, in the manner of the raised-by-wolves commercial for Quiznos, your marketing has failed. There is a reason their ad agency was fired. Their sales fell. Remembering the product was not sufficient.
Now look at candy bars. There are hundreds of them. You remember most of them. The ads must try to find something to make you buy that specific brand. Three Musketeers touts that they satisfy hunger while being light and fluffy. Snickers says packed with peanuts. Both must work because they have been kept for years. Both are probably remembered by you, but you will only buy Snickers if packed with peanuts is important to you.
Sometimes remembering the product is the point of one advert, because another in the series will address trying to get you to buy.
This advert fulfilled the *necessary *part. Will it be sufficient? The only way to know is to look at the sales numbers.
Khadaji - you are basically explaining the difference between generating:
Primary Demand - getting consumers interested in that category. If you are the only (e.g., Viagra) or majority (e.g., say, Windows) player in a category, generating primary demand is the right way to go. It gets dicey when you have the major share, but your share is still not the majority.
and
Secondary Demand - getting consumers interested in your produce in particular. Again, that depends on whether the basic nature of the produce is premium vs. commodity and how much you are willing to spend on marketing to generate perceived brand attributes. If you can get folks to equate Marlboro = Rugged even though the basic product is a commodity, then you as the manufacturer should do so because that brand-attribute based differentiation gives you an angle to generate secondary demand…
Marketing is one of those things that most folks think they can do but is far more complex than it appears. Like Strategic Planning or facilitating a Board of Directors meeting - I run into so many folks who assume they can whip out a Strategic Plan - it’s just a vision, some goals and an initiative or two, right? Not even close, if you are doing it correctly.
With Marketing, if it is done correctly requires a ton of up front planning to understand who you are trying to target, profile what that target population is like, how to reach them, etc. The problem with many ads we are exposed to is: many companies don’t take this disciplined approach to marketing and screw it up; or they take a structured approach but executed the ad poorly…
There is a LOT of art to the science, but there is a lot of science.