Hungry for an Answer

I just had the honor and privilege to see one of those commercials advertising dirt cheap artwork for sale produced by the ever-enticing "starving artist" community.

This is perhaps the lowest form of American consumerism ever.

Everybody knows that these "paintings" are done on an assembly line and cost next nothing to make. They're not originals, nor are there any artists even remotely near the painting at the time of production, starving or not. And everybody knows that these paintings look like crap (the proof is right there on the commercial). I'm no art snob, but these framed monsterpieces entice no emotions or mental interest like a true work of are would.

Yet somehow the people selling these things are making money... or if they aren't they sure don't mind wasting it.

So I just have to throw it out there to the world: why in the name of Vincent van Gogh would anybody buy these pathetic things?

AT&T Commercial: Thumbs Down

Sorry, it's another negative blog post by me ripping on a bad television commercial. But what voice does a lowly consumer have when it comes to these terrible commercials that are forced down everybody's throats? The good ole blog is probably the best bet.

So you've undoubtedly seen the AT&T Wireless commercials showing a closeup of two hands holding the typepad on a Samsung phone. The thumbs, used to type in a text message, have faces superimposed on them. Not only do these thumb-faces make me want to gag because they look bizarre, but they talk and try to say funny things like "Shake your funnymaker." It's really quite torturous and annoying.

I get the concept here, but the execution doesn't work for me. I'm all for a little innovation and having fun with TV commercials, but hopefully AT&T can come up with *ahem* thumb-thing else.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Commercial Suggestion for Cell Phone Companies

I see cell phone companies often bragging in their commercials about how they provide better reception than their competitors.

"More Bars in More Places" (AT&T)
"Can You Hear Me Now?" (Verizon)
"Now, That's Better" (Sprint)

But how much more vague can you get? Not only that, but many of these commercials show a made-up scenario that is supposed to represent a real cell-phone situation, like AT&T's doofus on top of a ridge knocking on car windows trying to find his daughter because he didn't get the message from her that she was staying over a friend's house. It's lazy marketing.

Instead of all this cutesy stuff, here's my idea for a killer, sensible, and direct ad campaign...

If you're really the best wireless carrier, take comparable phones from each company to one spot, line them up on the screen, and simply show the reception on the phone to illustrate just how much better your reception is. Perhaps it's a field in the middle of Iowa where your company has four bars, the others have two or one. Or maybe it's in the lobby of a hotel in Walla Walla Washington, or on the 17th hole at Augusta National Golf Course.

To me, seeing the actual reception levels at various places like this is indisputable evidence that your company really is better than the others in providing a good signal. And it would be a lot less annoying than these other bogus characters they've developed.

But hey, that's just me.

There's Little Reason to Like this Dicks's-Reebok Commercial

Not too long ago I sounded off about a fairly new obnoxious, annoying, stupid Volkswagen commercial, and found that fellow viewers overwhelmingly agreed that this commercial was one of the worst on TV.

While I can't top that argument, since I think it still IS the most annoying commercial on television, I think I found a close runner-up. This is the one by Dick's Sporting Goods, promoting Reebok sneakers, and features Chad Johnson, Matt Hasselbeck, Tory Holt, and Stacy Keibler. Click on the following link if you really wish to view this waste of ad money, entitled "Reasons".

For those of you who haven't seen it or don't wish to see it, the formula goes something like this... three football players bragging about their skills, one attractive actress clearly demonstrating her lack of acting skills, and one of the football players trying to dance and be funny while the other two laugh at him. I mean, it's quite possibly the most stereotypically bad commercial you could make, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Why? Well for starters, it is a scientifically proven fact that athletes can't act. It's also a scientifically proven fact that white guys get laughed at when they dance, which I know all too well :-) The joke's old. And when you mix in some poor writing and subpar acting by a real actress, you've got a recipe for changing the channel.

I'd just like to point out that, honestly, I really am a positive guy and I try not to focus on the negative, but when these types of advertisers hammer you over the head with the same bad commercial over and over and over, well, sometimes I just have to snap. That's not how marketing is done.

And those are my "Reasons" why this commercial must be put out to pasture.

REALTOR Commercials Reek of Desperation

For the past year or so I've seen a few different commercials for REALTORS (henceforth referred to as just "realtors", lower case, here... sorry, I just want it to seem like I'm SCREAMING at readers). To me, these commercials just reek of desperation.

Maybe it's the stiff, overly business-like actors that have no real personality other than trying to professionalize an industry that is largely wide-open in terms of personalities. Let's face it, real estate agents are often real characters, and that's probably because they have to be in order to sell homes through think and through thin. But I definitely don't associate a realtor as being a corporate suit, which is the image that these commercials are going for.

Add to that, these realtor commercials remind me of what the gasoline industry is trying to do... pounding the airwaves with ads that are really veiled attempts at public relations. All of a sudden, gas companies are the Earth's best friends: researching new "clean" energy, giving tips on how to improve gas mileage, and showing what the "green" future holds in the world of energy production. All so friendly and glistening. And all too phony for me to believe it's really happening.

In my humble opinion, I think that the real estate industry is trying to cling to an outdated, dying industry. Or if it's not dying, it will soon be changing.

Having recently purchased a home for the first time, I found the process rather daunting, from soup to nuts. A good realtor, to his/her credit, guides a homebuyer (as my realtor did) through all of these obstacles and answsers a lot of questions along the way and gives worthwhile advice. To get paid, the real estate agent simply has to sell houses for high values (that increase over time) in order to absorb high commissions.

But as I see it, and as Seth Godin talked about in this great post, this formula will be changing in due time. As housing prices rise higher (okay, maybe not at the moment, but over the long run), commissions will also be rising for agents, while their amount of work performed, in theory, won't. So either an hourly rate or a flat selling fee will eventually come in to play, I would theorize. Or more people will take things in their own hands and buy/sell on their own.

On that note, with the advent of the internet and with the pressure that has now come on homeowners to do more thorough research, the average homebuyer will be able to easily obtain important information that otherwise would have come from the realtor. In other words, information is becoming more readily accessible via the internet and other sources, meaning the realtor's competitive advantage will likely gradually decline.

So getting back to the commercials, the National Association of REALTORS has it in its best interest to try and preserve that image of the realtor being the all-knowing confidant that you absolutely need to buy or sell your home. Maybe that's the case today. But in the long run, that sounds like an uphill battle to me. And desperation is no place to be in the world of advertising...

Volkswagen Ad: Bad Sounding?

My last post centered around the poor timing of Verizon ads, which give me the creepy feeling of "Big Brother is Listening to Me".

Today I'd like to write a blurb about how annoying this new Volkswagen commercial is. At least I think it's a VW advertisement, but to be honest it annoys me so much that I can't even stand to pay attention to it enough to look at what company is torturing me.

So here's the summary of the commercial:

Guy and gal are in a car showroom (how innovative).
They see a car they like and start to get close to it.
The car's alarm starts up and car starts beeping obnoxiously.
They back off.
Alarm goes silent.
They step forward again.
The alarm blares again.
Guy and gal can't figure out why, but they keep inching in towards car.
Turns out-- are you ready?-- a buyer upstairs is hitting the alarm button on the remote just to mess with them.

So not only are the people looking at the car complete idiots (is that the kind of message you want to convey about your customers? -Ed.), but the commercial insists on blasting the horn repetitively.

Sorry folks, but in my book it don't get much more annoying than that. Most people that drive hear horns every single day and don't particularly want to come home, relax on the couch, and get hit with them from a lame commercial because some marketing flunkie misread the focus group reports that people really "Don't like to hear horns repetitively."

That's my sound-off for today. Thanks for tuning in. Next time I'll try to focus on something more positive and less headache-inducing.

Verizon Ads: Bad Timing?

These Verizon commercials that are all over the tube nowadays have me wondering if perhaps they're giving the wrong subliminal message at the wrong time.

The gyst of the commercials is that wherever you go with your Verizon cell phone, the entire Verizon company will be there to make sure your call goes through successfully. Each commercial depicts a scene of somebody on the phone in a public place and then shows a flood of Verizon workers following him or her around. I suppose it's a pretty good metaphor for what they're trying to convey.

But in recent months (years?) we've been hearing more and more about the government's controversial act of performing wiretapping to monitor potential terrorist phone calls. So these Verizon commercials almost give me a "Big Brother" is watching (following) you.

Obviously Verizon is not intending on this mental connection for its potential and current customers, but I can't help but be a little skeeved out when the Verizon spokesperson asks the person on the other end of the line "Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, I can hear you now. But who else can here us now?"

Satellite Radio vs. Commercial Radio: How Will the Radio Wars Pan Out?

The other day I had to borrow my dad's car to drive to work because my Focus had a flat. My usual commute of flipping between a dozen or so channels on commercial radio was transformed to flipping between hundreds of channels on his satellite radio.

While commercial radio may be gradually on its way out, here's why satellite radio may not be the saviour that many hope it will be:

Most people want to listen to what they want, when they want it. And satellite, despite the plethora of channels, still can't quite accomplish that, while commercial radio plays too many mainstream songs and too many brutal commercials.

Once somebody develops a personalized radio medium, satellite and commercial radios will be blown out of the air.

So what do I mean by personalized radio?

Well, think about what an ipod has done for music-- you pick the songs, you play them as you want, you have control of your music on a gadget the size of a credit card.

Now think about Comcast Rhapsody-- it's an internet-based program offered by Comcast (and certainly there are others just like it), that plays music based on your favorite bands. You put in a list of bands that you like and this player will play music from those bands as well as music that is similar to those bands.

Combine these two and you get the best of both worlds-- music that you know you like, and music that you may not have known you like because you never heard it before (but is similar to music you like), with the flexibility to hit one button to find the next song... not a hundred buttons to get to the station that's playing a good song at the moment, or having to wait for a lame commercial to end to hear the next song. Plus you're never jumping in at the middle of the song, and hey, you can repeat the song 19 times if you so desire.

That's music for my ears.

TV Commercials for TVs

So the Super Bowl commercials made quite a buzz this year, once again, and once again the Super Bowl commercials where rather underwhelming in my book. But that's not what I'm here to ramble about. I'm here to talk about TV commercials. As in commercials for new TVs.

Every time I see a commercial for new TVs, I have to laugh.

If I'm sitting at home watching a TV commercial on my 26", fuzzy but functional TV, and I see a commercial for the latest in a long line of plasma, HD, LCD, DLP, ABC, whatever TVs, and the narrator in the commercial is crowing about the crystal clear clarity of the picture, but all I see is a fuzzy but functional version of it on my set... why would I want to buy a new TV?

Worse yet, what if I'm watching that same commercial on a black and white 13" screen TV?

In other words, the TV in the commercial can present the new-fangled product as having the sharpest picture imaginable, but it will only be as sharp as I can see it on my current TV. Thus, the whole persuasive argument is lost in translation.

Now pardon me while I go adjust the bunny ears...

Marketing Innovation Hall of Fame: The Tea Kettle

Any house I go to, be it in the city, suburb, or rural areas, I almost always spot a tea kettle (or teapot) sitting on the kitchen stove. Informally I'd say that 80-90% of American households have a tea kettle, and the tea kettles, in turn, are almost exclusively found on the stove at any given moment, rather than being packed away with most other kitchen implements.

The curious thing to me is that I know of few people who actually use these tea kettles on a regular basis. I'm guilty of having a tea kettle on my stove, and I'm also guilty of rarely firing it up. Ever since studying abroad in Manchester, England for a semester, the land where it practically rains tea, I've been a tea lover. But I have no interest in actually using the tea kettle to boil water, instead delegating that job to the microwave. Why would I want to use a tea kettle when it takes longer, requires cleaning, drying of the inside to prevent rust, and makes an obnoxious whistle, when I can put a mug full of water in the microwave and have simmering water 2 and a half minutes later? There's no comparison really.

Yet I still have a tea kettle!

I consider this a true marketing victory. For starters, rarely do I see a tea kettle being advertised, save for circulars where department stores announce a sale. Otherwise, when was the last time you saw a commercial for tea kettles ("Just Brew It," perhaps?). You certainly won't see a Super Bowl ad for tea kettles any time soon. Nor will you see slick publicity campaigns or massive billboards touting the virtues of tea kettles. But amazingly, these things pop up as housewarming gifts and on bridal registries to no end. Even more amazing to me, in a quick search for tea kettles on bedbathandbeyond.com, I found FIFTY different tea kettles for sale!

All in all I think it's safe to say that the tea kettle has truly mastered the concept of "selling itself", making it a stealth marketing success story. For whatever reason, it's a truly hot item for any household.

The Mystifying Ways of the Auto Industry

I was never a big admirer of cars. Some people collect them, refurbish them, pimp them up, and dream about them. That's cool. Everybody's got their thing. I've always considered cars to be a machine that gets me from here to yon.

I'm not quite sure why I never took to cars. My dad loved and still loves cars. He can watch a throwback movie from the 50's and name the year, make, and model of cars that are in the background. It's quite an impressive talent actually! But for some reason I never caught on.

I think it's mostly because I'm jaded by the whole auto industry. Their ways of doing business just totally mystify me.

Here are some points to chew on about why the auto industry bugs me:

• Dealers: Granted, some dealers have caught on of late, but how many times do you see a car dealer commercial where the rich, slickly dressed dealership owner is yelling at you about how cheap his cars are or how fast you have to act before this price break ends? It's totally tasteless and out of control! Since when do people want to be interrupted with this garbage? Sadly, it seems to work or else they wouldn't continue to do it. But not for me.
  
• Dealers, Mechanics at the: It's a universal fact that the mechanics at the dealers charge you your firstborn baby to fix a rusted tailpipe. Independent mechanics aren't usually much better. I utterly respect mechanics' knowledge of fixing cars, but don't markup the cost of a part by 200%, and don't tell me I need something when I don't. Why would I want to come back to you if you're screwing me? On the bright side, the internet has made a dent in the price of parts. To wit, I just bought a new mirror at PartsTrain.com for a total of $43, and a guy at work popped it on for me at no charge. That's the way to do it.
• Jobs: Used to be that jobs in the auto industry were good, honest work for hard working people. Obviously things change over time, but I can't quite get excited about buying a car when I hear that 10,000 jobs need to be cut here, or 30,000 there, etc. There's got to be a better way to go about this.
  
• Marketing: Twenty years ago, environmentalists were called crazy for worrying about carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuel shortages, and so forth. Now all of the sudden, all of these car dealers are "going green" and claiming to save the environment. Look, I'm all for hybrid cars. These should have been mainstreamed decades ago. But don't all of a sudden act like you're on my side, and also, don't tell me that "the environment thanks you", as Honda says. The environment thanks me when I walk to the store, or ride a bike to work (which, unfortunately, I am guilty of not doing enough of either). It doesn't "thank me" for continuing to pump out CO2, just in lesser amounts. Let's be real here.
• Numbers: Can anybody tell me what all those numbers are all about at the end of a commercial, on a contract to buy a car, on a car rental contract, or in the owner's manual? Whatever happened to making things simple? Not in autoland. It's just one big numbermash!
  

Well that's a small taste of why I dislike the auto industry. Maybe by the time I'm ready to buy my next car in a few years, they'll have figured it all out. If not, maybe it's time for a Schwinn. Keep on truckin'!