Friday Ad Haiku: Creative Meetings

They are both masseuse and tormentor. Bitter and sweet. Caffeine...and the thing that makes us want more caffeine. One minute, they can be like a catnip lasagna to Garfield and the next, make you feel like a weary, dying camel that's been roaming the desert for weeks before finally seeing an oasis, only to realize that oasis is a farm...a farm growing the sharpest, heaviest hay on the planet. {Ed. note: Just say no to drugs, kids.}

The Friday Haiku: Creative Meetings

It’s great. Change It. Change
What? Everything. My soul
Dies a little more.

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

Last week on the Friday 5-7-5: Award Shows

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Friday Haiku: The Agency Kitchen

It's the place at the office where we congregate on breaks, where we step away from our cubicles and relax, and where we bask in aromas that make us jealous they are not ours for the taking. No, not the men's room.

I'm talking about the office kitchen. It's the home of four-month old cream cheese, the birthday cake no one at home ate, and the pot someone left an eye-dropper full of coffee in so they wouldn't have to make another.

This week, for your Friday Haiku enjoyment:

The Agency Kitchen

I've killed for popcorn.

Your creamer ate my sandwich.

That fire wasn't me.

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

Last Week in the Friday 5-7-5: Marketing Plans

Next Week: The Men's Room

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From the People Who Brought You A Gorilla Playing the Drums for Chocolate

This is the newest spot for Cadbury from A Glass and a Half Full Productions, the same people who brought you "Balls" and "Gorilla." Now I personally never loved Gorilla. I thought it was unique, but like many people, I watched wondering What the heck is this for? I arrived at the end thinking, A gorrilla playing the drums. I wasted 90 seconds of my life to watch a gorilla hammer out the most overplayed Phil Collins song ever. I don't want to listen to it on the radio, let alone watch some simian with a better sense of rhythm than me bang it out on the skins.

Some attributed a 2007 Cadbury sales increase of 9% over the same period in 2006 to the Gorilla campaign, which also consisted of billboards, ads and events among other executions. However, back in 2006, Cadbury was reeling from bad press due to a recall brought about by salmonella fears. Was Gorilla the reason for their success, or were they just bouncing back from a prior year that had been dragged down by consumer backlash?

Personally, this sort of advertising doesn't work for me. Was this spot more entertaining than Gorilla? Absolutely. It was fun and they actually chose a good song, Queen's Don't Stop Me Now. However, I go back to the same problem I had with Gorilla. In no way does this make me want to buy a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar. Now maybe this is because I wasn't subjected to the entire ad campaign, and hand-dipped in a desire for the sweet nectar that is Cadbury. Or maybe I'm too much of a linear thinker. A+B=Buy Chocolate.

Now I know I always want to do something more creative, cool, slick or funny, to push the client and do something no one's ever seen before. Then coworkers and clients reply, How does this sell Brand X? And when I don't have an answer, the idea ends up on the pile with one of my many post-apocalyptic or "too creepy" ideas.

As advertisers, yes, we need to push our clients. More interesting advertising gets the viewer's attention and makes us excited about our work. However, do you ever get the feeling that some agencies just know how to smooth-talk clients so they'll pay them to do something "different"?

However, if you loved Gorilla or Trucks, I have this creepy, post-apocalyptic ad for a spot you're gonna think is hysterical.

And special thanks to Scampblog, our friends from across the pond, who beat us to the punch on this one.

--Captain Awesome

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Friday Haiku: Marketing Plans

You may have the best product in the world, but if you don't have some sort of concept on how to get the product to your market and how to make sure the world sees how brilliant it is, it'll remain on the shelf with such other failed inventions like Nuclear Fusion. (Whatever Princeton, keep flouting your Tokamak*, but until I see one in the back of every Delorean in the country, it's just another one of your other pie in the sky ideas the public never bought into. Will anyone get both of those references? I don't care. I do it for the love, not for the fans.) Anyway, for your reading pleasure

The Friday Haiku: Marketing Plans

We've got a plan to solve everything.

Listen to us and your product will sing.

The people will buy.

You won't even have to try.

Wait, this was a limerick. Good thing I'm not in marketing.

Previously in the Friday 5-7-5: Bumper Stickers

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

*The Ad Agency Confessional does not consider Wikipedia to be reputable reference source, however, we still do consider it to be pretty awesome.

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Save Money and the Environment with Blackle

What is Blackle? It’s a Heap Media-owned search engine like Google, but with a black screen instead of a white screen. Why? According to Mark Ontkush of the ecoIron blog, “an all white web page uses about 74 watts to display, while an all black page uses only 59 watts.” Now Google gets about 200 million queries a day. Ontkush figures that if the average query is displayed for 10 seconds, that’s 550,000 hours per day on desktops around the world. And remember, that’s not hits, that’s only queries, so the time spent looking at a Google screen could be much higher. That’s 15 watts less per query, which he states would equal a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day. Ontkush’s math and figures have been debated by multiple sources, but if his numbers are accurate, that could mean anywhere from 750 mwh to 1,500 mwh per year. And that would mean we’re saving money and using less fossil fuels.

Why are people debating?









Ontkush’s figures are based largely on cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors (and yes, that’s cathode ray tubes like in old-fashioned TVs), which comprise only about 25% of monitors used around the world. And CRTs, which are slowly being phased out, are used more widely in China and Latin America than in the United States. This study from Techlogg.com showed that Onkjush’s numbers for CRT monitors is pretty accurate; however, the power savings drops substantially with more popular liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors. In fact, monitors 22 inches or smaller actually use a few more watts with Blackle, while monitors 24 inches or larger generally (although not always) save anywhere from 1 to 4 watts with Blackle.

(It’s important to note that for this study, four CRT monitors, 23 LCD monitors were tested. Zero plasma display monitors were tested; according to ecoIron, their power consumption is similar to that of CRTs. No Organic Light Emitting Diode [OLED] monitors were tested, but it’s commonly held that OLEDs are more energy efficient than the other three models mentioned.)

What can be learned from this? If you’re using an old-fashioned monitor, blackle or google’s own darkoogle, can save you precious watts. And in the long term could save you money and save that little piece of real estate we like to call planet Earth. If you’re using an LCD monitor 22 inches or smaller, stick with regular google and you won’t cost yourself valuable watts.

Now some of you may be thinking, “Captain, why did you tell me all of this if you don’t want me to change a darn thing?”

1) For some, the change would benefit you. 2) You can find even more, simple power saving tips—regardless of what sites you surf on the company dime, like turning off your PC at night and disabling your screensaver—in this article, also from Techlogg. 3) This may not be the way you’ll save your company millions of dollars and finally earn that free copywriter’s trip to historic Williamsburg, Va., but thinking differently might be what saves a few dollars, your budget, and the planet. Think outside the box people, or as I like to say, “Think outside the hexagon.”*

*copyright 2008, Captain Awesome, Inc. LLC

-Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

ed.'s note: The Renegade Agency Confessional blog is committed to decreasing our nation's dependence on foreign fossil fuels. We're proud to announce our site is powered by clean, renewable baby seals.

We're doing our part for the environment. Are you?

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Friday Ad Haiku: Casual Fridays

For some folks, casual Friday's a big deal. "Ooh boy! I get to wear my ironic T-shirt from Hot Topic along with a pair of jeans! High five!"

In agency environs, casual dress is less a privilege than it is a given. Hell, half the time we have enough of a problem getting the Cap'n to keep his shoes and socks on--like a toddler who's in a state of perpetual undress.

So for the poor rat-racers out there, trudging through the maze for a bit of brie, shackled by the heavy burdens of business casual:

Choked with ties and skirts

I'm dead inside til Thursday

Friday: air it out.

(click photo to ENLARGE)

Previously in the Friday 5-7-5: Conference Calls

M.M.McDermott, ACD/Copywriter/Exhibitionist

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Garfield Minus Garfield

Yet another Renegade chips in as our favorite ponytailed, leather-chair swiveling, Judd Nelson impersonating (c. Breakfast Club) Editor Craig Anderson threw this site our way.

Now, today’s bloggerific post isn’t as much about advertising as it is thinking outside the box. The comic is from the site, Garfield Minus Garfield, in which an artist removed Garfield, the cat, from Garfield, the comic. Through a little Photoshopping, a comic about a man and his lazy, lasagna-loving cat is turned into a “journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.”

The road to innovation is paved with the Who-Came-Up-With-This? mindset. In 1913, Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne, desperate to beat a bigger, heavily-favored Army team, resorted to an underused offensive strategy—the forward pass—and won 35-13; the game of football would be forever changed. Napster was the creation of a college dropout, living in a basement; it revolutionized the computer and music industry. Remember, without that college dropout, there is no iPod. And the Flowbee was invented by someone too lazy to go to the barber.

Maybe that was a bad example. But enjoy Garfield Minus Garfield.

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

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Customer Service Strikes Back

At Renegade, sure we do advertising. We also have a studio, produce films and documentaries, and even handle customer service training, a facet of business that may not be as sexy as Superbowl ads and viral videos, but is just as essential to success .

Picture this: You’re standing in line at your local deli counter, coffee shop or fast food chain. The clerk asks if he can help the person in front of you. As they step forward to place their order, they reach toward their purse/pocket to grab their cell phone, “Oh, hey…Standing in line. What’s up…No way.” The burger jockey waits with a painful, painted on smile for the customer to place their order, “May I help y—” But the clerk is cut off by a single finger of silence held up by the oblivious cell phone talker, as if to sneer incredulously, “Can’t you see I’m on the phone…idiot?”

Or how about this: The jackass in front of you picks up their cell phone, steps forward to place their order while continuing their conversation, and the clerk with a genuine smile and air of satisfaction says, “I’ll be right with you as soon as you’re ready,” pointing to the sign that clearly reads, "If you're on your phone, we don't want to interrupt, so we'll just help everyone behind you first." The clerk smiles as you stride forward. Score one for the little guy in the paper hat.

It’s a trend that’s been slowly catching on. From PA to the PCH, all sorts of businesses–coffee shops, gynecologists and everything in between—are standing up for their employees and their customers with one simple request: PUT. THE CELL PHONE. DOWN. According to an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Robbie Stevenson of phonesoff.net has made silencing this daily annoyance into a lucrative business. In 2003, Robbie sold 1,000 $4.95-$6.95 “No cell phone signs.” Today she sells 1,000 a month to companies from the Girl Scouts to Harvard University. The guy in the paper hat cheers and goes back to studying for the bar.

I may talk on the cell phone while strolling around Safeway, but I hang up or tell the person to hold on the moment I get up to that counter. Despite the urgency I feel to continue a conversation about whether or not Nicole Ritchie is “too thin” or if Suri Cruise really is an alien, I can sacrifice for the two minutes it takes to ring up my Mac n’ Cheese and cherry cola. I don’t know, I’ve just always thought people who don’t hang up the phone are rude. And as a former fry flinger (from back in the day when beepers were all the rage), it tickles my heart to hear that somebody is stepping up for the little guy. (Now, if we could only get the swerving land whale SUV drivers to do the same, I might go so far as to say courtesy is making a comeback in our country—but that’s a different rant.)

The point is. Somebody’s getting the message. When you take your customers seriously, they take you seriously, and they appreciate it. The aforementioned article noted that some people complained, but it was about 1 complaint for every 600 “thank you’s.” According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the Associated Press and AOL, 82 percent of all Americans and 86 percent of cell phone users were irritated by loud, annoying cell conversations in public. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

So in honor of the people speaking, when you think about customer service, think this: “What do our customers really want?” “What would make our customers happy?” And not just the loud, fickle, bully customers whose opinions you’d already know even if they weren’t constantly telling you how to better run your business, but the dedicated customers, too. The ones who’ve stuck with your business through the toughest growing pains, the ones who’ve stayed because they like what you’ve got. Building business is about finding new customers, but it’s also about keeping the loyal customers you’ve got.

Next week we may see Wal-Mart may putting in drive-thrus in the power tool department, but this week, notch one up for customer service.

Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

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The I-Man Is Back—So Should You Advertise With Him?

There’s been a lot of buzz over the past couple weeks that former CBS radio host Don Imus will be returning to the airwaves before the end of the year. My first instinct was, who on earth will advertise with him? The guy was fired practically at the drop of hat. Although, it was a very large, loud hat. But it quickly dawned on me that if ABC is going to give Imus a multi-million dollar contract, they have to believe there will be advertisers.

So I conducted a brief poll among coworkers, friends, players on my kickball team (seriously) and my dad. The questions were as follows:

1) Do you have a problem with this?
2) As a company or agency would you recommend/not recommend advertising on his new show?

The response was, as you’d guess, mixed. Several respondents chose to use the term “ass,” “jacksass,” “pompous ass,” or “talentless ass.” But only four out of twenty had a problem with his return to the airwaves.Those responding who didn’t have a problem with his return (including one woman who noted he was a “jackass in a cowboy hat”) cited issues such as freedom of speech, that he’s sorry and has paid his price, or the fact that he has an audience that wants to hear him, even if the respondents weren’t fans of his show, themselves. Five said they would not recommend advertising on Imus. Four said they would have no problem advertising with Imus. And the remaining eleven said they’d take a wait-and-see approach, or it would completely depend on their product.

First off, I’m not here to address the morality of advertising on Imus. I’m looking at whether or not it is worth a) losing potential customers who dislike the controversial DJ radio personality and b) if you’ll get a substantial return on your investment with Imus. And I should also note that I listened to Imus on occasion more than a decade ago, but have never been a fan.

So, the first thing you have to look at is—who buys your product?
If your audience is people who are connected, culturally aware and racially sensitive, it is doubtful they are fans of Imus, and upon hearing you are advertising with the talk jock may seek to boycott your product—giving you bad press and possibly causing your sales to drop. But there’s one company who obviously isn’t worried about this reaction—ABC. And ABC is owned by Disney! Apparently they expect the Happiest Place on Earth to remain unscathed throughout any upcoming ordeal.

On the other hand, this same audience may be carefully scrutinizing Imus, eagerly awaiting his next misstep, and that means more ears tuning in and hearing your advertising. To quote Howard Stern’s Private Parts,

“The average radio listener listens for eighteen minutes. The average Howard
Stern fan listens for…an hour and twenty minutes…Answer most commonly given? ‘I want to see what he'll say next.’…The average Stern hater listens for two and a
half hours a day…Most common answer? ‘I want to see what he'll say next.’”

Furthermore, when Imus first returns to the air, ratings will probably be higher than when he went off the air. People who weren’t even fans of the show will tune in to see if they’ll hear more of what got Imus tossed out of his studio in the first place. The first few months will be the best time to advertise on Imus, and possibly during the next NCAA tournament.

And don’t forget about his returning fans. Imus was syndicated on 61 different radio stations across the country. He obviously had an audience, and I guarantee this audience will have their radio dials set for the second Imus returns. Despite all of its foibles, my experience has been that talk radio fans are very loyal.
Unless you’re worried about a massive backlash—and I mean a massive backlash—you’d be foolish not to advertise on Imus—if he fit your product’s demographic. Because even the people you’re worried about pissing off will still be tuning in to see what he says, to find another reason to hate him. If you have a product for the masses, you should be advertising on Imus, because when he returns to the air, the masses will be listening. You might even ask for a discount as one of the first advertisers to support his return.

And as a fellow Renegade blogger told me, “Generally people have a short memory for controversy.” Truly, the issue shot up, he was fired, there were press conferences, he apologized, and within only a few weeks the majority of the media had moved on.

Now I can respect a company for sticking to its moral guns. Your image can be nearly as important as your products. If you feel advertising on Imus will negatively affect your company’s image or you feel you have a moral obligation to not advertise with someone you feel is a racist, by all means, don’t. However, I might note to the public that you are purposely choosing not to advertise with Imus and why, to remind people where you stand on these sensitive issues.

It will be a controversial topic when he returns to the air, but people pay attention to controversy, even if only for a few weeks.



Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

What's your take on the issue? Think Imus will have a problem attracting advertisers? Care to venture any guesses as to the brands most likely to give him a shot? Drop us a comment!

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Bear Attacks Are Good for Business!

Not a year goes by that I don’t read about several shark attacks; bear attacks; or someone being killed by the exotic snake, spider or tiger they kept in their apartment. In the past week I’ve read three articles on crocodiles, one about an idiot who decided to wrestle a wild alligator, two about bear attacks, one about a rabid beaver attack and one about an alligator eating a shark (there was a special that day).

These animals have some serious advertising clout. Unfortunately, their message of, “Stay out of our clubhouse,” keeps getting lost on both seasoned thrill seekers and amateur morons. But what these animals have done is create an incredible buzz campaign. People don’t want to just watch or learn about these animals. They feel compelled to get closer, to touch them, to feed them, to offer their limbs as tasty snacks to ever-so-friendly WILD ANIMALS!

Nevertheless, their “advertising” has gotten these animals a lot of attention. How do you duplicate that for your product?

1. Create a product people are interested in (or you can make people interested in) when they encounter it—so much they’ll want to share this product or experience with others. “I nearly ceased to exist thanks to Nature’s Perfect Killing Machine. Want to go see it?”
2. Spend time. Build the hype. These animals have been doing it for centuries. You probably don’t have that kind of time, but you will need to spend some time and really dedicate yourself to that buzz.
3. It can’t be available everywhere. Not everyone can walk out their front door and see a Grizzly or Great White. That’s why people plan trips to zoos and aquariums. The zoo or aquarium presents something people can’t see every day. The same can be said for Disney World or Medieval Times. I mean whatever happened to street corner jousting? As far as products go, when my uncle was in the Navy, he was told to stay away from Ouzu, a Greek liqueur. What do you think was the first thing he did when he got to Greece?
4. The buzz has to pay off. You hype something up to be amazing, but if it turns out to be less interesting than watching carpeting glue set, your buzz may backfire. If it pays off, the buzz just continues to build. But you hype a movie for months and it turns out to be a horribly shot film with no plot, that ends in a dark shack with no clue to the actual ending, and people will be pissed off and tell their friends it was a waste of money. The buzz dies.
5. There has to be some sort of supply. When people can’t get something, they want it even more. X-Boxes, Playstations, Talking Elmos, Cabbage Patch Kids. But you can only hold people’s attention for so long. If the product appears too difficult to reach, eventually people lose interest. The pony you’ve wanted since were 3, Guns n’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy album that has been coming “next year” since 1999, or the fabled flying car. At this point, just give me a jet pack.
6. Finally, update the campaign. Keep it going. Keep your product growing.

An incredible example of this type of advertising is from Red Bull Energy Drink. Before Red Bull, “energy drinks” were sodas. Now there’s an entire market dedicated to these products. And although Red Bull’s advertising seems strange, it’s very sophisticated. There are the quirky Red Bull cartoons featuring the tagline, “It gives you wings.” They have massive branded “fringe” events like Flugtag and The Streets of San Francisco. They have “energy teams” who buzz anything from gas stations to huge events giving away Red Bull to tired attendants. A friend comes up to you and says, “Where did you get that?” You reply, “The Red Bull guy drove up in some crazy truck and just gave it to me because I looked tired.” Your friend says, “What’s it do?” You say, “It gives me wings.” Now your friend wants one. The buzz is there. Oh, and it helps that it works.

Throughout all of their advertisements, though, Red Bull rarely notes the features or benefits of their products, or they at least keep those benefits vague enough to pique people’s curiosity. Yet Red Bull is the number one selling energy drink in the world, dwarfing competition from larger companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Anheiser Busch. One should also note, it did take more than a decade for that buzz to really build. At first Red Bull was only available in Europe, and the spread throughout the U.S. was gradual over the past 10 years.
Creating buzz isn’t easy. It takes a vision, a plan and dedication. Our animal friends got people’s attention, but their message was lost. Despite all of the advertising that said, “Don’t poke that rattlesnake with a stick,” there are still plenty of people who see a rattlesnake and immediately go looking for that stick

But the business landscape is filled with companies who created the buzz and got the messaging right—Red Bull, Nike and Macintosh, just to name a few (tell me you didn’t ask a friend to see that first generation ipod or iphone). When done right, a good buzz campaign is more effective than the most expensive super bowl commercial you could buy, because real people, with real social contact do the marketing for you.

Wait a minute. Red “Bull.” Dangerous animal + brilliantly marketed product. This just might be the smartest advertising on the planet.

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

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Mickey Gets the Patch

Last week, the Walt Disney company pledged to ban smoking in all of its family films and discourage smoking in pictures released by Touchstone and Miramax. It’s a mostly symbolic gesture as it’s a rarity to see smoking in mainstream movies these days. Even in 2005’s Thank You for Smoking, a movie centered around a tobacco lobbyist, not a spec of tobacco was smoked. Still, the mighty arm of censorship toasts graciously to another victory.

What if studios had made this decision 70 years ago? Would Humphrey Bogart have been eating a Mars bar? Would John Wayne have gnawed on Wrigley’s Double Mint gum? Would Holly Golightly have traded in her signature cigarette holder for a Tootsie Pop, and have become the early inspiration for a generation of ravers constantly seeking out broken-English-speaking landlords? And the only thing to cue us into who’s the bad guy in a spy movie would have been his French accent.

Perhaps now it’s a different time. When these movies were made, everyone smoked. It was part of the culture, and most people weren’t aware of the many negative effects of smoking. Take this commercial from the 1940s that notes, “More doctors smoke camel than any other cigarette.” Today people are more health conscious, more aware of the dangers of smoking. My many college friends, who used to huddle around the same bench only five feet from the sign that stated, “NO SMOKING WITHIN 30 FEET OF THIS BUILDING,” have kicked the habit for health or monetary reasons. Across the country, cities and states are banning smoking in bars and restaurants. The culture is changing and Disney’s decision reflects this.

According to Disney CEO Robert A. Iger, “The primary reason is that cigarette smoking is a hazard and we should avoid depicting it in movies and on television.” And you lost me.

I’d believe that if they had some sort of track record to back that up. However, Bambi’s mom was shot by a hunter. Hunting is dangerous. Cars was an entire movie centered around characters that drove at unsafe speeds for a living. That’s very dangerous. And the Rocketeer. HELLO! Someone just try and make the case for safety in that Disney movie.

The point is—when you begin to censor, you descend a slippery slope. First it’s smoking. Tomorrow it’s drinking. The next day it’s fast cars. The day after that, open-mouthed kissing (could lead to STDs and the horrible gum disease known as GINGIVITIS). And then Poison will be singing, “Chatting in the Boys Room” and Snoop Dogg will be rapping “Walking down the street with my helmet on, sippin’ on apple juice—with good posture—thinking about visitin’ grandma, provided I don’t use fossil fuels in the process.”

Disney’s ban on smoking in movies is just another way to protect idiots from themselves, like seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws. I always wear a seatbelt because it’s been scientifically proven that you’re more likely to survive a crash if you’re wearing one. Smoking never appealed to me, but between the Truth, YDoYouThink and the countless articles and studies, how could people not know smoking is dangerous?

But eventually everyone makes a decision for themselves, even if it might be unhealthy. Fast food, driving too fast, living in a dangerous city—hell, where are all of the anti-sky diving advocates? (Second-hand smoke is a different subject. But up until 2 years ago, the air quality in Maryland was equivalent to living with a smoker. Why not ban the factories that make this smog instead of not letting my buddy light up a cigarette while we’re busting at some karaoke at our local tavern?)

Censorship has always been dangerous territory. You never want to stop someone from speaking their mind, creating something brilliant or changing the world. However, you’re probably gonna complain when your neighbor spray paints a 15-foot-high mural of a naked Jessica Alba on the front of their house and calls it “art.”

Let the industry censor itself. If a producer feels that a smoking character will cut into its audience and thus its profits, let them change that character. But what if smoking is important to the film? What if you want to show a character is an idiot and associate him with smoking and how stupid it is? Or what if a character is dying of emphysema and wants to reflect on ways she could have changed her life? There are very good reasons to keep smoking in movies that don’t have to do with cowboys or a guy who wears a beret and loves croissants.

But the censorship continues, and culture is the worse for it.

--Captian Awesome, Project Specialist

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Grandma’s Virtual Kick to the Groin

Developing creative for a client last week led to a discussion with one of my fellow writers here at Renegade. Matt held strong in the opinion that he wanted to maintain the sophistication within his creative, not going for the pie-in-the-face or kick-to-the-groin joke. He wanted to keep the humor in his creative subtle. Not surprising from the fine-wine-drinking, fine-cigar-smoking guy who writes about Chivas Regal.

On the other hand, last winter I proposed a campaign where people using the competitors’ product kept getting slapped in the face. A literal metaphor for the competitors’ figurative actions. It was scaled back considerably.

But there’s the question. High brow, low brow or something in between? A perfect mix of all is ideal. Shakespeare wrote subtle tongue-in-cheek innuendo for the lords and ladies in the balconies and lewd, bawdy jokes for the groundlings. He was trying to capture the attention of two different audiences. Shakespeare also had three acts, not :30-:60 seconds or a single magazine page, and he was telling a story, not selling power tools, gym memberships or High-Speed Internet.

I could go either way. Give me the sophisticated brilliance and attention to detail of this X-Box 360 ad, the didn’t see it coming joke in Sprint’s crime deterrent phone commercial, as well as the just-plain-weird/pure genius of E Trade’s 1999 Superbowl commercial.

But remember your audience.

Video gamers want to see something “cool.” Their parents might not get the X-Box commercial, but parents aren’t the main audience. However, you can push the cool factor too far and make something just plain strange, like with this creepy PS3 commercial.

Who was E Trade’s audience? Intelligent, affluent adults, already interested in investing. That commercial might have been lost on Grandpa plowing-corn-fields and Susie-preteen. But the mix of “what the heck” and “duh” got the attention of adults who already figured they knew enough about the market that they could manage their own money.

Sprint was advertising a gadget-filled cell phone. The spots gets in features early and finishes up a gag that gadget-crazy 18-34-year-old males just ate up, told their friends about, and watched again. If you can make someone in our DVR-crazy, 700-channel society excited about a commercial, you’ve done something right.

So the question is audience. Make a spot in that PS3 commercial-style advertising a product to PTA moms during Everybody Loves Raymond, and not only will they not buy it, they’ll try to get it banned. Spend $2 million on explosions, CGI and famous actors when your audience wants to know the bare bones of a product, you probably won’t sell the product and you probably won’t have a job next quarter. On the other hand, when advertising to attention-divided teenagers, you need a hook. Try to give them just the facts and they’ll be on the next channel before they even hear your name.

Advice: Do some research, or have your ad agency do some research. When you make assumptions about your audience, you run the risk of wasting a lot of advertising dollars. There’s an audience for every product, although I’m still having trouble getting fatguysinthongsandalsandnothingelse.com off the ground. I just haven’t found that hook.

Here’s a company that went for a pretty old hook. Girls in bikinis. Tiger Time Lawn Care recently started a new service—the Bikini Cut. Instead of Johnny Overalls mowing the lawn it’s a young woman in a bikini. Their website notes that the client requested Tiger Time’s service because they were trying to sell their house. The house sold in 17 days. Low brow appears to be working for Tiger Time, although Hooters Air wasn’t so fortunate, grounded after only 2 years. My roommate flew Hooters Air shortly after the airline took to the sky. I was surprised to see him again.

Remember: Who is your audience? Don’t be scared to go smart. Intelligence, sophistication and a never-before-seen technique could make you millions—if done right. But try to be too brilliant and you could waste a lot of money and still not reach your audience. And don’t forget that many still respond to what is comfortable and familiar—a warm-friendly face, a pretty girl, a pie in the face, or a neighborly kick to the groin.

The next big thing: Grandma’s Virtual Kick to the Groin. Trust me.

--Captain Awesome, Project Specialist

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