"Better Than Lasers"?!?!

[trafficwave]

So I'm watching the olympics at 2AM... weren't we all?

And I see a commercial come up for some laptop.

Two guys sit down next to each other at a coffee shop.

Guy #1 has "Super Kewl Brand" laptop.
Guy #2 has some no-name.

Guy #2 says, "Is that the kewl new "Super Kewl Brand?"
Guy #1 says, "Yeah" and begins to brag about this and that feature.

Guy #2 says, "Mine has lasers. It seeks out and destroys moisture"

Then... (no kidding)... Guy #2's computer starts vaporizing all the coffee cups, coffee pots, fries some sweaty fat dude that just walked in ... etc...

Voice Over: " 'Super Kewl Brand' Laptops. Better than Lasers"

Really?!?

A bunch of ad professionals sat around in a room thinking .... and thinking ... and thinking .... And THIS is what they came up with?

Is it a testament to the stupidity of the general population?

Is it an attempt to be cute and try to get people to remember the brand?
Problem is ... I AM typing a post about it here... but I CANNOT remember the actual brand!

So did they miss the mark? With me, they sure did.

Anyone else want to weigh in on that kind of "cutesy" stuff in advertising?

[Chris Lockwood]

Brian, the problem is that the people who create the ads usually work for advertising agencies and are more interested in being clever or creative (and winning advertising awards) than in serving their clients.

Since TV ads like that can't be tracked, they get away with it.

We can't get away with it because we'd stop making sales and would be out of business.

I think the cell phone ads with the guys representing all the companies, chasing each other with numchuks, summoning the wizard, etc., are pretty stupid, because most of the ad content is not about the product, and it's hard to remember which brand the ad was for. But those ads are creative and probably would win awards for cleverness.

It's funny how many ads are memorable, yet I can't remember the product it was for. I might remember it was a soft drink, but was it Coke or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper? If I can't remember the brand, the ad was useless as far as selling me.

[trafficwave]

Couldn't agree more!

I just had a conversation today at lunch about a former employee of mine.
He had his MBA and everything.
But he couldn't sell oxygen in outer space.

He constantly told me about his awards for ad design, creative, etc...

I finally got fed up with it and said, "Fine. Bring your stuff in tomorrow and let's look at it."

It was all really "glossy" and "cute" and "well done" and "professional" and .... I had NO idea what any of it was supposed to be selling.

I asked how the various campaigns did with each piece he showed me and I was constantly met with "that one was pretty flat" ... "less than we had hoped" ... "failed to meet projections" ... but he got awards for all of them.

And the awards came from:

Yep .... other advertisers.

[Floyd Fisher]

Lenovo Olympic Ads…What Were They ‘Think’ing? | notebooks.com

Down in the middle is the ad he's talking about. It's a lot different than he's portraying it...and believe it or not makes a point.

[trafficwave]

Thanks for the link!

Watched it again... Still pointless.

And "What Were They Thinking?" is the perfect question.

[Paul Elliott]

And Sumo wrestlers are classically Japanese. (???)

[trafficwave]

The guy that put that site together seems to feel the same way I do:

---------------
“Laser” shows that the ThinkPad SL’s spill resistant keyboard is more useful than a notebook with lasers.
---------------

[ExRat]

Hi,

There is an angle whereby promoting your product using gimmicky advertising that does nothing to 'sell' the actual products (Eg Benetton's 'save the world' type ads) is surreptitiously positioning the company in the bracket of 'we are so successful we can afford to use high-ticket advertising not to push our products, but to simply push our brand in an unrelated way just to show how cool we are.'

And if it's done in a way where it's unlikely that the viewer can actually remember which of the leading companies did it -

it's hard to remember which brand the ad was for {snip}

I might remember it was a soft drink, but was it Coke or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper? If I can't remember the brand, the ad was useless as far as selling me.

...then you might consider that the public image of 'the top brands at war with each other' is simply a convenient smokescreen when perhaps they are in bed together and are happy to join forces (behind the scenes) to push 'fizzy drinks' in general.

[peteinoz]

conversely, here in AU.. during the olympics, we are getting hammered with this new laptop, (can't remember the name of it )

that has air bags, and they drop it all over the place..

plus its water proof, they spill water on it, turn it sideways to get the water off, using one of our high profile woman swimmers

I liked it..

Pete