Stupid Marketing is, well, STUPID

There is a television station in Winchester, Virginia. Only one. It's actually sort of a field office for a station based a few miles south in Harrisonburg.

Anyway, they make a big deal about being "in your community." I assume this was their big idea to try and localize the broadcasts. They used to say this every time they mentioned the station or came back from a commercial break. It got hugely tedious and they've cut way back on it. Thank you!

But that's not what this post is about. The station has been trying hard to sign on advertisers, but by the number of PSAs they run it doesn't look like they're having much success. However, Dunkin Donuts must have recently agreed to a schedule, because they are now running spots in the 11:00 p.m. news recommending that you stop in tomorrow morning for one of their many flavors of coffee.

The spot concludes with the announcer saying, "Dunkin Donuts is the official coffee of TV3 Winchester's new at 11:oo." Huh? The official coffee of a newscast? Not just any newscast, the 11:oo p.m. newscast. When the heck did newscasts start having an official anything? It boggles the mind the extremes to which this absurdity could be taken.

This is one of the stupidest marketing ideas I have seen in a long time. If anybody is influenced to buy a cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts because it is the official coffee of this totally amateur newscast, we truly are on the road to Armageddon. What crap!

Marketers Are Idiots - Coke Zero Edition

Coke is spending millions and millions of dollars to try and promote their new Coke Zero product - and I haven't seen a brand that is more clueless and desperate in a long, long time.

Their run-into-the-ground commercial, which they are showing both on national television and in movie theaters, features two geeky dolts talking to an "actual" lawyer supposedly on hidden camera. It appears these guys work for regular Coke and want to sue Coke Zero for "taste infringement." The lawyers basically tell them they can't sue their own company and they would be fired if they try. But the two idiots claim they want the manager of Coke Zero to curl up and cry underneath the copy machine.

The are violating one of the most important rules of consumer marketing: "Don't talk to yourself!"

I'm assuming what they are trying to do is convey that Coke Zero tastes exactly the same as regular Coke but...uh, but...there's "zero" of something in there. You'd think calories, right? No, I guess it's no sugar, but I certainly didn't find that out from this lame, amateur commercial.

It's so amazingly desperate. I can imagine everyone at Coke sitting around trying to figure out how they should communicate the concept of this product and somebody with absolutely no marketing skills or experience whatsoever said, "I know! Let's do a spot where we sue ourselves for making something that tastes so much like regular Coke that there's copyright infringement. We can make it even better by bringing in real lawyers and capture their incredulous outrage at such a bold idea!" Everyone laughed, added their two cents and congratulated this clueless member of the team with his or her brilliance!

Sorry. It's just lame, insipid and stupid. It doesn't convey a thing and it's not funny. The money is going down the drain and this product is destined to fail. The marketers at Coke are idiots.

New Rule for Viral Videos

I take exception to calling any video that appears on the Internet "viral" but I'll save that rant for another day.

Right now I want to propose a new rule for all the idiots with video cameras who are shooting one of their friends attempting to perform a Jackass-style stunt that we know is going to bad.

Shut the hell up!

The audio track of every video you see is exactly the same and exactly as inane. It always goes like this:

"Ok. Go. Do it."
(a moment of silence while the "stuntman" risks his life)
"Oooooooohhhhh, Dude!"
(cackle cackle cackle ha ha ha ha ha)
"Are you all right?"
(chortle cackle ha ha ha ha ha ha)

It's amazing how annoying the laugh of most 20-something guys is.

Then they run the video in slow motion and we get to hear the moron behind the camera giggle once again at a much lower pitch.

Go ahead and test me on this. You'll see I'm right. So I propose a new rule that needs to be adopted Internet-wide. If the cameraman can't stay out of the video by keeping his stupid mouth shut, then the video is instantly banned for any and all upload sites. Just imagine if they did this on TV shows or movies. You watch an action-packed stunt and then the crew all make comments, applaud and say "ooooohhhhhh" in unison. Wouldn't work. You'd switch the channel or walk out. So why the double standard?

Camera dudes - SHUT UP!

Product Placement Gone Wild

Everyone is becoming more and more cognisant about what they call "product placement" in movies and TV shows. That's where some readily recognizable brand of product is either used by a character or appears in a scene. It's a very subtle - and effective - form of branding that carries an implied endorsement. It's been around a long time, but with the way people are doing their best to avoid traditional advertising these days, it's become increasingly important to marketers to get their products displayed in alternative ways.

This brings me to the recent film, Fracture, starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. I wanted to see it when it first came out, but just didn't get around to it. I really enjoy Sir Anthony - especially when he plays a bad guy - and the previews looked great! So I rented it and watched it last night. It's a very well done suspense thriller with lots of great dialog, interesting characters and some cool courtroom action. It's full of all sorts of plot holes and a few too many twists, but was very engrossing - with one MAJOR exception.

Obviously Apple computer continued its onslaught of Hollywood with its blatant product placement in this film. I don't know if someone at Apple has an incredible "in" with the Hollywood creative crowd, or if the folks who make movies just simply love Apple, but it's amazing how many recent films show the famous bite-out-of-the-apple logo on screen. In Fracture they went to extremes!

First of all, the lead character played by Gosling, is a fast-track lawyer with the Los Angeles prosecutor's office. As he gets ready to go to work in the morning, they cut to a closeup of him inserting his Apple laptop into its case before he heads out the door. I mean this was a complete and full setup that the filmmakers had to spend significant time and money to do, simply to clearly show the logo as the computer is packed up.

Later we see this same laptop on his desk in the office, but it gets worse. The police use Apples, the bad guy has a Mac on his desk, which he left open before going off to go kill his wife so we can easily see the logo, and even the judge during the trial has an open Mac on her bench so that everyone in the courtroom can clearly see what kind of computer she uses!

The problem with all of this is that, first of all, I highly doubt the L.A. prosecutor's office uses Apple laptops, and I really don't know if many judges keep an open laptop on their bench during a trial. If they do, again, I seriously doubt it's a Mac. And because the filmmakers made all of these appearances so incredibly obvious, to me it seriously hurt the credibility and believability of the movie. They went too far. Fracture became a running Apple Mac commercial more than a tight psychological thriller.

I just wonder what they got in return for ruining their movie. When product placement stops being subtle, I think it also stops being effective. My reaction to the use of so many Macs in this film - and I happen to like Macintosh computers a lot - is highly negative. Too much. Stop it! Let me enjoy the film without you hitting me in the face with an Apple logo every few minutes. I almost expected the "Hello, I'm a Mac" guy to pop up and say something.

Time to back off a bit. Everyone will benefit.