I’m probably most upset about this because of the dire saturation these Chevy ads have been having everywhere. It grinds on me to see most advertising in place of my programming, but these Chevrolet ads are so blatantly misleading, and not in that fun ‘make fun of yourself’ way that we find endearing.
The beauty of archetypes is that we all know what they are, even if we can’t consciously place them. Symbols have always been powerful marketing tools because they carry a certain emotional weight, and provide shortcuts to meaning. There’s a symbolic connection with the image of a magician or ruler that transcends borders and cultures, and those are the roots of archetypes.
Look, I have to say first that I like the idea of the program; I just don’t like how it was done, whom it was done by or why they did it. Make sense? More discussion about racial equality is a huge hot button right now, and it needs to be brought to the forefront, but why Starbucks?
I have to question the entire thought process with my top reasons that the program didn’t make sense. Not reasons why it didn’t work, but why would you do it in the first place?
Over lunch, a friend showed me a photo of their new corporate business cards the made in-house. He works at a design company, so they make cards all the time, but this time it was special. These particular ones were for an owners, and he received a full box of cards that read ‘Business Manger’. A typo – from a design company – to one of the owners. Things got messy.
When did working hard start going out of style? We feel sorry for those people who bust their buts, putting the extra time and extra mile to set themselves apart. Sure, there’s plenty to say about abusive work environments, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m questioning is our destructive culture of wanting to get as much as possible for the least amount of effort.
I caught the most recent Nestea commercial on TV the other day, and the 15 second product spot perplexed me enough to comment. I’ll provide the link here, but I’ll give a breakdown of how I took it.
A Pretty although somewhat homely girl turns to arms-length guy and says, “Jake, I love you.”
Completely plain and unmemorable male actor replies, “I, uhhh. (undecipherable moaning)”
The recent lawsuit brought back old marketing discussions I used to have about Red Bull. Though I’m not going into detail about the legal case here, it was interesting to note that the overall underwhelming nature of the product was called into question. It doesn’t give you wings? We all knew that, but it’s complete underperformance compared to the competition is an interesting topic to explore, particularly with the product’s popularity.
I go back and forward on the value of personas. Sometimes they are super-critical to your marketing approach, sometimes it becomes a factor of analysis paralysis. Considerable time has been wasted trying to create the perfect persona, so I try to simplify my characters more into habits than details. If you’re doing product development, sure, go nuts with your finer elements, but for marketing, we’re trying to intercept people.
When I used to tell people I did content marketing, nobody really understood what that meant. Even when talking with agencies and successful companies, most people think of content as writing, and people think of marketing as advertising.
“So you must write ads then?”
(Face palms)
Content marketing is still so new to people that it shouldn’t surprise me how undefined it is. I’ve seen a few good definitions that relate to story telling and creation, but it you have to break it down into describing each part.
“Tell me how you provide value.”
“I’m not sure. What do you mean by value?”
“Why do you matter to companies? Tell me about one of your customers, and why they work with you.”