APRIL 2001 IN
RICK ASTER’S WORLD
Bad Ideas in Advertising
In theory, advertising is supposed to emphasize the
best qualities of a company and its products.
In practice, however, advertising tends to bring out whatever is on the
collective mind of a company, whether it’s good or not.
Every now and then, an advertising campaign resonates far more strongly
with the bad qualities or disadvantages of a product than with any good
qualities or advantages of the product.
I’ve listed some recent examples of bad ideas in advertising below.
Do advertisers release these messages because they’re too close
to their products to recognize the obvious problems — or is it some kind of
subconscious psychological effect that tells you what they are really thinking?
You decide!
- “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”
For decades, most Americans ate beef practically every day.
You can hardly blame them if they eventually got bored with it.
- “Every kiss begins with [a jewelry store].”
Most people who like getting jewelry wouldn’t want to think of such a gift as a
mere payment for physical affection, but that’s what this jeweler’s jingle
seems to be saying. Think of it this way,
and having someone give you jewelry doesn’t feel so good, does it?
- “The new version of [a database system] will make your web site
three times faster or we’ll give you a million dollars.”
The rap on this particular software company is that they charge too much.
If they have enough money to be giving out $1,000,000 rebates,
they must be charging way too much.
- “The [professional sports league] playoffs. It’s that good.”
Or maybe it’s not that good anymore, because this television commercial
shows highlights from the 1970s and 1980s.
- The milk-carton heckler.
The sluggish, boorish character in this series of television commercials is hardly
the picture of health when compared to the non-milk-drinking people he abuses.
Could it be that the huge amounts of saturated fat and animal protein in milk make
it not such a healthy food after all?
- “Where do you want to go today?” (computer software)
The answer today is probably that you wish you could go
somewhere, but you’re stuck in an office working with a computer.
Computers are even worse than television at forcing people to sit still.
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