A Post Marketing America

Well yesterday was the Superbowl. I was very happy to see a team I've loved since childhood play another team I've loved since childhood and even more happy that my favorite won.

I will confess that I stopped watching regular season games a few years ago because of the behavior of the NFL and the players. The sport has really lost its appeal for me because of the elevation of monsters like Michael Vick. It also puzzles me that OJ Simpson retains his Hall of Fame status and yet Pete Rose is barred. I like baseball better anyway, so it's okay, but I think it needs to be said sometimes. But what do I know? I'm just a girl. :)

However, the Superbowl does still have something for me as a devotee of all things marketing and advertising. I'm addicted to great advertising. I'd have a hard time choosing between a Sugar Mama's cupcake and beautiful Absolut Vodka print ad. Or between this commercial and a two week vacation in Hawaii. That's how much I love great commercial messages.

So I was very much looking forward to this year's "Brand Bowl" as its affectionately called among those of us who are marketing junkies.

I'm sure you can imagine my horror, then, when instead of hilarious and inspiring and memorable (in a positive way) commercials yesterday, I saw a man licking Dorito dust off a coworker's fingers and PANTS, a baby being thrown against a window (Home Away), an incredibly offensive joke about Tibet's struggles with China (Groupon), a Pepsi commercial you had to send kids out of the room for (and there were a lot of kids in the room) and an old man coughing diesel smoke (BMW). There were really horrified reactions in our group, which was by no means a collection of overly sensitive and humorless people. The ads were just... GROSS.

After the shock and urge to wash my hands wore off, I realized what we saw is the result of mass layoffs of marketing teams over the last few years since the recession really bit us. Marketing departments were the first to go. Second was the outsourced marketing. Apparently some of these companies were left with coming up with their own advertising ideas, in consultation with perhaps 12 year old boys who had had a case of Mountain Dew and agreed to give their expert opinions for free.

If you are on Twitter and watched the wave of reactions to these ads - I watched them in real time and it was quite the tsunami of pans - you saw that these companies probably got the message that they should go on a hiring spree, stat. Some of them may not recover from that debacle. We will see. Sincerity wins, so perhaps a sincere response to a mistake will do more for them than a decent ad would have.

However, I say, all the more reason to make your next car either a Volkswagen or a Chrysler, based on these two absolutely wonderful ads.




Well done. Hit all the right notes.

So to combat the low budget weirdness, I bring you the closest I could get to Green Bay colors without just being weird. :) I picked Peach Parfait instead of gold and Wild Wasabi for the green. The sweet little girl is from Greeting Card Kids and the embossing folder is Finial Press. It's VERY simple and quick - really fun card. If you like it, I'll be teaching a class with this as one of our cards in a few weeks - so if you want to come - email me! In the meantime, I'll be bleaching my brain to rid it of some of yesterday's visuals! :D

Loveyameanitbye.