Color me skeptical (#7)

Alaska Airlines has an outdoor and transit campaign series here in Portland that states, "North of Expected is _____________", with each ad featuring a different "handwritten" example written below the formal text. There's one ad that I see on my commute that says, "North of Expected is altitude sans attitude."

Personally, I love the word "sans", imported from French for a more poetic way to say "without", such as, "I'd like a burger sans cheese and a side of fries." The trouble is, "sans" -- while perfectly functional -- sounds a bit pretentious, like saying "utilize" when "use" works just fine. Imagine asking for a burger sans cheese at a restaurant---the statistical ratio of responses would likely be: 78% "huh?", 15% "okay, one hamburger", and 7% "Grey poupon?"

Therein lies my skepticism with the Alaska ad: "altitude sans attitude" sounds like a self-contained contradiction, like "an easy 27-step process." I like the word, but if you want to present yourself as sans attitude, better to do it sans faux French.

Hook 'em while they're young

A random reference to the Northwest Passage today dislodged a memory from 35 years ago, a board game that I played as a child -- Northwest Passage! (The exclamation point is crucial in the pronunciation of the title.)

The game allowed players to navigate small plastic tankers across the treacherous expanse of matte cardboard depicting the waterways of Northern Canada and Alaska. During the traverse, each tanker would stop and load or unload small plastic discs of “oil”. I recall that the tankers featured a splendidly sleek design, while the “oil” discs were flimsy, like the little stickers you place on loose-leaf paper to prevent them from being torn from a notebook. (That particular office supply reference may date me more than this game does.)

I learned from the helpful folks at the Vancouver Maritime Museum that the game was based on the first commercial voyage of an actual oil tanker (The Manhattan) and was sold at gas stations in the early 1970s. How’s that for a marketing ploy: get kids thinking about oil and making it an adventure. (Pardon me -- Adventure!)

I imagine it would be vilified like Joe Camel if it came out today, dismissed for capitalizing on the impact of global warming and subject to boycotts for its failure to represent energy alternatives. But that’s a matter of public opinion about the product; overt product promotion continues in children’s games today, they’ve simply moved online, where kids can play an array of games featuring shameless brand mascots like the Trix bunny, Tony the Tiger and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Does Lucky the leprechaun have anything more positive to promote than Northwest Passage? I’m not equating the two products, but it makes me realize how far we haven’t come when it comes to getting children interested in products and brands.

Even Geico's good ads are bad

I don't like Geico’s advertising -- which means in this one regard, I am indistinguishable from the majority of fatigued American television viewers. The cavemen have been around for years, but their humor went extinct long ago, with recent spots seeming to stumble along wearily in a failed search of a punch line; the inexplicably awful campaign featuring a stack of bills with plastic eyes stalking people across America was half-baked when it started and has only soured with each new offering; the only saving grace is the long-running talking gecko campaign, featuring their odd-accented lizard espousing the virtues of the company---ads that I don’t actually like, but which I will credit with making the company a household name for insurance, and at least the little bloke has certain charms.


Now even that little green pitchman is annoying me. One recent spot feature the gecko being called into the CSO’s (Corporate Something-or-Other) office to discuss the company’s marketing efforts, and includes this bit of copywritten conversation:

Boss: But I think there are a few more things you can say about how reliable Geico is.
Gecko: Well, Gieco is the third largest insurance company in America, that’s a nice tidbit.

Nice tidbit? Try, nice non sequitur. The goal is to demonstrate “reliability”, and the suggested evidence is the popularity of the company? To put that into perspective, PCs are far more popular than Macs---does that make them more reliable?

Geico sells insurance based on ease and cost – remember “fifteen minutes could save you 15% on car insurance”? – so claiming that their customers support them for reliability and not cheap rates is a grand reinterpretation of the facts. Was logic a victim of lazy editing as they struggled to squeeze a mention of both reliability and popularity in the same 30-second spot, or is there simply no quotable evidence of their claimed reliability? A 2008 survey shows the company is 11th in customer satisfaction, so maybe it’s the latter -- though considering their other campaigns, I don't rule out another failure of creativity.

Free ear canal!

Every now and then, an ad catches my eye for all the wrong reasons---but rarely do all the wrong reasons appear in a single ad. This ad appeared in The Oregonian (in fact, this is only half the ad, so imagine twice the clutter) and made my head twitch like the hitchhiker in Something about Mary. It's like they're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.


Sure, the densely packed information makes for a challenging read; sure, the clash of fonts makes it look like it was assembled in pieces like a cinema-style ranson note; sure, "call today" looks peculiar inserted within the middle location; sure, the two graphics are essentially redundant; sure, the American-flag-in-the-shape-of-the-United-States logo --"we mentioned we're American, right?"-- adds a delightful wink of cheesiness.

But what I love is the inexplicable decision to put "examination" in a different font with a different background color than the rest of the headline, creating the illusion that customers can stop in and get a "free ear canal". Now THAT'S an interesting free offer.

Arco, the fuel of young America

Apologies to Motown, but that's what comes to mind when I see Arco's new tag line, "Straight up gas". Clearly, this is not your father's gasoline, but instead a new, hip product designed for a crowd that is tired of marketing claims and wants to hear the truth, right? Straight up.


I appreciate the motivation to incorporate language to appeal to a particular demographic, but there's an incredibly thin line separating an effective tap of the cultural zeitgeist and an awkward effort to sound modern. (Think of any time your dad clumsily inserted modern vernacular into his vocabulary.) Which one is this? Let's instead start with this question: Do Americans still say "straight up"? At their website, Arco furthers the line with assertions of "Straight up value", "Straight up quality", and "Straight up convenience", so clearly, they are counting on consumers to embrace the phrase. As for me, it's a resuscitation of Paula Abdul's song of the same title from 1987. Perhaps Ms. Abdul's second-coming as a high-profile non-critical critic given the phrase new relevance?

This tag line is more awkward than effective, adopting modern language in a obsequious effort to remain relevant in a world where oil and gasoline are increasingly the subject of derisive public commentary. (At least here in Oregon---though simultaneous with those conversations are talks of widening the six-lane bridge across the Columbia, so it seems even America's greenest city is still enamored with the convenience of cars.)

Yet what I like about the tag is that it talks directly about the product. Most of their competitors are offering feel-good and/or quasi-green sentiments that refer only vaguely to the product: Chevron is touting "Human Energy"; Texaco recently unveiled, "People in the Know Trust Texaco"; Conoco Phillips has "Energy for tomorrow"; BP is going "Beyond Petroleum". I like the directness that Arco has adopted, even if the chosen phrase fails to capture my imagination or my interest.

The rest of the copy is so free of hyperbole it's comical: "You need to get from point A to point B, and we have the gasoline to help you do just that." Well, raise a glass to reasonable expectations: That's not a complex mission statement to accommodate. But then, if Chevron is going to be bragging about their physicists and research investigations, perhaps "we sell good, cheap gas" is the best tack to take. It's a contemporary product for a contemporary marketplace, and they're not pretending to that it's anything more than that. Straight up.

Branding in action

I visited the Hershey website today (after enjoying a peanut butter Whoppers candy, I was curious what other flavors they have*) and I saw this product menu:

What impressed me immediately was how the images looked like a puzzle page out of Games magazine---except the puzzle was too easy. Try it yourself---how many of those products can you name with only a small cropped image as guidance?

Hershey offers a condensed lesson in the value of brand consistency. Just as Coca Cola's script logo is so distinctive that anything written in that font conjures thoughts of Coke, and anything written in the Boston Red Sox font looks like a promo for Fenway Park, these Hershey's logos are instantly recognizable even with 95% of the name cropped out.

At least I hope everyone can recognize those brands. Otherwise, it might mean I simply eat too many candy bars.

* chocolate, strawberry, and peanut butter

Color me skeptical (#6)

Ultimate Donut!
the tastiest ever

A short list of causes of my incredulity:

1. This is the only identification on the box---no store name, no information of any sort. Wouldn't the maker of "the tastiest ever" donut want to let the eaters know what they were eating?
   
2. The store that isn't mentioned on the box is an archaic Safeway, one that hasn't had a remodel since 1978. It's the kind of Safeway you'd see on an island, where they have a captive audience and don't have to wow them with amenities like pleasant lighting and accessible staff. Yet inexplicably, this one is on a major Beaverton thoroughfare.
3. This store's bakery was a ghost town. I had to flag down a security guard to help me find a box for the donuts. (What a stinging sign of the times---they can't afford the baker, but they can afford the security guard.) Because of the apparent lack of kitchen help, the shelves had not been restocked in hours and the selection was limited to plain cake and lemon filled varieties.
4. When I found the security guard, he dropped something into the bag next to him. As he came to help, I leaned over and saw the logo on the bag, a logo that belonged to the donut shop across the street.
   

The verdict? It was a perfectly fine grocery store-baked plain cake donut. If that's how you define "ultimate", no skepticism required.

The Art of Subtlety

I plucked this banner ad from the web today. I can't recall any ad with a more heinous message, though I confess, I'm astonished at how succinctly they summarize their message. "Thin lips are ugly on anyone." Wow, years of Vogue-induced high school self-conciousness compressed into a six-word slogan.

I would retort the obvious falseness of this, and insist that beauty is a matter of proportion, not size---for instance, Kristen Dunst is a pretty woman with thin lips, and superimposing Angelina Jolie's mouth onto her face would make her look like a clown. But of course, the creators of this ad likely aren't interested in debating the merits of their copy or thier views on impirical beauty---I imagine they're too busy figuring out a way to cruelly point out how fat we are.

What a lovely way to make a living.