Ummm, what?
This is the disclaimer from the promo site for Carmelo Anthony’s new shoe.
Order to look at your site I need to fully QUIT any other applications I might be working in, not only switch which browser I’m using but also close all the other sites I might have open in tabs. THEN, I need to open my browser preferences to allow you to popup additional browser windows - which I’m not allowed to click. All this so you can….what?
Riiiiiight.
But - it is HTML5, so…that’s a thing.
Remember a few weeks ago when Nike dropped their commercial for the World Cup and it was the best commercial ever? And then remember when everyone was pointing to the survey showing that Nike and swooped in and stolen all the World Cup buzz from Adidas?
Well - this came out today. I’m always hesitant to reference surveys where I don’t know the methodology, but it does seem to suggest that Adidas’ consistent, multimodal approach is outpacing Nike’s single event.
“Half the game in buzz is ‘fanning the flames’. The Adidas football facebook page, for instance, is now up to over a million fans and they are dropping new content several times a day, all while the average post is generating upwards of 100 comments. At the end of the day, brands need to keep the buzz ball in the air as long as possible – sponsored or otherwise,”
- Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of digital strategy at Nielsen.
Too often advertising gets confused with marketing, and the result are efforts that focus on single spikes of awareness rather than long-term affinity. Making a commercial like Write the Future is incredibly expensive and while it generated a lot of buzz early on, without support, there are just too many other things happening all the time for it to remain front of mind.
More over, this style of marketing lacks any ability to react or adjust. WK and Nike took a big gamble that least ONE of the players in the commercial making it deep into the World Cup, now it would seem they’re stuck with a commercial that is irrelevant. You’d think both WK and Nike would have learned their lesson after the Kobe/Lebron playoff commercials.
I wonder how much better that budget could have been spent developing projects to actually connect with fans regardless of the outcome of the games rather than a mini-movie. It’s not that great advertising isn’t important, but it’s not a replacement for being there, interacting with your customers and creating the kinds of experiences that can last over time.
I spend most of time here talking about how awful things are in advertising right now, especially online. I really think the web has brought a cultural sea change that most agencies still haven’t wrapped their heads around and it’s marginalized the importance of their work. All that said, there is a reason I got into this. I love brands, and I love advertising. It’s this love that makes me so aware of how much more culturally important I think advertising used to be. Allowing for the possibility that I have an unhealthy relationship with this industry, I pulled some examples I love that I think demonstrate this. First - two classics. The first one is very likely why I got into advertising in the first place. I think this one may be one of the more perfect commercials I’ve ever seen. But it’s not all nostalgia. Here are a couple from around 2006 and 2008 respectively. When I was watching these again this morning, I realized a few things about them. First, each one I think uses the medium pretty much perfectly. When I was in college I took a short story writing class and the professor described the method of short story writing not as shorting a longer story, but as telling the entire story by fully rendering one single moment to become a metaphor for the entire narrative. I think each of these does that perfectly. They’re each 30 second spots, but each one is a complete story told through one single element or theme. Second, each them is unrepentantly ernest. I was listing to the Talk of the Nation interview with Bob Garfield a couple weeks ago where he was talking about what he called “advertisings worship at the alter of comedy” and it struck me how true this is. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, but I miss when an agency and brand where not afraid to say “yes, this is culturally important.” Looking back now, it occurs to me how balls-y these ads actually where. Comparing them to something like the current Nike MVP ads, there is a safety and a distance in the humor. For me, there is something wonderful about the ads above that take the risk of saying “yes, sports matter, Nike matters.” They wore their convictions on their sleeves and in doing so took on a level of noble vulnerability. So there you have it, proof I don’t hate advertising.
A lot of people seem to think the latest Nike spot, effectively marking Wood’s return to Golf and the brand, is some kind of bold and daring piece. I have to disagree with these people. If you haven’t seen it, take a watch: While it has all the affectations of a serious and daring spot - the formal framing, the back & white, the stern narration - I find it devoid of any seriousness at all. It is in fact, possibly the safest, and ultimately most insulting, route Nike could have taken. What I’m presented with is this sad sack, hunched over Tiger Woods, pleading for my forgiveness like I’m his wife. Only, it’s not him asking for forgiveness, it’s HIS DAD. That’s right, you made his dad do the dirty work, all the while asking literally nothing of Tiger: - Tiger, tell me about YOUR thoughts? - Tiger, how are YOU feeling? Is everything okay big guy? You doin’ alright? You need a soda? In my mind, there are really only two legitimate tracks here: 1) What ever Tiger did in his personal life is morally reprehensible, but Nike is all about golf, so lets get it on! 2) What ever Tiger did in his personal life is morally reprehensible, this matters to Nike, so lets address it honestly. Of course I apparently forgot about secret option 3 What ever Tiger did in his personal life is morally reprehensible, we know it, you know it, we know you know it, but instead of addressing it directly or saying nothing, either of which WOULD ACTUALLY BE DARING, we’re going to attempt to LOOK like we’re addressing it, all the while trying to reposition Tiger as a pitiful victim man-child being defended by his DEAD DAD. You can’t be mad at that guy. Right? Look, I’m not naive, Nike has a golden calf that can’t keep it’s pants on. They can’t toss him overboard. But they also can’t tie themselves too close to him in case this goes further south. So they did what they had to do. I get it. But lets call a spade a spade. All moral outrage aside, looking at this from a purely strategic point of view, this wasn’t daring, edgy or powerful. It was the safest thing they possibly could have done. Update Buzzfeed seems to agree White and Wong think it’s alright These guys liked it a lot
