Advertising Unplugged

One day last week, I was imprisoned on the elevator for 10 minutes with a wise-ass Aussie architect from the 9th floor, his lovely young companion and my bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich. The elevator was malfunctioning and stopping on every floor, which gave the architect nine opportunities to make insipid observations about each of the lobbies in the building (the foyer on 6 was judged "shabby, but stylish"). Every floor, another comment. And each time, his girlfriend giggled, threw back her head and whipped me on the side of the face with her hair. By the time I reached the Adweek offices, I was homicidal. But I didn't blame the Smarm Prince or the Girl with the Killer Curls. I blamed the lift's lousy electronics. It was the fourth time in four days that technology had pissed me off. There was my lunch date with a source who kept talking to his Blackberry instead of me. There was my son insisting on using the speaker function on his cell phone for every call, filling my flat with tinny teen voices screaming "Tight!" at each other. Finally, there was the story in the Times (the L.A. version, not the real one) about tribesmen in the Amazon who carry cell phones along with their blowguns into the jungle. (Who are they talking to, their brokers?) The net of all this is, I'm beginning to hate tech. And that's an opportunity for advertisers. Stop wasting obscene amounts of time and lucre trying to figure out how to exploit technology to reach consumers. You'll just tick them off. Instead, do the opposite: Give them a tech break. Stop with the text-messaging contests and the sweepstakes. Run one 60-second spot, roadblocked on every broadcast and cable network, offering cash back on good old paper stationary emblazoned with your current tagline. Enough with the multimillion-dollar sports sponsorships. Give away free transistor radios with your logo on them. (OK, technically it's tech, but it's low-enough tech to be an exception.) Fund summer camps for kids and adults where the only forms of communication are sticks and hollow logs. Forget ads in elevators, definitely. Instead, hook up with the U.S. Olympic Committee and sponsor stairs. The industry's obsession with technology isn't persuasive, it's pathetic. Look at the new Sirius satellite radio spot, which stars an irritating spokesdog who declares that advertising "is why we stick our heads out the window." A commercial to get people not to listen to commercials. Advertising eats its young. And speaking of technology exhaustion, have you seen the panel you need to use when you buy satellite radio? The cockpit in the space shuttle is easier to figure out. And don't even get me started on the potential for highway bloodshed because some bozo had his head buried in the console trying to shift to channel 5,565 instead of noticing that the rear end of the 18-wheeler ahead of him was fast approaching. Cause-related marketing was a hot topic for a while, but it's cooled off now that other trends are sizzling (like advertising's staggering new discovery that non-white people buy things). Which is a shame, because helping people recover from tech-kill is a cause well worth hitching one's commercial fortunes on. So forget about DVR-busting promotions, wireless ad campaigns, computer-generated stadium signs and all the rest. If advertisers really want to cut through the clutter, give us weary 21st-century dwellers a respite from blinking, winking, scrolling technological monsters. And for the love of God, stay out of the elevator.

Brand Marketing

Advertising Unplugged

Jack Feuer

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Jack Feuer