Mixed Messages
Everyday we see or hear ads that hit us in a positive light or negative. In the spirit of the Olympics, let’s go for the GOLD!
So a wonderfuly old company, General Electric, has put out a few humorous ads. Instead of looking at how long they have survived and what a great strong company they are, the ads focused on the future. How novel. Joking aside, this is very smart for an aging company. As crazy as it sounds, this is brand awareness for GE. Yes, you heard that right, a company almost 125 years old needs awareness ads to the public.
They are using a character named Sarah to explain what GE does, some times specifically but most of the time broadly.
Based on the replay of these commercials, Sarah talking to the younger boy is hitting well with audiences. GE and their ad agency BBDO have put together some good ads here. The only complaint I have with these last few that are playing well is they failed to point out that this is Sarah’s family and that her and her brother (the younger boy) probably have this humor dynamic. Instead it just looks like he is dim witted. I get they only have 30–60 seconds to set the stage, but a quick mention of “mom” or “dad” would have been easy. Why is that important? Because a lot of negative comments coming out on these ads point out that it seems like GE is poking fun at someone with a learning disability or mild autism. By establishing a family dynamic and it being more of teasing between siblings would have eased any of those concerns instead of an uncomfortable PR issue.
On the whole, BBDO has a good set of ads and need to keep using Sarah to explain GE’s product line and company strategies.
Ok sometimes you make a choice as a marketer that you regret the minute it goes out there or after market response. Duracell, responding to the floods in Louisiana, decided to post that they were heading down with their power trucks to provide temporary power. Great idea and public relations move. Here is the tweet:
Fine tweet right? However, this was promoted (aka media buy)…nationwide. So what Duracell’s ad agency or internal marketing team should have done was promote this locally in Louisiana, to the people who need the information. However, now it looks like you are advertising with the backdrop of a natural disaster. They could have also released the details in a PR release so that news sources could push it out to their social channels, effectively promoting a PR action nationwide. This move by them was essentially buying a bunch of billboards proclaiming they did this. Comes off looking pretty bad huh? Well it is a learning opportunity for their internal team or a hard look at their ad agency.
