Dipshits in Ads...
Jul. 15th, 2005 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinIn 1957, Stan Freberg essentially invented soft-sell humor advertising.
Although humor is now used frequently in ads, very few advertisers really understand the proper use of humor as a tool.
Guys, here's a hint. The following is not an effective base for an advertising strategy:
"Mental and social incompetents love our product- and so will you!"
It's OK to make your competition look like dopes. It's even OK to make the people who buy from your competition look like dopes. But when you show people using YOUR product who need to be skimmed off the gene pool, you're making -everyone- who uses your product look like that guy.
It's not funny. It's annoying. And it makes people like me want to chuck a brick through the TV screen. And if said brick would hit the guy who came up with the ad in question, I'd -do- it.
(This post inspired, most recently, by the Burger King Fantastic Four tie-in where the office geek talks up a standee of the Invisible Woman and tries to feed it a french fry. CHRIST.)
Although humor is now used frequently in ads, very few advertisers really understand the proper use of humor as a tool.
Guys, here's a hint. The following is not an effective base for an advertising strategy:
"Mental and social incompetents love our product- and so will you!"
It's OK to make your competition look like dopes. It's even OK to make the people who buy from your competition look like dopes. But when you show people using YOUR product who need to be skimmed off the gene pool, you're making -everyone- who uses your product look like that guy.
It's not funny. It's annoying. And it makes people like me want to chuck a brick through the TV screen. And if said brick would hit the guy who came up with the ad in question, I'd -do- it.
(This post inspired, most recently, by the Burger King Fantastic Four tie-in where the office geek talks up a standee of the Invisible Woman and tries to feed it a french fry. CHRIST.)
