I had lunch with my friend Chuck Griffith today. He is one of the wonderful writers who helped make our agency's reputation. He still writes, dreams up software, and builds museum quality Shaker objects – I hesitate to say furniture because the things he builds are works of art.
After chatting about wives, kids, grand-kids, this and that, we ended up, as usual, talking about advertising.
Chuck is a devout Windows user and offended by the PC vs. Mac spots Apple has been running. I find them witty, well cast, and persuasive. He likes the Geico spots with the talking gecko. Whenever one comes on the air I rush for the remote and change channels. We both have enough experience to know that each of these campaigns are doing the job for the advertiser. And yet each of us detests one of them.
“I can do any of that stuff on my computer”, says Chuck. “Music on my PC? – Puhleeze. I suppose those spots work but what they imply just is not true”
I have a bigger problem with the Geico gecko. In spite of the fact that I've never been turned on by talking animals in advertising, these commercials got my attention and made their point. So I decided to find out just how much I could save on my motorcycle insurance. I went to Geico's website as instructed and invested a lot of frustrating time, at least 20 minutes, filling out forms. I then clicked the button and sent my info off to Geico central. Nothing! I Never heard from them again. Not after I followed up by email. Not after I emailed their main site with a cc: to Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet) who owns the company.
Good advertising can have a fatal flaw. Chuck won't go near an Apple because he believes the Apple ads dissemble. I hate Geico because their advertising worked. It persuaded me to try them out. And when I acted, I was stiffed by the advertiser. It made me angry. And I tell my friends.
Moral of this story: Good advertising can hurt your brand. It can be persuasive, friendly, and amusing but it damned well better be truthful and meet (or exceed) the expectations it creates. Most important, once you've intrigued a prospect, you’d better be able to do the dumb things right ( like respond to email immediately, answer the phone, staff the support line, etc). This isn't rocket science friends.
