Remember those Life Call / Life Alert commercials, with the old lady saying: "I’ve fallen and I can’t get up?"
These commercials are probably very effective for older audiences and recently my family made sure my grandmother, who lives alone and is in her late eighties, has this service. It seems like a great service.
However, I question the placements of their ads. I’ve seen the same Life Alert ad 3 nights in a row during Family Guy on TBS. Each time it was sandwiched by commercials geared towards younger audiences. (I think the Mummy movie trailer and a beer commercial). Do you think this is the target audience for Life Alert? Family Guy viewers? I doubt it. But even if they’re going for the influencers (kids of people who would buy), they’re missing the mark. Maybe their grandparents, but I doubt their parents would need it yet. Who’s handling these ad buys?
Bad Advertiser – Target Better So hey, guess what, in case you haven’t heard – analog TV is coming to an end in February 2009. So if you are using a television antenna, you’ll need a special converter box.
Why do I bring this up? Well, I have satellite, and I keep seeing commercials for this end coming. On cable channels. Or basically the type of channels you can’t see if you were using an analog TV with an antenna. Do you see the problem here? Seems to me like they are wasting money advertising to people who don’t have the problem to begin with. I hope that isn’t taxpayer money. Cool Random Thing As I sit here typing this post, my son Gabe who is four months old just rolled over for the first time – 6 times in a row. I got two of them on our handy camcorder.
To keep up with my posting here I’ve decided to do occasional musings posts that will cover a coupon topics at a time, this is the first, enjoy!
Local News Sweeps Scare Tactics
In case you were unaware, we are in the May sweeps time that help determine local TV ad rates. If you hadn’t noticed, you may have noticed the scare tactics that some news stations have been pulling. For example, tonight on KMOV-TV St. Louis (local CBS Affiliate – Channel 4), they are running an investigation on how dangerous the ice is at local restaurants. They had hidden footage of the fast food joints and lab reports and everything. Mind you I haven’t seen this report, but I’ve seen a thousand commercials for it and heard ads on the radio. So, this is apparently big news which will likely kill me. Funny how I haven’t heard anything about it before now.
The other one that was teased was how someone can hack my cell phone and track every text message, email and conversation I have on my cell. Nice.
Thanks local TV for trying to scare me into watching your news program. I’ll pass.
SNL + NBC Character Involvement = Boring Skits
Here’s the other trend I’ve noticed lately. My wife and I DVR Saturday Night Live. I usually skip through most of it on Sunday after church, but I’ve noticed that every episode has a skit or two featuring a personality from one of their other stations (CNBC, Bravo, etc.). Most of them are people I know nothing about:
Suze Orman
Jim The Shouting Stock Guy
Some dude from Top Model
Brian Williams and MSNBC
As a result of knowing nothing about them the skit is pointless to me. Why does this matter? Because it seems like this is trend is being forced upon SNL writers from the higher ups. I doubt that they would just always choose NBC property cast members over other funny trends (like American Idol or any other reality show nightmare). Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like cross-promotion is winning out over entertainment that may be funnier.
I admit it. I watch American Idol. I haven’t really gotten into it in years past, but this year I’ve been watching it every week. It’s interesting, sometimes in a train wreck kind of way, but interesting nonetheless.
One thing I consistently comment on to my wife as we watch is how in almost every show it gets closer and closer to one big infomercial for apple, coca cola and at&t or the artist who helps that week (who usually conveniently has an album coming out around their appearance, surprising, no. not really).
So I’ve read and heard reports (AdAge maybe?) about how networks love reality shows because they are more likely to be watched in real time, as opposed to being DVR’d and watched while skipping commercials. We still skip at home, but sometimes we catch the commercials, and I’ve now seen the WORST COMMERCIAL EVER (let’s just call it meatloafed for short) several times, most notably on American Idol. If you aren’t familiar with this monstrosity, it is a commercial for AT&T go phone with Meatloaf, his son (?) and Tiffany singing a new version of Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
Two things about being meatloafed that drive me bonkers.
One – Why does Meatloaf’s son shake his head like he is all excited about this phone while they are singing? It really creeps me out.
Two – What does Tiffany have to do with Meatloaf and his son? Why is she carrying meat? Is this a subtle joke about Meatloaf? Is this what meatloaf looks like before its cooked? I thought it was ground beef?
In closing, American Idol is good, even as it drifts closer and closer to being one big infomercial, however Meatloafed is the WORST COMMERCIAL EVER.
Hello. As I type this I’m watching the end of the final round of this year’s Masters (somewhat anti-climatic this year, but I digress), and I keep seeing ads for IBM where instead of giving us a microsite to go to or a URL, they provide us with search terms. The ad that I just saw said "search: IBM go green".
I have no reason to follow this call-to-action, as I have no need to use IBM’s server products, but it stood out to me. Why use search engine results in TV advertising when they are so subject to change or competitor influence?
Last year some time, Pontiac was running TV advertisements with donuts for local markets, where the call to action for St. Louis, MO was "google pontiac st. louis". Chris Hammond, a former co-worker of mine, thought it would be funny to try to take over the top spot for this term. He did for a short time (I think, Chris if you read this jump in with what position you got up to).
Regardless of who it is: WHY DO THIS???
Why not a microsite, (go to pontiacstlouis.com, go to ibmgogreen.com, etc.) where you can control the results? Any SEO guru, competitor with an agenda or disgruntled former employee could throw up a site or blog post, an expensive PPC ad or something similar to get on the top page of google that could disrupt your best efforts for this TV ad.
Also, why make a consumer choose between 10 results (example: Pontiac St. Louis) when you can control the message with one?
Microsite’s are great for reaching specific audiences with specific messaging, but search engine algorithms are subject to change.
If someone has a reason I’m missing, please let me know. Until then, I’m rejecting this method in favor of microsites for my clients.
On the way to the office at 5:00 AM this morning I heard a report that said over 100 college presidents signed a complaint expressing outrage at all the beer advertising during the NCAA tournament. In theory, their complaints are valid, they don’t want all those innocent impressional students being influenced by the power of advertising. All kidding aside, they are missing a large point. Who is viewing the tournament? Is it only students? No. Without actually doing the research, I’m sure It’s a lot of males in the ages 21 – 49 age ranges. Prime audience for beer commercials.
So to the college presidents who are upset about this I say: "You worry about beer on your campus and let the advertisers worry about whats on TV".
