Cool Marketing Thoughts

If there is one time and place where you can catch a man’s attention, it’s when he goes for a pee in a public place. Especially when there’s other men standing around him, he’ll only do two things (unless he’s gay): look straight forward or look down. Both places are ideal spots to display a message or call for action. Here are two campaigns that do this exactly, and they do it very well.

ESPN – Soccer Urinal (via AdsOfTheWorld) :

Agency: Duda Propaganda, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Miniature soccer goals were placed on green urinal deodorizer blocks in several pubs. Moth balls were placed in front of the miniature soccer goals. The sign above the urinal says: “Soccer is good everywhere, but it is much better on ESPN channels.”

Oliver Fire Department: Be a Fireman (via ihaveanidea) :

Agency: Rethink
Creative Directors: Ian Grais / Chris Staples
Art Directors: Hylton Mann
Copywriter: Heather Vincent
Photographer: Dave Robertson

Both ads justify what I’ve been doing all my life… First of all: starting imaginary fires to put them out with my ‘fireman tools’, because the day starts great if you’ve just saved a life… (ever since I was a kid I’ve been making siren noises when I went to the bathroom, … only when I grew older I stopped making the noise) and secondly: aiming for something when I’m in a public restroom (either ‘the notorious fly’ that’s been placed in the bowl, or in this case a mini soccer ball). Going for a wizz is a fun and private moment. I’ll even throw in a secret: if it’s winter and there’s snow, I try to write my name in it when I’m forced to go outdoors, and if you sponsor me next winter, I’ll write the name of your brand and make it viral.

A few weeks ago I posted about the Chevy Tahoe Campaign, where Chevy had teamed with ‘The Apprentice’ and launched a consumer-generated advertising contest about that SUV. Well, this weekend the story began to spread that the campaign is backfiring a little. This is something that could have been expected, no doubt. Some anti-SUV people and some ‘Save the Earth’ people started to ‘abuse’ the channel Chevy openend up for the creative fans and produced messages that were directly aimed against Chevy and SUV users.

Here’s what some blogs in my feed say about this:

AdRants: “Negative things will always be said about a brand. Understanding and accepting opposing views does far more for a brand’s mojo than killing off divergent opinion. Let’s hope this is what’s happening at Chevy and not that the ads are still up because it’s the weekend and big companies don’t work weekends.”

Seth’s Blog: “Chevy is learning this the hard way with their Tahoe campaign… in which the best commercials are the ones that say, ‘Don’t buy me!’”

TechDirt: “It seems like perhaps GM understood what would happen a lot more than the so-called ‘experts’ give them credit for. In this day, anyone opening up such a contest has to know that it’ll be used for ‘anti’ ads. It’s happened so often that they must have expected it. In fact, by then being open about it, GM is getting even more mileage from this campaign, and making it appear that they are more open to listening to those who disagree with them…So, it’s questionable as to whether or not GM was ’slow to react’ or if they are simply doing everything according to plan.”

To be honest, this anti-reaction isn’t surprizing at all. Most of the people who actually take the time to do this are either ignorant, jealous or don’t have enough money to buy an SUV of their own. I for one love the design of a Cherokee Jeep. I’m saving up for it and I’ll enjoy the day I go out to buy this brand new superswell car. Those leftist-nature-savers are very often driving second hand cars that produce a lot more exhaust fumes than any new car does. They recycle vehicles that should’ve been terminated years ago, but instead they drive them around and yell to SUV owners, calling them planet polluters. I’ll tell you this. 5 people I know own an SUV, 4 of them have a gas tank installed. They don’t pollute as much as (left) people say they do. They all pay taxes, it was their choice to buy a car like this. In any democratic country that should be enough to be left alone.

I think GM is setting a great example by letting these green fascists tree-huggers use their tools to express their thoughts. It gives those anti SUV people the democratic freedom they actually take away from GM and any SUV driver/producer. As for the anti-commercials… ah well, most of the content is so lame it’s not even worth linking to.