What were they thinking? Advertisers Gone Wild

Advertisers will tell you the point of advertising is to generate awareness, support a brand image, and motivate a target audience to take some action ( often to spend money on the product or service being advertised)

Over at WonderBranding, Michele Miller is wondering about Tampax's latest spot, dubbed the" Tampax Dance".It's an ad to get "pad" users to convert to the joys of tampons.

Click here to view

Since I'm not in the 'target market' I sought the advice of someone who is: my 17- year old daughter. As I showed her the spot, I watched her facial expression--it's best described as her WTF or  Elvis look...you know where you do the one-sided nostril scrunch.

Here are my research findings based on a sample size of one.  "I get it. If you wear  Tampax  you can be do whatever you want and you won't have leaks. Notice," said Berit, "That when she did the cartwheel they focused on  her butt."

"Would the ad make you want to use Tampax?" I asked.

"No," she said."I don't like them."

For me the problem with the spot is not the creative -- it's the entire message that if you wear a "pad' your period is not private and if you wear a tampon it is. Having worn both over a very long period of my life, let me say that ifyou want your period to be private ( no leaks) unless you are on the pill and enjoy mercifully light periods,  there are many a day when you will want to double dip-- pad plus tampon.

No mention of advertising today could go without mention of the very serious and troubling lawsuit that the

good folks at  WarrenKremer Paino Advertising have filed   against blogger Lance Dutson for copyright infringement, defamation, and trade libel/injurious falsehood.

Dutson is a Maine resident and blogger who was less than impressed with the work and dollars that Maine's Office of Tourism was spending with the New York ad agency. He found an embarrassing, and depending on your perspective, amusing "mistake" . It seems that on their 'rough drafts' of an ad for the state they used a dummy phone number . And, of course, the number they used  was for a sex phone service. Now, these dummy ads were on the state's web site for anyone to see.

For his part, Dutson is getting a lot of support from folks who see this as a First Amendment Issue.  While this case is fascinating, it also has long -term ramifications for business and bloggers. As they advised  at PR Speak,

Whatever side of the coin you're on when it comes to the effect blogs have on business, this much is true: they're a force and they're not going away.  If you don't believe me, just do a Google search on Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC. What pops up in the first result set?  Something positive?  Nope.  A couple more days of this and blog posts will be the only Google results for the firm. 

This is a tired theme in PR blogs, but..."note to business": you have to start working with blogs and bloggers (or at least paying attention to them), even if you don't "get" the technology or don't subscribe to the notion that blogs represent a tectonic shift in mass communications.  Spend the time to learn about blogging, or run the risk of suffering the kind of negative attention this particular advertising agency is working through today.        

Publicity specialists will tell you there is no such thing as bad publicity. The Chinese would say: Be careful for what you want...you may just get it.

Tags: blogs, advertising, tampax, branding, law, first amendment

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