ads are ads

the current vw tv campaign may be the most effective series of commercials i've seen. they scare the bejesus out of me. some would argue that i’m kind of a weenie about driving, and that’s fair, but i’m sure the auto accident scenario resonates with everyone.

there’s much ado about the quality of their product (on which i am ill-prepared to voice an opinion either way) but the volkswagen marketing team has the right idea; the accident scenario is 100% believable because it's universally applicable, and so the public retains it.

not to mention that it's well directed. they make great use of the shock factor without being gratuitous, the pace is good and quick, the formula is consistent so it's familiar but they change up the content enough in each installment that the ads aren't monotonous. and it's a narrative. the series of events and the outcome are always the same, which could be construed as a criticism, but i think in this case it's executed perfectly through the first person perspective. it takes a fair amount of skill to get your audience to suspend disbelief, especially in a fleeting thirty seconds, but those commercials work on me every time. (bravo, volkswagen.)

it's the exact opposite approach of the usual car commercial; the montage comprised of action shots, extreme angles of the same car looking "wicked awesome," and some guy extolling said vehicle's awesomeness in his outside voice (there’s a good reason this is still funny regardless of the F bombs). the kicker of it is that i can only guess at which brands have employed this strategy because all that remains is my lingering distaste for car commericals. let's be honest, they really did themselves a disservice (whoever they are).

the same is true for which ever credit card company used the slogan "because some places don't take american express." it's a true assessment and a good stab at truth in marketing, but it lacked staying power for me. perhaps the difference is in the timing. it's true that i had neither want nor need for a credit card when that ad campaign was current, whereas i've been driving for the past five years and i am dutifully employed by an internet marketing company which caters to the automotive industry, but that's not really my point.

i recently went so far as to conduct a search for "because some places don't take american express" because i'm kind of nerdy that way, and all i came up with was stuff by or about american express. its competitor only succeeded in planting the seeds, or in this case, the keyword phrase of the competitor it intended to one-up. this is a perfect example of traditional marketing failing to translate successfully to the web.

conversely, during the same episode of the x-files i caught a great commercial for auto insurance provided by http://www.esurance.com. this ad differed very much from the former examples in that it clearly catered to my generation of shoppers. it's sort of a cross between an ipod commerical and an episode of the powerpuff girls in appearance, but what really struck me was the constant plug for the website at the bottom of the screen. it reminded me of the scrolling headline bars on news channels, only better because it's static and therefore easily read, written down... or quickly typed down in a notepad document for later use as a supporting paragraph in a blog.

in addition to the constant url the commercial must have said the company name four times. while the sleek, colorful look certainly helps with initial attraction, the fact that it is a keyword heavy advertisement officially makes it smart. the brand was reinforced through both visual and aural repetition in a way that almost guarantees that people will be able to type it into the address bar with little thought. in fact, 30 seconds is plenty of time to get off your ass and get online if you're motivated to do so.

esurance.com successfully paired what works in the volkswagen commercials with what worked against the credit card commercials; impact and branding, respectively. but they took it a step further by making double and triple sure that you visit their website, too. and this, my friends, is my point. traditional media and internet marketing are complementary forces, but we are only just beginning to treat them as such.

successful marketing of anything requires effective and consistent campaigning as well as branding. tv and radio spots must ensure that a company's web presence is known, or at least easily found through a search engine, and that takes more than a quick url blurb at the end of a short film. likewise, a website needs to reflect and reinforce the messages put forth through traditional media outlets. check out esurance.com's ErinCam (as seen on tv) http://www.esurance.com/home/tv.asp. it's pretty cheesey, but it underscores my point.

television isn't going anywhere for a while and the internet has only just begun, so it is up to all of us in the marketing game to cooperate, because right now you just don’t know from where you're next lead will generate. sure, you can geo-target and use call tracking technology or do the “SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY” approach. but then there are people like me who blog about tv, take pictures of moving vans to catch a phone number or url, and still listen to talk radio at least three times a week because that is somehow easier than keeping up on my RSS feeds.

so where should you advertise to get my business? everywhere. but make sure to include a url and a phone number because there are days when I only have one or the other.