Thanks to Brent Green for nominating this one.Actually, it was cloned.
Too bad, too. Because this is a hot topic. With proper positioning and a campaign not so lame, so demeaning ...
The product will sell (it's in the right place at the right time), but imbued with an honest generational aesthetic instead of insulting, smarmy clichés, sales might have been phenomenal.
Let the cringing begin.
And I bet it'll also make a lot of people from other generations cringe. (Or thrilled that we're being portrayed as such nincompoops.)
____
Update May 26, 2008: As usual, NostraChuckus predicts the future.
OK .. so it was posted two days before mine. I didn't see it until today. Cut this ol' Soothsayer some slack.
Make sure you read the first dozen or so comments attached to the post.
And as you read, keep this quote in the back of your mind:
Recently I have been embarrassed to be part of this generation. The reason? Madison Avenue. Madison Avenue is never wrong. They’re the neighbor across the street that sees you in the way you don’t see yourself. They’re young, they’re cocky, and what they say about the older generation becomes the truth. People still think there was a real Mr.Whipple, so I know whatever Madison Avenue says about us is what everyone’s going to believe anyway. —Albert Brooks
One of the important points I didn't mention in my review -- and you cover in your book and speeches -- is your insightful speculation about why Boomer decision makers would/could approve such an immature creative concept. It's reasonable for us to conclude that somewhere in this marketer's food chain sits a graying, command & control-level Boomer who approved this pandering creative execution. You have observed that some of these decision makers are victims of self-imposed ageism -- in the form of their own age denial or fear of not appearing "hip" among the young minions crowding today’s creative departments. As a major agency president once said to me, "Brent, advertising is a young person's business." I recall vividly Chuck's immortal words that fight this forlorn assessment of the industry: "The best advertising is created by people who advertise to themselves." With a few groan-worthy exceptions...
ReplyDeleteAs always your humor and wit shows. I enjoy reading your blog. I do wish that advertisers would think of older people as vibrant consumers. I'm sure it would be a better world to get older in.
ReplyDeleteOld friend,
RD Larson