Anything You Can Do, I Can Do The Exact Same Way

A friend of mine on Facebook, okay fine, an acquaintance on Facebook recently posted a status update asking "Why are all the men in erectile dysfunction commercials so sexy?" which got me thinking about commercials for prescription medications because the first thing that came to mind was Dr. Kelso's monologue about his experience with the Blue Bombers which was funny but disturbing, and I had to think about something else. Quickly.


Marketing prescription medications has to be extremely difficult.  With names like Cymbalta, Pristiq, Zyrtec, and Claritin it's difficult to ascertain which medication is meant for which medical condition.  What makes it worse is that the commercials for all of these medications are identical.  The person in question has an STD/blood clot/depression/arthritis/flatulence which makes him or her completely unable to perform that day's simple tasks.  As soon as the sufferer takes the recommended dosage the clouds clear, symptoms subside, and the entire family is all smiles as they play on the beach/front yard/in the living room for family night.  This begs one question.


How do any of these products differentiate themselves?


What I've done here is compiled a list of medications that are all meant to treat different medical conditions.  None of these products are competitors of each other.  Or maybe they do.  I don't know what any of these medications do except for Claritin and that's only because of the product name.  It makes sense.  Breathe with clarity: Claritin.  It's an allergy medication!  Or does it break down mucus?  It doesn't matter.  Because all of the commercials for these products, despite being for different medical conditions, all follow the same basic template.  The user has a treatable condition that is preventing him from doing the day's task until he takes the medication and then is able to go on with his day.


Viagra and Cialis, ironically the ones that are for ED where this blog post starts, are the ones that differentiate themselves from one another.  I have to believe that this came from proper market research and extensive focus group sessions.  First, the Viagra commercials show a middle-aged man presented with a problem, and because the middle-aged man is "experienced" he "knows how to get things done."  He easily solves the problem and is on his way but not without sexual innuendo from the narrator.


Pfizer knows their market well.  Erectile dysfunction isn't a problem for young adult males, and middle-aged men hate being reminded that they're getting older.  Cialis takes a different approach in its advertisements.  They show middle-aged couples enjoying a romantic getaway.  Cialis is saying in its commercials that the effects of the medication lasts longer than Viagra so couples can wait "until the moment is right."  This suggests that users of Viagra were unsatisfied with the duration of Viagra's effects and opted to do the deed when one of the two wasn't in the mood, or not at all.


Viagra uses brand position to sell its medication to men who are experienced and know what to do.  Cialis found a shortcoming in how long the effectiveness of Viagra lasts and positioned itself to exploit that shortcoming.  I think the reason why nobody looks depressed or upset in those commercials is because they know they will be having sex within the next 30 minutes to 36 hours.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

I've talked to a couple of creative directors over the past month.  Both of them enjoy the work I've done with the storyboards and short print spec ads.  One of them suggested I do something longer.


Gamers, people who play video games, have a perception of being lazy and childish.  Most people think that all gamers do is sit around in their parents' dark basement and snack on Doritos and Mountain Dew.  That's not true.  My mom doesn't have a basement.  When I'm playing video games, I like to have the lights on.  I don't even like Mountain Dew.  I prefer Pepsi.


A lot of video games can be very challenging.  The most important part of a challenge is completing it and pushing yourself as far as you can go to finishing your objective. It's what gamers do while playing video games and it's what people do in life.  The idea behind the ad is to use video games as a template to how to evaluate problems and difficulties and to critically think about how to overcome them.  


I took the image from a Google image search.  I got the idea for the copy from Nike's "My Butt Is Big" ad from last year.  Happy Birthday XBox!

All I Care About Is Dark And Brutal

In the movie Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Jack Black and Kyle Gass hear of a myth.  There exists a guitar pick made from the tooth of Satan.  Whoever is in possession of that pick becomes the greatest guitar player in the world.  Guitar legends Eddie Van Halen and Angus Young at one point have owned this pick, and it made them the guitarists they are today.  

Some people say metal was started by Satan himself in the depths of hell.  While musically it has derived from the blues, the heavily distorted sound many metal bands use and morbid lyrics have made many conservatives think that metal musicians, starting with KISS, worship Satan.  

I haven't seen a single print ad that references this myth.  Most of them show the guitar being held by Slash or Dave Grohl or some amazing guitar legend that most people haven't heard of like the guy from Shinedown.  No American guitar manufacturer does anything to really differentiate themselves in advertising.  I came up with a campaign for DBZ Guitars, founded by Dean B. Zelinsky who designs guitars meant for heavy metal, that embraces the "origin" of metal, from the depths of Hell.  If metal started in Hell, shouldn't the guitars be made there too?

I took the guitars straight from the DBZ Guitars website and the background is concept art from Mortal Kombat.  The first one is a nod to Wayne's World where Wayne starts to play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" until he is stopped by a store clerk who points to a sign proclaiming "No Stairway To Heaven".  The second one is my favorite, listing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and saying the fourth of the group (You) is Death.

And Today's Gatorade G-Series Performer Of the Game Is...

I can feel it.  The roar of the crowd is pulsing through my veins.  I can barely hear the clacking of my teammates Nike football cleats in the tunnel.  My center grabs and fistful of my Reebok jersey and yells through my face mask "ARE YOU READY?"  Before I can respond, he slams his Riddell helmet against mine giving it the first blemish of the season.  Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth are no doubt giving the viewers the Gatorade Prime starting line-up.  If this were last season, my Old Spice Swagger stat would undoubtedly be 45.  I'm only a rookie, but I lead my team out of the tunnel.  The barking of the crowd is deafening. I look at the scoreboard only to see myself on the Jumbotron.  My live image is surrounded by billboards for AirWest and StarkTec?  I've never heard of those companies.  That doesn't matter.  JasonAtTheDisco's trash talking in my ear piece snaps me out of my daze.  I have a head-to-head match in Madden 12 to win.


I grew up playing video games.  I love them.  It's an escape for me and a way to "hang out" with my friends that don't live nearby.  Here's a problem for marketers and advertisers: how do you reach someone who is saving the world from the evil clutches of EvilBadGuy?  How do you reach someone who isn't reading a magazine or newspaper but instead they're punting gnomes in Azeroth?  Well, you go to where they are.  And you punt some gnomes because it's fun.


Madden 12 lends itself to product placement and advertising very well.  The game emulates a television broadcast of the game while you play it.  Gatorade G2 Series sponsors the starting line-up (Prime), impact player (Perform), and Performer of the Game (Recover).  Reebok and Riddell provide the NFL with equipment so they also provide Electronic Arts with equipment, and in return, get product placement.  Every player in the game wears Nike shoes.  During breaks in the game, water boys go out on the field and re-hydrate the team with Gatorade squeeze bottles.  Gus and Chris even call for a commercial break after each quarter and during the 2 minute warnings.  The only thing missing are actual commercials and real companies on the billboards of the scoreboard.


The key to advertising in video games boils down to one key factor: is the game more realistic with your product in there without being overloaded?  With a game like Madden you expect to see the players drinking Gatorade and wearing Nike cleats.  In racing games like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo you expect to be driving Mitsubishi, Acura, and BMW cars.  In Rock Band you expect to see the band playing Gibson guitars. The product has to represent the lifestyle being portrayed in the game.  If Nvidia had an advertisement in Half-Life 2 for its GeForce series of graphics cards, it would make sense.  You would need a graphics card in your computer to play such a game.  However, it doesn't add to the realism of the game.  If anything it would take away from the experience because of the setting.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take Nathan Drake to Subway.

MAN UP!

Here's an example of Miller Lite's "Man Up" campaign which features men doing "unmanly" things such as wearing skinny jeans, whimpering at the airport because he's leaving his girlfriend for two days (the girlfriend is obviously completely fine with it), or lugging around a carry-all.

Completely ignoring the fact that this campaign is being called sexist and homophobic, Draft FCB's attempt to change the perception of Miller Lite's masculinity is a complete failure.  MillerCoors should have done more marketing research before writing up a creative brief for Draft FCB.  The vortex bottle neck is a gimmick much like Coors Light cold activated label (Bud Light jumped on the bandwagon with its customizable bottle labels).  The vortex bottle does not provide any "enhanced beveragification" but gives them a chance to make up a word that nobody ever uses.  Maybe if MillerCoors' marketing research had shown that Miller Lite doesn't taste great, resources would have been devoted to creating a new recipe.

However, I do not work for MillerCoors' marketing department.  I want to create ad campaigns, and ad campaigns I shall create.  Ad campaigns that are better than this.  If I were working for Draft FCB, here's what I would do:

I wanted to focus on simplicity.  Other beer commercials focus on the image one portrays while drinking said beverage.  Those commercials tell you how men should behave and give you unreasonable expectations.  The "Man of the Day" campaign relies on men doing something nice just for the sake of doing something nice and get a reward in the process showing positive reinforcement which is more effective in influencing one's behavior than negative reinforcement.  Instead of having poor Guy berated by his bros for drinking an inferior beer, we have lucky Sean sharing a cold one with a beautiful woman and her sweet grandmother.

When MOGs Attack!

Here is my second original ad concept.  We were charged with changing the perception of how easy it is to use Windows 7.  My group had difficulty coming up with a tagline. Normally the best work come after all the obvious brainstorming ideas have passed but for some reason we weren't functioning that day.


However, we settled on "So Easy" which gave us a lot to work with. Next, we had to choose our target market.  For this particular ad we decided on a middle-aged mom.  Her son had just gotten married, and she's not happy about who he married.


Similar to the New Era ad, this was non-commissioned.  It was submitted as a final project for a class at The University of Akron.  The photo is from a wedding I attended last summer and yes, the groom's mother absolutely loves the bride.

When Does An Ad Campaign Grow Stale?

Too much of a good thing can be bad.  It doesn't matter whether it's good for you or not.  Too much sun can lead to skin damage.  Too much water can wash nutrients through your body.  Once in a while, we just need something different to offset the monotony of the over-done.  People need a change of pace.  If we're presented with too much of the same, we get bored.

The case can be made for advertisements, particularly television commercials.  We can skip over print ads in magazines and newspapers.  We've learned to tune out ads on websites unless it gets splashed on our screens before we can reach the content we want.  But we generally have to sit through TV ads (unless we can fast forward on DVR).  We're force fed 30-60 seconds of filler so that the actors/news anchors/reality "stars" can get paid.  

Once in a while, a campaign will stick with the public.  Two campaigns that people are talking about are Dos Equis' "The Most Interesting Man In the World" by Euro RSCG and Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" by Wieden + Kennedy.  These two campaigns are focusing on one thing that makes a man: experience.  With experience comes the know-how when put into certain situations that men may not normally be comfortable in.  Before we go any further, let's look at what the point of advertising is.

Are companies trying to increase sales or increase brand awareness?  Just because a consumer is aware of your brand doesn't mean that consumer will purchase it.  I'm aware of Tampax Tampons but as a single male, I have no reason to purchase that product (until I get married).  The reason why I'm aware of Tampax Tampons is because of advertising.  My mom watched a lot of Oprah as I was growing up.  Anyway, since the campaign, Dos Equis has seen an increase in sales this year.  Old Spice has seen sales increase by 27% over 6 months.

So when does a campaign grow stale?  When copycats try to mimic the campaign? When consumers start dressing up as your spokesperson at Comic-Con?  When sales finally start to flatten out or (gasp!) DECREASE?  Wieden + Kennedy has done a great job by switching up the spokesperson for Old Spice over the years getting B-movie cult icon Bruce Campbell, Neil Patrick Harris fresh off of reprising his role as Neil Patrick Harris on Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, NFL linebacker Ray Lewis, former NFL player-turned-actor Terry Crews, and most recently, Fabio (?).  Dos Equis has been backed into a corner.  Where do you go from The Most Interesting Man in the World?  How can you effectively plan a campaign without knowing when consumers will grow tired of it and switch to competitors?

These are just two examples of campaigns that have increased sales for their products, yet are getting tiresome.  Old Spice was able to keep it fresh, but adding Fabio to the stable was confusing to me.  The man is 52 years old and was the cover boy to trashy romance novels read by bored housewives sitting in the stands of their 11 year old's baseball game.  Wieden + Kennedy has done an excellent job in re-positioning Old Spice so far to target not just men ages 18-25 (incredibly difficult to reach due to media usage habits), but also women.  That's not to say Euro RSCG hasn't been effective with Dos Equis.  I'm just ready to see if they can outdo themselves.  What's interesting to me right now is how Kenny Powers will fare as the MFCEO of K-Swiss, and how long it'll be before I get bored with that.