IN A SINGLE section of a single issue of The Wall Street Journal were a gaggle of ads that were both naive and assumptive. What a dangerous combination!
In the Marketplace section were ads typifying the contagion that has infected e-com advertising: “Golly gee, we’re here and we’re bright and we want your business.” What’s missing? The simple statement, “This is what we can do for you.”
Oh, we’ve seen these ads wandering over the television screen. A batch flashed past at $2-million-per during the Super Bowl. And print media are loaded with them, to the delight of advertising agencies that share their clients’ disdain for straightforward communication.
Media placement doesn’t seem to mean much to companies whose on-paper worth is in the billions while their annual losses are in puny millions. So we aren’t surprised by space ads whose entire text, except for a 7-point line across the bottom, is reversed on a grayed photograph of a desert island, another indicator, and is set just this way:
E-COMMERCE GETS YOUR BUSINESS EVERYWHERE. WE GET IT THERE WITH THE TECHNOLOGY YOU ALREADY HAVE.
The line in 7-point across the bottom says, “For information on how our people and software tools can make e-commerce work for you, visit www.compuware.com/ecommerce.”
See the aberration?
What, after all, is the purpose of any ad? To transmit information. This one, in sync with the attitude of the latter-day pseudosaints who have invaded our turf, is an ad whose purpose is to get us to ask for information the ad itself should have transmitted.
And for those of us who venerate our craft as a mighty force: How the mighty have fallen!
That ad wasn’t an anomaly. In the same section of the same issue was an ad whose illustration was an “Important Memo” slip – a message from “Your mother” asking why it was so easy for her to hack into the company’s intranet. OK, this company has hack-proofing software, right?
Uh, well…maybe – and maybe not. The text of the ad is black-hole-murky, beginning, “The concept of `e’ has changed business virtually overnight.”
Wow, what a revelation! It goes on to say, “You know what your company needs to thrive.”
Another revelation. And the call to action, ending the copy block, is: “To find out more about our company and what we do, call 800-566-9337 or check our Web site.”
Do you grasp this strange conclusion – “To find out more about our company and what we do, call…”? It’s an admission that the ad, whose purpose should have been to at least tell the reader what the company does, is simply a “We’re here” announcement.
Now look, kids: I know some heads will shake in disgust, the brain inside reacting, “What is he talking about? I know these companies and know what they do.”
Oh? Then what’s the point of this approach? Why run the ad in a general circulation newspaper? Running an ad for Viagra in Marvel Comics makes more sense. (Come to think of it, it might.)
And I’m not totally without knowledge of e-business. After all, I’ve written two of those instantly obsolete books on the Web…not that this makes me, or anyone, a genuine expert.
My point is: Assuming some of your readers know your field of business and some don’t, so what? Obfuscation and writing around the point are never a proper use of advertising money.
Here’s another ad, same issue, same section. The heading:
An e-business strategy that drives you to the bank, instead of into a wall.
OK, what does this company do?
Want to keep guessing? This is the first sentence of a two-sentence copy block: “FirePond’s software products weave e-business into the rest of your organization.”
Thanks, FirePond, for explaining that.
A full-page ad, same day, same section, is by a company I actually do know.
Until I saw the ad, I thought I knew what the company does. The heading uses 9/10 of the page:
HIGHLY AVAILABLE. ALWAYS RESPONSIVE. HIGHLY SECURE. ALWAYS PROACTIVE. THAT’S WHY One company. 38% OF THE TOP INTERNET SITES HAVE CHOSEN TO WORK WITH US.
Don’t you get the feeling some of the copy was accidentally deleted?
The body copy isn’t much help. It’s one sentence: “We’re the outsourcing solution for securing, maintaining and maximizing your company’s mission-critical Internet operations.”
Look, guys: Every one of you show-off advertisers could benefit from the rule every direct marketer has – or certainly should have – pasted onto the keyboard:
The purpose of a direct response message is to cause the reader, viewer or listener to perform a positive act as the direct result of exposure to that message.
Direct has claimed the Web, seized it to our bosom. Who are these parvenus, dilettantes, amateurs and ad agencies invading our turf?
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