George Parker: Managing Expectations!

By the time you read this it will be a week since the Apple iPad was launched. There will also be just over a week to go before we have to endure the Super Bowl, or as the hoi polloi of the ad biz love to call it, “The Super Bowl of Advertising,” not accepting that it hasn’t been that for years. So, what do these two rather different events have to do with each other? I will explain.

Perhaps the single most famous and talked about television commercial of all time was the Ridley Scott directed Apple 1984 spot which launched the Mac during the 1984 game. Apart from the fact that in comparison to all the shitty IT advertising that preceded it, it was revolutionary; it was also unique in that it only ran once, yet had massive exposure and free air time on various news programs for weeks afterwards. (It actually ran one other time, in December, 1983, late at night in Twin Falls, Idaho. This was in order for it to qualify for all of next years advertising award shows, which it duly cleaned up at.) At the time, it was the most expensive commercial ever produced, costing $600, 000… Peanuts by today’s blow out prices. But can you imagine a client these days paying for the world’s most expensive spot, and agreeing to run it just once? No fucking way!

But, moving on, what has this to do with the iPad? Because it’s a perfect example of how GodJobs and Apple maintain a vice like grip on all their marketing activities. Anyone at Apple, who leaks the slightest information to the media about products and launches, is immediately toast. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. Steve fires your arse and you’re on the street in minutes. Everyone else, through the miracles of “social media,” leaks shit all over the place. Remember a couple of years ago there was a Super Bowl spot for some un-memorable company that featured K-Fed (Mr. Spears at the time) being a big pop star, then waking up from the dream and realizing he still worked for minimum wage in a fast food joint. The whole point of the spot was the reveal at the end to show it was a dream. Unfortunately, the client had run the shit out of it for weeks on YouTube and MySpace, so there was no surprise or impact on the day. OK, we know that today, agencies will sell their clients on the effect of seeding the blog/social/wank scene with viral stuff to build awareness and all those other synergistic, paradigm shifting, best-of-breed goodies, agencies love to throw at their dip-shit clients. But what about the value of surprising your audience on game day? If this really is the Super Bowl of Advertising, why not make the ads super in impact?

Anyway, what with Go-Daddy’s Tits & Ass annual embarrassment, the religious freaks anti-abortion ad featuring the weird quarterback with Bible verses on his face, and the refusal of CBS to run the gay dating spot, the whole thing is turning into a farce. Not to mention that for a game that actually consists of sixty minutes playing time, the whole thing goes on way too long.

George Parker is a guest columnist for psfk.com. He is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com, which is without doubt, one of the most foul and annoying, piss & vinegar ad blogs on the planet. He is the author of MadScam and his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, which is currently setting the ether ablaze (and which you can order now on Amazon). He will continue to relentlessly promote the crap out of it until you are forced to stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles.