Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

Before you hire an ad agency - of any size, for anything - you should read:

1. Ad Age’s Snide Advertising is Bad for Business and Society. (Via Steve Yastrow’s post at Tom Peters re Fed Ex commercials, with some good comments.)

2. Michele Miller’s Up The Creek Without a Paddle…,er, Oar. (Us silly customers, it’s all our fault we misunderstood those P&G ads!)

Personally, I love good snark, in the right context, in limited amounts. I even enjoyed Hillary’s “celestial choirs” routine about Obama, but I don’t think it worked for her, outside of - ur - preaching to the choir for some applause.

We’re all getting very tired of snide and negative as the standard “go to” by pitch people - in business and political marketing.

We’re even sicker of being treated like we’ve got the IQ of a warm avocado.

Here’s what Hillary’s high-dollar consultants just cannot grasp when they push the message of “get real” - People aren’t blindly lining up and drinking Kool-Aid. Many of us are realists who - gasp - like the idea of voting for a nice (well, for a politico), savvy guy who offers hope and inspiration. We know that doing “all those things” will take hard work - and we’ve already gotten “real.” You can’t get much realer than owning your own business; holding down two jobs to pay the bills; trying to pay for employees’ health care; having loved ones die in Iraq; seeing homeless vets on the street corners; struggling to make your house payment; or trying to do something about global heating. As for “experience” - seems it’s a whole lot of very experienced people that have gotten us into a whole lot of messes (including owing over $1 Trillion to China.) We get it, really.

In fact, insults can actually help the other side.

So, all the Talking Heads dissections aside, “going negative” is the wrong thing to do - rather you’re Fed Ex or a political candidate.

P.S. Even truly stupid people (on left, right and middle) don’t like being treated that way. Just read some of the 4 gazillion posts and comments on the political blogs sometime. (But be prepared to slog through a lot of poison.)

Related Posts:
Fear Is A Lousy Marketing Strategy
Our Target: The Stupid People
Do We Want Drooling Customers?
Don’t Hire An Ad Agency To Build Your Web Site
Advertising: Creative or Effective?

Oh - and here’s Hillary’s routine:
Why do I talk about politics on a business blog? Because politics is nothing but a messy mess of terrible, cynical stupid marketing. Great examples of what not to do in many cases.

What do you think?

Tags: political commercials, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, advertising, target marketing, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, 2008 election