Bad Advertising

For the first time since I started this job, it's slow. So, what better way to use my time than to share my precious opinions? Well, precious to me, anyway.

Anyway, let's talk about advertising, and what makes a really bad commercial (OK, I'm not going to go into everything that makes a bad commercial, but rather this one facet). If a commercial tells me how horrible and wrong their competitor is, that's a pretty good sign that they're actually superior.

Let's look at Comcast's recent ads bashing satellite dishes. Instead of saying, "We're the best thing since sliced bread!" They're saying, "Only a moron gets a dish." Hm. They're slamming their competition. Could it be that they're scared? As it happens, I have Comcast, and have tried to get them in every place I've lived in the Chicago area. They used to have lovely customer service, and that was my motivating factor, despite their common lack of actual service. Well, their customer service isn't quite what it used to be; their actual service is pretty much par for the course. Now, last place I lived, I couldn't get a signal from Comcast, so I used DirecTV. My God, that was nice! I can see why cable is scared. Yes, the signal went out once in a great while (most notably during the last 10 minutes of the season finale of Lost). Since I've had cable in my current place, they've had at least twice as many severe drops in service than I had with my dish in a whole year. And yes, I'm not allowed to have a dish in the current place. Now, I can see the reasoning behind Comcast slamming their only competition, because it's actually superior; notice how you don't see any DirecTV commericals saying how crappy their competitors are?

I think the stupidest "the other guys suck" advertisement comes from Macintosh. I have a lot of friends, whose opinion I truly respect, tell me that when they switched to Mac, their computer experience changed dramatically for the better. A few years ago, that was the Mac campaign strategy: "Switch. We're really good." Now, it is true that they have a behemoth to overcome with Windows-based systems, but this is the wrong way to go about it. They have some greasy-looking prick saying "I'm better than the really likeable and friendly underdog here. Shun him, love me." These people are effectively telling me that they're afraid of Windows, because Windows is superior. What kind of messed up marketing strategy is that? Even their website is telling me, "don't settle for PC." Now, I actually am considering getting a Mac, but that's because of word-of-mouth, not their annoying advertisements.

Politicians go into overdrive with this. "Politician X eats babies! Vote for Politician Y!" I'd say that I would vote for Politician X, simply because of Politician Y's hate-ads, but the X is doing it just as bad. Don't tell me how crappy the other guy is; tell me how great you are.

So, there's my rant, combined with a warning: don't believe the hype. If a product is legitimately good, you can see by how they advertise it. If it's good, they'll say it's good. If it's bad, they'll say their competition will usher in an age of darkness and sorrow.