The marketing team for GoCompare.com must be jumping for joy at the news that their adverts racked up the most advertising complaints in 2012.
New figures from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) show that there were nearly 2,000 complaints about the campaign that features a number of celebrities trying to bump off the GoCompare.com’s annoying opera singer.
The ones featuring England Under-21s manager Stuart Pearce and TV presenter Sue Barker were the most complained about, with 1,008 and 797 complaints respectively. Pearce is seen kicking a ball at the rotund Gio Compario and Barker tries to blow him up with a rocket.
It’s a brave stance devising a marketing campaign that vexes people and runs the risk of alienating millions of potential customers. But, given the longevity of the campaign, Go Compare obviously subscribes to the mantra made famous by Oscar Wilde that says: "The only thing more horrifying than being talked about, is not being talked about at all!"
And that’s the point. Good marketing and advertising is all about eliciting a response from the audience and, love it or loathe it, at least it has been well and truly noticed and talked about. So when the news from the ASA was announced, I bet the Go Compare team must have thought they’d hit the PR jackpot because of the publicity it would create.
Do you think that when it comes to marketing campaigns all publicity is good publicity?
Luckily tattoos have steadily become more acceptable within society, however this hasn’t always been the case, tattoos used to be considered a counterculture, linking to gangs, thugs and other rebellious groups that operated outside the social circle. Today, due to more people getting tattoos they have gained more of a social acceptance. When it comes to the workplace however, there still seems to be a debate whether they are appropriate or not.
So the big question is, should you employ people with tattoos? I personally think yes! You should judge a potential employee on merit & not appearance, you wouldn’t dream of discriminating someone on their gender or ethnicity so why should people with tattoos be any different, if they have the skills needed for that sector that should be enough. I agree that the job role plays a big part of the decision, having a policeman with thug life printed on his knuckles would seem slightly uncharacteristic, however if the tattoos can be covered with items of clothing there shouldn’t be a problem. Tattoos show diversity, that you are an individual who does not conform to the constraints of out-dated professional ideals.
Personally, I think tattoos are great, they show creativity and express who you are as a person and shouldn’t be looked upon as rebellious or disgusting, my tattoo doesn’t affect my mental ability, my work ethic, or my job skills, in fact I am hoping to get my second tattoo next month – donations are much appreciated.
Here we go again. Two more brands that are part of the rich fabric of British life could potentially fall into foreign hands after the owner of Ribena and Lucozade announced it would be putting them up for sale.
Is anyone else getting déjà vu at this point and thinking of Cadbury?
Media speculation suggests that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) could pocket as much as £1bn for the two drinks brands that have been national favourites for 75-odd years. Lucozade dates back to 1927 and Ribena first emerged in 1938 and advertising for these brands has been as popular as the drinks themselves.
OK so I’m paraphrasing the next bit, but in essence GSK has said that it hoped to sell the brands to a global beverage business in order to maximise their potential in other parts of the world.
On the face of it, that sounds a very noble thing to do by GSK in passing on the brands to someone else more capable of taking quintessentially English brands and developing them globally.
However, whichever way you look at it, it seems like GSK knows the value of the brands is high and it is just cashing in.
If there are buyers queuing up, then surely the same must be said of capable global businesses that would be keen on partnership agreements. OK, so I may be clutching at straws here but if Cadbury has taught us anything is that we mustn’t let these brands go without a fight because they’re ones we’ve grown up with and cherish. And when a brand has been such an affectionate part of your life it’s worth fighting for.
Right, I’m off to start the protests. Who’s going to join me?
Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t political but we do have to doff our caps to brilliance, bravery and guts.
A lot of those words have been said about Margaret Thatcher in the days following the news of her death. But, actually, we’re talking about Marmite.
The former prime minister has proved to be as divisive in death as she was in life, with emotions running high on both sides of the divide. Nothing has summed this up better than the Guardian ad for a supplement on the life of Margaret Thatcher in its newspaper.
The central spine of Marmite’s advertising over the last few years has been that you either love it or hate it. End of. There’s no middle ground on this at all.
It’s brilliant when a brand truly understands its place in the market so precisely and creates a very self-deprecating campaign that has actually become part of the national psyche.
Marmite created that. They own it. The Guardian has cleverly taken something that is shorthand for anything that polarises and came up with an advert that you can’t help but admire in terms of the brilliance of the creative. To coin another phrase, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
So that’s the brilliance. But actually the bravery and the guts have been shown by Marmite in keeping a low profile in the wake of the ad.
Some brands could have thrown their toys out of the pram at being thrust into the middle of a battle between those who love and loathe the baroness. Because, let’s face it, it could have a detrimental effect on the brand.
Marmite has kept a dignified silence during the storm that will soon blow over, and what we’ll be left with is incredible creative that we’ll admire for a long time to come.
A strange whirring noise in the corner of the office suddenly grabbed everyone’s attention and quizzical looks were exchanged amongst the team.
We narrowed it down to our all-singing all-dancing printer and assumed it was on the blink until a solitary piece of paper spewed out.
WTF? Or fax, in this case.
We didn’t realise our printer had the facility to receive a fax so you can understand that it came as a bit of a surprise.
In a scene reminiscent of the iconic image of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper after returning from a meeting with Adolf Hitler, we duly picked up the fax and gathered around to have a look at it.
As if we weren’t hooked already, the header of the fax sealed the deal. It simply said Response Guarantee on Fax Marketing. And, true to its word, it had achieved its goal of grabbing our attention.
In a digital world, so many marketing campaigns are delivered through routes such as email or online. Receiving a fax was a retro bordering on the prehistoric but that was the beauty or, dare I say, brilliance of it.
This solitary fax flew in the face of convention, which is why it got noticed, and surely that’s what all marketers want to achieve for their clients’ campaigns?
I’m not for one minute suggesting we become old school and go back to faxing our marketing messages. Rather, we are simply marvelling at something that stood out on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning.
