“In 1960 Doyle Dane Bernbach launched a campaign for a Brooklyn rye-bread baker with a series of subway posters that read, “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s.” The posters depicted people of various ethnic groups enjoying the bread and…drew plenty of complaints from people who didn’t like the ethnic approach. As part of the campaign, Bernbach also told the company to change its name from Levy’s Real Rye to Levy’s Real Jewish Rye. When the marketer expressed fear that this might invite controversy or pigeonhole the brand, Bernbach brooked no argument: “For God’s sake, your name is Levy’s. They are not going to mistake you for high Episcopalian.” The campaign spurred a decade of sales growth for the baker and passed into popular culture. Today those ads probably wouldn’t make it to a subway wall…” Advertising Age, Marketers Need to Stand Up to Hysteria From the Outrage NutsOr more succinctly, how avoiding offending everyone tends to miss reaching anyone, and typically kills creativity before it gets out of bed in the morning. Related sidenote: I adore those old Levy’s ads.
“This is such a big bowl of wrong. I don’t understand this in personal relationships, and I don’t understand it in business-to-customer relationships. Shouldn’t you treat the people you’re in a relationship with better than you treat anyone else? Shouldn’t you treat your existing customers better than the ones who’ve given you nothing?…if we shift that marketing and ad budget from pre-sales to post-sales, we won’t have to worry about getting new customers. Our loyal, cared-for customers will take care of that.”Creating Passionate Users on how Too many companies are like bad marriages
Last night I went to my first pro basketball game, the Dallas Mavericks’ 110-87 whipping of the Atlanta Hawks. While the game wasn’t exactly the most engaging thing ever, I will say this:
America does a few things better than anywhere else in the world and I submit that professional sports events are one of them. Now, I know the rest of the world loves their football/soccer (and I do too), but for the sheer spectacle and visual overload of a typical American sporting event, I think we win.
A web design firm or ad agency… gray background… all Flash interface… to navigate between sections a tiny white airplane would follow specific flight paths from one section to the next… the flight paths would occasionally cross… great sound design…
I am slowly going insane. Someone please tell me you know the URL I seek.
Update: www.xrs.pl it is. Thank you, friend(s).