So for all you marketing majors, advertising works. Yep, much as I hate advertising, watching them, reading them, we are stuck with them.
I was reading (skimming) an article the other day about the demise of Quiznos. Yes, Quiznos (?sp). First of all I am not much of the sandwich connoisseur when it comes to fast food restaurants. I will force myself to eat Subway if there is nothing else around, maybe one of the other chains if there is nothing for hundreds of miles. And oddly I do like these various chains’ food, but just do not want to spend money on a sandwich. I spent years taking my lunch to work and yes you guessed, it was primarily sandwiches so the thought of eating out and buying a sandwich, no matter how much you can flavor it up so to speak, it just isn’t a choice. So I may have eaten at a Quiznos maybe once or twice, maybe. What caught me was the fact that I didn’t miss them. And why had I not missed them, because I had not see an ad for them in years so they faded into the background and I had no idea they were not around anymore. Yet when I read the article I remembered the brand. Strange.
Have you noticed the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks have both played in two championships, each have won one, even the Texas Rangers have played in two World Series since the Cowboys last won a Super Bowl? Yet when you think of Dallas Sports Teams, which one comes to mind first. Brand recognition you say, and I say probably correct. And what makes the Cowboys more recognized, well a variety of factors, but one is the advertising the NFL and branding the NFL has developed. Football took over Baseball as the national pastime sport so to speak in the 1960′s when television became the mainstream form of entertainment in this country and what brought us all this, advertising. We could watch endless hours of TV for “free” because of advertising. The other sports have been playing catch up ever since. Somehow or another football jumped onto this way of bringing us free entertainment and the unholy marriage on Sunday afternoons took flight. Now the ads are rated, liked and critiqued as much as the big game each year.
And as the largest hater of advertising this side of Manhatten you might imagine I stream some nowadays. And as a very frugal (cheap) individual though I still watch regular TV and if possible will record it so I can fast forward through the ads. This works well for regular season sports games, for the playoffs though, you have to watch it live, which means suffering through the ads. Not pushing buttons to turn 3-5 minute of mostly inept commercials into thirty seconds hurts, but you got to watch the playoffs live. Too much at stake not to. And to be honest because I grew up with TV, I have seen ads that work or companies that do a damn good job with the advertising. Coca Cola, McDonalds, Budweiser, Miller Lite are some examples of historical marketing campaigns that have worked. As much as McDonalds food is bland their advertising at times is remarkable. Some campaigns can get replayed in my head if a certain phrase is said or other trigger happens, amazing but true. Other campaigns have left me on the precipice of madness they were so bad, yet for some reason those sometimes are remembered. Whether I like an ad or not has no bearing on whether I buy the product.
So what gives this evening? I am not sure, but it did hit me that a company had grown to be so big and then completely disappeared and the only way I knew of their existence was advertising.And once that stopped, it was gone even in the memory cells until the article came about. I cannot remember one person ever recommending to eat there.
Companies will still come and go, but to all the marketing majors etc who put this together, it does make a difference if you do a good job, maybe not with me, but I can tell the public eats it up.
Cheers
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