When marketing goes wrong...

Sometimes marketing people get it all wrong.

I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes it happens. Mostly, it is when teams of creative minds can't see the wood for the trees and need the person-in-the-street to point out the blindingly obvious.

I took the picture above on a windswept October afternoon in Southend-on-sea last year. It was supposed to be a statement of reassurance and help to the many lonely people wandering the streets there. Unfortunately, the positioning of the banner right next to a battery of CCTV cameras sent out a completely different message. People were hurrying past with hoodies up and eyes firmly fixed on the wet pavement below, feeling far more alone than before reading the banner!

Marketeers try their best, but it can get much worse than that. Take the people who ran a string of pubs / restaurants in Northamptonshire a few years back. The idea was to nail the kiddy market in a novel and inoffensive way. The thinking behind it was pretty sound, the graphics acceptable and the strap-line not too bad... but the timing was dreadful.

To produce a mass of special children's menus just as the horse-meat scandal broke in the UK, killed the thing off before it began! An expensive end to a campaign which had looked pretty good a week previously.

Then there is the worst type of error - the one which could have been avoided, had the marketing teams all sat down and thought everything through a little more clearly. In Shanghai they dabble with English in their advertisements at their peril, especially when it clearly isn't their first language. But the temptation to use English is sometimes irresistible - it does lend a certain degree of 'foreign-ness' and, dare I say it, 'luxuriousness'. The fashion people for the company that produced the image in the picture below must have thought it was perfect for their target market. It looked good, sounded sophisticated and lent an air of mystique.

But... there's always a but... they would have thought again had they seen the unfortunate acronym, staring astute customers in the face!

Ad finally, Austria - lovely Austria and the city of Graz and another interesting usage of English, which could actually be intended. You can never tell with Austrians! It could be just a really 'cool' way of attracting the teen market to their fashion store. After all, it's great anti-marketing to use a word which normally would drive the sane majority away very quickly. Ironically, the shop was heaving when I went passed. Maybe all Austrians are either comprehensively inoculated, or are just way ahead of the rest of us when it comes to clever anti-marketing!

(stuff like this and much more, can be found in 'The Anti-Marketeer's Handbook' - coming out in all moderate to bad bookstores... far from you, very soon)