Who Needs Enron? Microsoft Just Got Talked Into Doing A Great Sally Fields Impersonation At The Oscars For A Mere $1.7 Million Per 30 SECONDS... And It's All Perfectly Legal

History was made at the Oscars 22 years ago, when Sally Fields embarrassingly gushed: "I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"

For an actor, in the business of being liked, likable and bankable at the box office, it's a perfectly understandable gushing, blushing moment. After all, people in Sally's line of work are frequently paid large sums of money to make absolute fools of themselves, all the while looking cool and in control -- and to do so, mind you, in front of worldwide groups of people.

But suppose you were Microsoft, the world's largest software company. Even if you had a market valuation of $279.3 billion and annual sales of $41.5 billion...

... does that justify buying 30 seconds of advertising time for $1.7 million, to trumpet the message, "We're not boring!  Really, we're not!" to the world?

Advertising executive Matt Ross, apparently with a straight face, explained the strategy to George Raine of the San Francisco Chronicle:

"You do something to seed engagement in the minds of people watching it."

Very smooth.  I couldn't have said nothing better myself.

Ross is president of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, a large branding advertising agency.  His company produced the commercials which, according to Raine's article, feature... are you ready for this? ...

• A man and his friend overwhelmed by the size of a large pumpkin they see in a Nebraska field in 1978
• A man surprised by seeing a deer in his neighborhood
• A woman surprised by the Great Wall of China
• A boy stunned by a blanket of snow
• A tall basketball player impressed by the moves of a much shorter, younger basketball player
• A girl simply in awe when a boy removes a tablecloth but leaves the plate and silverware on the table

And finally...

• A pitch for Microsoft's new operating system. The commercial's voice-over says:

"Every so often you experience something so new, so delightfully unexpected, that there is only one word for it: 'Wow.' Introducing Windows Vista."

And silly me.  I thought the delightfully unexpected part was McCann and ABC divvying up $1.7 million of Microsoft's money.

But I guess this kind of empty spending has become so routine that it barely raises an eyebrow.

Empty spending?  Yes.

Why?  ROI.

Specifically...

Where's the return on investment on that $1.7 million?

There is none.  No customer buying activity occurs by inviting people to think "Wow."

You have to ask them to buy something.  And then they have to buy it.  That's where ROI comes from.

(You already knew that. But in case any Advertising Executives are reading this, I thought a little refresher course in ROI 101 might be in order.)

Now, the problem here is that Microsoft might be just a little worried that it is perceived as boring, and somehow that will hurt the company in business. 

Boring is deadly in the movie business.  It's never good per se in advertising, but it's not a real problem as far as your public image goes in the plumbing business... the earth-hauling business... the office supplies business... or, now that you mention it, the software business.

Besides which, the key quality underneath being likable -- charisma -- is not something you can buy and sell, like market share.  Either you got it, or you don't.  As John Kerry discovered, and Hillary Clinton is about to.

So... what about you and your business?

Let's not worry for a second whether people say "Wow."

Let's worry instead about whether people say, "How can I buy that?"

But, it would be nice if they remembered you, had a positive feeling about your company, felt like you stood for something beyond being a bookmark in their Web browser or a contact in their Outlook (oops.  There goes that boring Microsoft again!) ...

... It would be nice if, in addition to saying, "I'd like to buy that from your company," they also said, "Your company seems to include the kind of people I'd like to have a long-term business relationship with."

Translation?

"I'd like to buy from you again."

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

I think it would.  That's why I teamed up with a man who was, without remorse, responsible for strategizing branding campaigns that cost clients 10s of millions of dollars. He did this without remorse while working for big agencies like Deutsch, JWT and BBDO.

No remorse because his ad campaigns DID have a return on investment... the ads produced sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

His name is Ben Mack. He is author of the bestseller Think Two Products Ahead.

He has a unique (and revolutionary) vision of branding that includes... are you ready for this... sales!

In fact, he sees branding as the main factor determining how much a customer will want to buy from you in the future.

Ben and I are presenting a 3-session teleseminar series introducing our fusion concept Direct Response Branding. The first session is Tuesday, so take a look at the course description now -- click here.

Actually, we don't really care what Microsoft does with its money.  When you've got that much money, you do what you've gotta do.  Big wow. 

But we'd like to help other businesses not make the same mistakes.

If you take our course, the next time you spend $1.7 million dollars... or $17 dollars ... on advertising, you'll know what you need to do to expect positive return on your investment.

And here's the best part:

You won't really give a flying fig if people think you're cool or not.

Direct Response Branding Teleseminar. Begins Tuesday, February 27, 2007

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Comments

[Mauricio Martinez]

Hi David,

I've said it before and I want to say it once again on this blog. You go waaaaaaaay beyond copywriting and right into the soul of marketing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Mauricio Martinez

[Stephen]

Way to go David!

When are the "big guys and gals" in advertising ever going to get it?

Same type of advertising you see during the superbowl...

They folks waste "almost" as much money as our government (but on a much smaller scale, of course) [wink,wink].

Excellent rant - Keep up the good work my friend!

[Eric Farewell]

David,
As always you've hit the nail on the head, I loved the commercials even though I had to laugh at their obvious recreation of my beloved Mac OSX.

I'll hop on over the that link and check out your new course :-)

[Amanda]

David,
You just hit it! Ben Mack is an awesome teacher.

Amamda

http://thetimemastery.com/blog

[Ross]

In London around 1997 a press article complained about the trend for television advertising to not mention the product/advertiser until the last few seconds.

So we invented a game. Come commercial time (much rarer there than here in Australia) it was sound off and points to the one who guessed the product first. We rarely got it right.