My buddy Mark Dimassimo was pissed. He’d been watching an inordinate amount of tennis and he’d reached his limit with the constant repetition of ads. Not that the ads were bad the first five, ten or twenty times he saw them. But around the hundredth time he was subjected to the same, singular “tennis” ad that each company had deigned to produce in order to be “relevant” during the tournament, he was, as I could tell form his tweets, texts and messages, about ready to hurl something toxic and large at his television machine.
And brother, I can relate.
Read MoreMy friend Dave Marinaccio likes to say that even bad advertising works better than no advertising. And he’s right, of course. For as Woody Allen famously said, 80% of success is just showing up – and advertising, in one sense, is simply about showing up when your competitor does not.
What Dave doesn’t mention about bad advertising is that “showing up” is about all it has going for it. It’s sort of like drunk-dialing your x-girlfriend. Yes, you’re making yourself top of mind with her (awareness!) and you’re occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everyone else (attention!) – but you’re also rambling and mumbling and cursing and vomiting and being fairly incoherent. But hey! You’re showing up!
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