Olympic Advertising - The Good and The Stupid

I've been watching the Olympics. It has been amazing sports competition. I've also been watching the Olympic ads. Some have been great, some have been average and one has been downright STUPID.

The Good

Visa - This has been one of my favorites. Morgan Freeman narrates about Michael Phelps not being a dolphin.

Visa has done such a good job with the Olympics. I got my first Visa card for one reason, to be able to get tickets to the Winter Olympics. They are the leader and they know it and you don't doubt it.

Budweiser - One of their first ads was a rerun of their Superbowl ad, the horse that doesn't make the team and then works out for a year to get on the team. Great ad, great message.

Budweiser is struggling with an image issue at the moment due to their sale to a Belgian beer maker, so this was a good angle, reinforcing their role as a world leader in beer.

Coke - They have several ads, but their overall message has been consistent with their market position. Coke as been around a very long time and is the leader in this category. No doubt about it.

The Stupid

Then there is the category winner for the stupidest ad of all.

McCain - This year the candidates are spending more than $5 million each on ads. McCain didn't just waste his money, he spent it for the other guy.

The ad starts out with the chanting of a OBAMA, OBAMA with a scene of Obama walking in front of a massive crowd chanting his name.

The narrator asks, "Is the world's greatest celebrity in the world able to help your family?"

A unflattering picture of Obama appears on the screen about how Obama is going to raise taxes, how he is going to increase government.

Then the ad turns to John McCain and talks about energy and something else that I don't remember.

This ad is STUPID. I'm a republican, but I'm appalled by the lack of fundamental understanding of how to market a candidate.

Obama's ad isn't anything spectacular. Stuff about all of us working together to solve the future's problems, and then a short about Obama. An average ad.

But how can McCain's camp keep doing this? They just spent $5 million USD to campaign for their opponent.

Comparison

Let's do a quick comparison

Visa's ad - A picture of American Express with Morgan Freeman saying, American Express is used by a lot of people, but Visa is better because American Express doesn't do as much as Visa.

Budweiser ad - Picture of Miller Beer, with a bunch of people laughing and drinking the beer, then cutting to Budweiser and saying, yes lots of people like Miller but more people like Bud.

Coke - Picture of a bunch of kids drinking a cola, then Pepsi appearing on the screen, Narrator saying, "Yes, Pepsi is really liked by lots of kids, but we are the best because people who drink Coke know better"

If you are the leader, rule #1 is you don't compare yourself to those in second place. And you certainly don't give your competition more air time, face time, logo time, than your own product.

Also rule #1, you don't concede that your competition is better than you at something. Running an ad admiting that Obama is well liked around the world isn't a good idea, especially when you aren't a very likeable person yourself.

People do business with people they like. And the same is for politics.

This strategy by the McCain camp is idiotic and it is causing me to shake my head. How can anyone believe this kind of self-destructive campaigning will get McCain elected.

Okay, that is my advertising lesson for the day. Now, back to watching the Olympics.