Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Most interesting


Is there anything better than being right?

I don't think so. And I'm willing to knock back a case of XX beer with anyone willing to argue to the contrary. Particularly when the topic is ad campaigns and the public's taste or distaste.

Last year, almost to the day, I wrote this regarding the Dos Equis Beer ad campaign:

Just recently, the agency handling the Dos Equis account retired the Most Interesting Man in the World. I suspect some Big Data mining executives and Digital Content Strategy Innovators came to the conclusion that people who drink beer want to see a younger, hipper spokesperson. Maybe a guy with a lumberjack beard, who can dance.

They literally took the best asset the brand had and put it on a one way death rocket to Mars.


We have yet to see what they will do to replace the Most Interesting Man in the World. But I'm going to go out on a limb and predict it will be a lot less interesting.

Turned out my prediction was quite prescient. 



Not only was the new Most Interesting Man in the World less interesting than the previous Most Interesting Man in the World, the client was less interested in the Most Interesting campaign and more interested in the work of another agency that hadn't created the original Most Interesting Man in the World campaign.

Oh how I would have loved to be in the room when the planners, strategists and Big Data gurus, who suggested the colossal fuck up, had their asses handed to them for showing that grizzled old man to the curb.

"But, but, people in the focus groups wanted someone younger."

"Why does he say he doesn't always drink beer?"

"Shouldn't Stay Thirsty be Stay Quenched?"

My heart also goes out to the creative teams who gave birth to this campaign, a rare golden goose of a campaign, only to watch it get butchered at the hands of know-nothing schmucks, who frankly would be better off serving in some Congressional role (see yesterday's post.)

There is hope however. Because if I can be right on this issue perhaps one day I will come across an article that reads:

Agency abolishes open office plan and Long Table of Mediocrity™ in favor of individual offices. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amen.

Something very similar happened about 16 years ago to Cliff Freeman Partners with Little Caesars. After the agency won them a slew of awards for their great campaigns, they were fired--for no good reason I've ever heard about--and Deutsch was brought in to continue the campaign. After a year the first Deutsch ad made its debut, and it was just the Little Caesar character driving around really fast in a car, stopping at various LC drive-throughs and saying Freeman's signature phrase, "Pizza Pizza," but with no context. The only "gimmick" was the character was animated in that Roger Rabbit style that made him look three-dimensional. Since then you've barely seen a new LC ad, and nothing with the impact of the classic Cliff Freeman spots. I can't help but think the company's growth, which had been meteoric, wasn't impacted by the poorly-thought out change, and I think (and hope) the same thing happens with Dos Equis. This is what happens when you listen to "big data" instead of using big brains to solve a problem. But in this internet age, it's how things are done. The young are telling the rest of us we're old and square and we're gobbling it up without any evidence whatsoever except what they give us--well, what do you think they're going to say?