Knock it off

Every ad concept has its day. As a writer in the advertising and marketing bidness and a viewer of stuff, I'm here to say this: All those ads where people say or email or tweet something, only to have a truck show up at their door and transform their lives with product/money/conversion to the Right Side of consumer preference? Their day was some overcast Wednesday in the late 70s, when Ed McMahon still had a pulse and wasn't broke.

And yet we got two guys in a van ignoring the NO SOLICITORS sign from several agencies who can (and have) done better. This year CB+P did it with Domino's:



And then Wheat Thins came along, courtesy of Escape Pod:



I just spent some time checking out the advertising winners at Cannes. I gotta say, there is a bunch of cool stuff out there. But this concept? Not it. Not new, and never really that interesting in the first place. But wait, you say! It works! And this time it's different! Because we incorporate The Twitters! And skywriters! Um, yeah.

Plus, can anyone really top Publisher's Clearing House pulling up in the good times van with a giant million-dollar check for housewives all over mid-America? Never! Don't even try! I mean, I'm sure Claudia is happy to know that Domino's sucks marginally less now and Tabitha is now tiling her bathroom with Wheat Thins, but compared to a million bucks and some flowers from a marginal celebrity? Uh-unh.

Sometimes it does work. When Conan O'Brien picked one ordinary person to follow on Twitter, that was fairly awesome as a one-off. The only other way I've seen this done cleverly in recent times is this year's season's greeting from Mother, a smaller agency in London, New York, and a few other cool places. Basically, they played Nigerian prince for a day and sent out an email to their clients, partners and other supporters saying they were giving away $10,000 to one person. All that person had to do was respond with three bits of information--including, yes, their banking details. One guy answered. Then stuff happened. It's all here:



Yeah, maybe it's about as real as my hair color. But, like my hair color, it's bright and it makes me happy. And whether real or bogus, someone deserving gets 10 grand. That's always real.

But in general? Park the van, stop knocking and find a new schtick.