Who Are the Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One?

Why do people always feel the need to point out the "brilliance" of the advertising industry? Every time a cool or funny commercial comes on, someone has to comment on how amazingly strategic the marketing strategy is, and how savvy the executives are who greenlit the project. As if advertising were at all difficult.

Guess what...it's not. And I took graduate classes in marketing, so I know what I'm saying here. Advertising is incredibly, massively fucking easy. There are only a few simple rules:

(1) People are incredibly stupid and they don't remember shit, so if you want them to buy your crap, you have to repeat your message at them over and over and over again before they get it.

(2) People are incredibly stupid and they love celebrities, so always have someone famous in your ads to hawk your crap. It doesn't even matter if the person is exceptional or talented or even particularly famous. As long as they have some level of fame, they will be able to sell stuff.

(3) People are incredibly stupid and horny and they only like good-looking people. So always have hot pieces of ass holding your product, and never have any uggos around, and people will think the stuff is better.

Okay, everybody got that? You now officially don't need to take a marketing class. And don't ever read masturbatory articles like this one, about the "brilliant" "amazing" new Dove ads. Get this - they're using pictures of half-naked attractive chicks to try to sell things. I mean...wow...how innovative. What a concept.

We're supposed to be awed by their brilliance because the attractive chicks aren't professional models, but "real girls," as you might see on the street. I mean...they're still hot. They're just not starving themselves-pill popping-Lindsay Hohan-coke fiend hot.

Here's one of the ads.



Dove, you shrewd bastards! It's a girl, she's in her undies, she's showing me her ass...BUT IT'S NOT A PERFECTLY SCULPTED ASS! WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS, YOU MAD GENIUSES?

I mean, yeah, cute girl, your product, small black type. This is like every other fucking ad in the world. Did any of you watch "Blow Out" this season, with Jonathan Antin designing his new shampoo bottles with the care and concern of a mother bird building a nest for her newly-birthed young. The product (charmingly called "Dirt," a sly reference to the substance of its creator's soul) wound up in little plastic bottles that look exactly like shampoo bottles. That's what this ad is like.

It's like when you go to Vegas with your friends, and someone's always spouting off about the devious strategies casinos employ to encourage gambling.

"They don't have any clocks in the casinos, you notice that?" they'll say, as if they're the first person to make such an insipid observation. "And no windows either. That's so ya can't see outside!"

Well, you've got it all figured out, don't you, Sparky?

Here's a little secret - casinos don't need a strategy to get your money. Getting money out of tourists visiting Las Vegas isn't at all challenging. It's like getting multi-colored candy out of a Pez Dispenser. Giving you multi-colored candy is what Pez Dispensers do, man, and converting yokel dollars into casino dollars is what Vegas does.

I've been to casinos that are employing absolutely no marketing or business strategy of any kind. They are grim, smoke-filled rooms full of cheap alcohol and 90 year olds wearing gold chains playing pai gow, and they will take in more cash in 2005 than fucking Pfizer. Because people love to gamble, particularly gambling addicts, and they will do so in spite of any strategies you may or may not bother devising.

Ditto advertising. There are enough mindless sheep out there to turn any bullshit product or needless service into a billion dollars. And figuring out a way to trick them is no problem. Now, reaching them...that's another story...But Dove hardly deserves credit for that! They've got enough for a massive international ad campaign.