#45 - Ad-monishment

Ad-monishment

11/8/04 (#45)

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's true, then one would think the folks at advertising agency Bozell Worldwide must regularly faint due to the rush of blood to their faces as they blush with all of the blandishing they so regularly encounter. On the other hand, the blood may more frequently rush to their fists as they curse the demon they unleashed into the world.

Bozell Worldwide are the agency that brought us the "Got Milk?" ad series. Their campaign has been lauded as phenomenally successful marketing of a product, especially when one considers that milk was hardly a cutting-edge item prior to Bozell Worldwide's hire in 1994. (Milk had suffered 30 years of declining sales, not only because the very idea of a glass of milk brings to mind images of Pleasantville-esque squareness or ulcer-suffering adults who can no longer drink anything acidic, but because of the ever-increasing awareness of a condition known as lactose intolerance.) They introduced the ubiquitous milk-mustache campaign, with celebrities glamorously sporting white lip-linings (icons as diverse as Lauren Bacall, Spike Lee, Tony Hawk, Patrick Ewing, Conan O'Brien, and even Bart and Lisa Simpson) or the chocolate equivalent (uber-geek Paul Schaeffer), often playfully parodying their own images (Eddie Van Halen appeared with the standard Milk Mustache, but brother Alex poured his over his head, drenching himself in a calcium-rich robe.) The ads were simple, successful, and a lesson in effective marketing.

And I will never forgive them for it.

The first homage that I saw was from a brewing company, whose t-shirts sported the company logo on front and "Got Ale?" on the back. This piggy-back advertising method worked in this case, because it seemed like an adult-male response to the multi-demographic milk campaign, a humorous clarification of priorities for the high-end drinking class.

Then Mel Brooks lifted the concept for humorous promotion of his Dracula film, with Leslie Nielson wearing his best Count outfit over the caption, "Got Blood?"

Then ABC used "Got Tuesday?" as a promotion of its week night television schedule.

HBO hyped The Larry Sanders Show with a picture of Gary Shandling with the text, "Got Milk of Magnesia?"

And Austin Powers appeared in "Got Austin?" promotional posters.

Then there were the bumper stickers, "Got God?" (I'm not taking sides, but if the God in question is really the omniscient, omnipotent creator of humans, animals, the earth, the universe, time and space, then does God really need to be lifting recycled ad concepts from the National Dairy Board?)

Then there were hundreds of other cheap knock-offs, a mercilessly unending parade of hackneyed efforts that seemed to come not from professional agencies but from the corporate lunch rooms of America where the assertion "I could write an ad as good as that" was regularly disproven.

The death knell should have been heard universally when CBS stole the idea for their promotion of Murder, She Wrote by displaying Angela Lansbury with the caption, "Got an Emmy?" (Which she did, though the addition of the indefinite article makes it not only the use of a tired cliche, but a poor use of it at that.) I once heard a comedian report that the goatee was "over" the moment that Bob Saget appeared sporting his ill-suited half-beard; Surely, association with Murder, She Wrote is an equally compelling premonition of a concept's demise?

Well folks, it's 10 years on now, and while the once-clever concept has been bludgeoned beyond tolerability, there are some lazy merchandisers who still feel comfortable yanking on the udder of this long-dead cow in hopes of dispensing the golden milk. In just one recent morning, I had three exposures to it between my house and work:

On a bus, with "Got Heat?" in letters larger than the Heating/AC company's corporate identity.

A posh hair salon in Portland's Pearl District that has actually emblazoned on their storefront windows not one, but several tired attempts at getting attention---"Got Color?" "Got Perm?" "Got Skincare?"

Through the window of Office Depot I could see a cardboard kiosk bin full of cheap, sticky cylinders with the come-on, "Got lint?"

The window of opportunity for such so-called "cleverness" slammed shut many years ago, yet these birds still blindly fly at the glass. Are these firms unaware that while you want the product to be remembered, you do not want it to be remembered in tandem with the phrase, "What a bunch of dumbasses."

Adding to my personal frustration with this overdone ploy is the horrible grammar of the campaigns. Not only is "Got Heat?" an incomplete sentence, but "got" is the past tense of "get", and what the truncated slogan intends to ask is not "Did you GET heat?", but "Do you HAVE heat?" While I am not foolish enough to tilt my joust at the windmills of Madison Avenue (I still can't comprehend how the gratuitous use of flesh in Budweiser ads manages to sell any beer----are people truly naive enough to think that a particular brand of beer offers in the 12-pack a free pass with buxom blondes?---but it seems to work for them), I do wish that advertisers would consider the other 290,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary and include actual nouns, verbs, and adjectives in their marketing. I have a two year old who is currently exploring the connectivity of words, and I'm sure I'm going to have to explain, "That grammar isn't correct, dear---because those lazy #$@&s have no compunction with mangling the language as long as the perceived end-result is more profits."*

I had planned to make a joke about the opportunities missed by companies that might have benefited from this trend (Viagra stepping out with a "Got Nothing?" campaign, or a clean play on the original with "Got Rilke?" for a bookstore), but the fact is, this idea has been so completely milked that even in mockery there is no humor. It's that tired.

Got that?

Good.

©2004 wpreagan

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*I'm kidding. Our language is being dumbed-down from so many angles that I'm certainly not expecting advertisers to take up the cause for proper grammatical education. I'll leave that to the hip-hop artists.

Figures quoted (at least those not fictional) probably came from "The Milk Mustache Book: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at America's Favorite Advertising Campaign" by Jay Schulberg, a book that documents the history of the "Got Milk?" phenomenon. (Though I question the veracity of "America's Favorite Ad Campaign.")