Relax! It's a parody spoof...or is it? Who knows any more?

Any exposure is good exposure, right? If people are talking it’s a good thing. If they are talking about your product, it’s a great thing.

Advertising works to generate that exposure. That “buzz”. That water cooler conversation going on everywhere. Clients love it. Agencies lust after it. Consumers love to be entertained and in some ways pleasantly surprised by a clever and witty ad campaign that they want to tell their friends and family about. These are the planets that must align perfectly to allow for client revenues and market share to rise and for agencies to justify huge bill rates.

This leads back to the adage that ANY exposure is good exposure. As it has gotten harder and harder to stand out in a sea of traditional and new media, many clients and their agencies have started to revert to the “dark-side” of advertising. Doing something ridiculous in order to stand out and create chatter about a campaign and thus the brand itself. But this leads to the thought: Is ANY exposure good exposure? Is it a good thing for people to talk about your stupid campaign? Some would argue that as long as they are talking about you, that is the goal. Does chatter about a dumb campaign result in improved sales and market share? After all, that is what the budget was expended for. Not idle random chatter on a blog or two and in personal conversations. These blogs and conversations need to revolve around positive things. They need to allow the consumer to ultimately associate with the product in a positive way.

To demonstrate what I am speaking of, Red Stripe Beer has released what is bound to become a spot that you either love or hate.



Now, this can be taken two different ways. They “meant” to do something ridiculous to generate buzz…and I don’t mean interest either. “buzz” is a whole different animal. “buzz” is short term chatter, once that wears off, you had better have delivered something that will then command the interest of the consumer or they move on to the next LiLo or Mel Gibson headline. Buzz has its place. I just don’t see it as sustainable interest. It’s a good marketing starting fluid, but little else. Effective, but burns hot and fast.

Anyway, Red Stripe is sure to generate some degree of “buzz” with this campaign. That is great. I’m sure that the agency [BBDO I believe], if asked, would say that it was intended to be a spoof type of piece and was produced to get this type of attention. Again, great. I then would ask, as the client, should it have only been used online if it is a silly spoof and not to be taken too seriously? Why spend ad dollars on airtime for this? It is airing on national cable networks. “Viral” and “Guerilla” campaigns are fairly effective for the investment made in them when done properly. You let the inherent nature of that beast run wild with word-of-mouth. That is the whole idea. Perhaps viral is getting to old-hat and is losing some of it’s ability due to over-saturation. Maybe Red Stripe saw an opportunity to use a mix of traditional and new to get the same results. Perhaps it is the beginning of the building of a corporate ‘face’. Like Flo from Progressive, The World’s Greatest Spokesperson In The World!* from Nationwide, or the Allstate “Mayhem” Character**. All direct competitors in a different industry, but the same principle.

I have no way of knowing the over-all strategy, but going by responses on the Red Stripe Facebook page, opinion is mixed. Matthew sums it up: “…stupid and funny.” It may just work as planned, but on the Facebook page, the last posting was 13 hour ago. Effective ‘buzz’ floods gateways like this. This is where that word of mouth happens far and wide now. There should be fan postings continuously.

At least that's how I see it.

ONE EYED DOG PRODUCTIONS
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* That is NOT a typo. That is how Nationwide is marketing this character. Seems a little redundant, doesn't it? More on this later.
** Now "Mayhem" from Allstate is a good one. More on this later as well.