I drive a BMW 7-Series. It’s the car I wanted my whole life, and when I could afford one, I went to my local dealer and paid cash for the most loaded one they had. It was a gift to myself, a celebration of success after decades of hard work, and every time I get into that car I feel special.
Like other 7-series owners, I received a beautiful hard-cover brochure – more of a coffee table book, really – for the new 7 coming out in 2010. The car is truly magnificent, and given the emotional wrapping paper of this particular make and model for me, I rifled through the pages with the heart-pounding anticipation of a 14-year old with a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
On page gorgeous, I was greeted by a leather-and-old-growth-walnut porn shot of the driver’s side interior, framed by 3 words of headline copy:
“Sensory rejuvenation chamber.”
And the spell was broken.
“Sensory rejuvenation chamber?” What kind of bullshit is that? What copywriting genius came up with that gem? Which agency suit presented it, and which style-less, Bananarama-loving client approved it? Has this been a car for old farts all along? I feel used. And not in a good way.
Why did I react so strongly to the innocuous, omnipresent ad copy bullshit I’ve seen in hundreds of self-important car brochures over the decades? Because now I know better. Because instead of sacrificing a tree at the alter of some frustrated screen writer’s creative vision, BMW could have mined the fertile ground of my and my fellow 7-owners deep emotional associations with these cars as a way of welcoming the new flag-bearer into the family. The could have let us in. They could have let us sell each other. Instead they created an “Us” and a “Them” by talking to us in a way real people never talk to people they like and respect, and in doing so revealed themselves as both tragically shallow and criminally un-with it.
We’re getting to a place where “old school” advertising – long harmless background noise for those of us more interested in authentic communication – actually has the potential to extract value from brands. To render them antique. To disconnect them from the people who really own them, the people who cherish and pay for them one purchase at a time.
We’ve crossed some kind of threshold into a time where wasted advertising is no longer the worst kind of advertising. Today advertising caught in a transparent attempt to wrest control of a brand from the people out there who hold it in their hearts and minds is fatal. We have seen the birth of “anti-tising,” the communications equivalent of hyper-processed junk food, fighting a pathetic and losing battle for the souls of overweight, overspent consumers growing tomatoes in their own backyard with organic fertilizer.
Be careful, brand stewards. Be cautious with the time-honored tools of your trade. They just might be starting to work against you.
And have you seen that new Jaguar?
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UPDATE: Link here for an update on Mercedes-Benz’ effort to build a community of advocate owners. Not to say their brochures are any less pretentious, just an interesting juxtaposition of techniques.
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