Content Marketing Today

Tom Peters Blog, A Drumming Gorilla, and the Death of Advertising

It amazes me how often ad agencies can talk their clients into advertising campaigns that won’t sell any product, but aren’t likely to help the brand either. All around business guru Tom Peters mentioned just such a campaign in a recent post that involves a drumming gorilla. OK, it’s funny (and it follows below–I couldn’t resist)! But it is so far removed from the product that it sure seems like a lot of money for nothing. You might say they made a monkey out of their clients in the name of ‘creativity.’

Ironically, the explanation given about why the agency created a 90 second music video of a gorilla aping Phil Collins(sorry, couldn’t help myself) is that “Their first point was that TV viewers these days won’t and don’t accept their viewing being interrupted by ads. They either don’t watch them, or, worse, switch channels. So, to have any impact, the advert itself had to be entertaining. Secondly, this advert was focused on restoring the xxxxx brand reputation, not their xxxxx.” Huh??

Here we go again. The agency decides not to ‘interrupt’ their viewers with a relevant ad, but with a completely irrelevant video. Interruption by any other name would smell as funky.

By the way, you’ll need a little patience as you wait for the gorilla to have at the drums. I love stupid humor, but I can’t see how this benefits the brand in question. If anyone can guess what product and what brand is being advertised before the very end of the video, you’ll get a free mention for your organization on ContentMarketingToday.com

Enjoy an example of the death of advertising.