FedEx Radio Commercial Fails To Deliver
Welcome to another in my series of critiques of award-winning radio commercials — those honored as “the best of the best” by the 2007 Radio Mercury Awards.
A few are Good. Many are…Not Good. Really, really, really Not Good.
This particular spot was a finalist, while another commercial in the same campaign was a $5,000 winner. (The $5,000 winning spot was just as bad.)
Why This Radio Commercial Is Terrible
Does this radio commercial paint pictures in the listener’s mind? Yes.
They paint all those vivid pictures of violent actions, but none of the pictures has anything to do with FedEx’s sales message.
They are forced to rely purely on spoken words that no one pays attention to.
Why does no one pay attention to those words? Because the words are not part of the story.
Not only that, the words are being spoken by a guy who pretty much is an idiot.
HERE COMES THE CLUE TRAIN
It’s almost never a good idea to have a guy who sounds like an idiot tell listeners why they should use the advertised product or service. The person who delivers the sales message (either by word or by action) should be someone with whom the targeted radio listener identifies (or would like to identify) with.
This isn’t a story about a problem that is solved by using FedEx. It’s a story about shooting people with paintball guns.
Which is reinforced by the last line of spot.
This is an inane, incompetent commercial.
But hey, the campaign won an award. So the ad agency lived happily ever after.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is another in a long sad endless barrage of commercials that equate product with stupidity. Cell phone commercials are the worst offenders but I’m seeing and hearing more examples every day.
For many decades advertising agencies were accused of deliberately trying to dumb-down the national intelligence average in order to sell worthless products. I think we can now safely say that stupidity has become our national pastime if this is considered quality advertising.
If you can put any product or service in place of FedEx, it is not an effective commercial. However, it does make me want to go to the paintball range.
I’m switching to UPS.
So this what the radio station produced spots couldn’t measure up to? Let’s just call them the “Real Men Of Genius Awards” and be done with it!