Time for another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad.
This one was a finalist in the 2009 Radio Mercury Awards.
During the “humor” — the “magic trick” — they took 100% of our attention away from the intended sales message of this radio commercial.
Even the first time around, the “humor” doesn’t amuse. How many times do you suppose the average listener will pay attention to repeated airings?
In a successful humorous radio spot, the humor and the sales message should be interwoven. You should not be able to extract one from the commercial while leaving the other intact.
But here? You could replace Geico with virtually any advertiser, and the “humor” would be untouched.
To make a bad concept worse, they give two Calls To Action.
And one of those Call To Action is a bad vanity phone number.
Ironically, if that had been a :15 radio commercial without the lame attempt at humor, it could have been an innovative.
Listen:
What if listeners heard that every day at the same time?
True, no Call To Action. But:
1. This was just a quick, sloppy edit.
2. The original rushed through “visit Geico.com.” That had barely any more impact than simply saying the advertiser’s name.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
No matter what the GEICO commercial says, the last thing I always hear is “moron car insurance”. This can’t be good.
Since some form of humor has always been a part of the GEICO campaign, I would cut them a little slack on this one. But you’re right, humor needs to be used very carefully or instead of leaving a pleasant taste….it will ‘burn out’ very quickly. The last thing any advertiser wants is for their messages to ‘turn people off’ instead of turning them on to their product or service.
Typical of GEICO’s advertising MO. Lots of borrowed interest that is irrelevant to the pitch. What GEICO routinely screws up in creative strategy, they make up for with an annual media budget about the same size as the annual operating budget for the government of Guam (i.e., roughly half a billion dollars–in case you were wondering).
I have to disagree with on the humor side of it. I didn’t see it coming and smiled.