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MONDAY COMMERCIAL SMACKDOWN: TurboTax

First, the radio commercial.

Question: As you listened to that commercial, what pictures did you see in your mind’s eye?

The GPS device?

A woman behind the driver’s wheel of a car?

Probably.

How about you or someone else using TurboxTax software to complete your income tax return?

Probably not.

radio advertising graphic

Here comes the clue train.

Here Comes The Clue Train: The picture you paint in the listener’s mind is the picture they will remember. If the picture they remember has nothing to do with the results promised by your product or service, you have just thrown away your advertising dollars.

Also, most people don’t enjoy being lied to.

That woman was behind the wheel of a car, confessing that she’s “not good with directions”? There’s a GPS device in the car, and it’s helping her get to her destination?

A believable scenario. (Not necessarily a believable staging or performance, but a believable scenario.)

So we join this woman on her driving adventure…only to discover this story isn’t about driving at all. It’s a sales pitch for something called “TurboTax.”

And when we realize we’ve been lied to, we stop listening. Yeah, it’s something called Turbotax, but we lose interest before we can learn exactly what it is and how it can help us.

Finally, the inane Call To Action: “See for yourself at…”

Right. Uh-huh. We listeners have a burning urge to see for ourselves whatever it is they’re trying to sell us.

On a scale of 1 to 100, this campaign scores:

Lame.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • TJ KELLEY February 1, 2010, 10:06 am

    You go boy…..lol

  • Dean Tiernan February 9, 2010, 10:41 pm

    I’ve felt the same thing every time I see the tv spot….GPS….taxes….somebodies going for a ride. Nothing to do with taxes.

  • Brett Astor Direct Response Radio Agency February 10, 2010, 2:56 pm

    I say this humbly, not from opinion but based on the results of I’ve seen from over a thousand radio ad tests: There is no question that this spot is doing more to sell GPS systems or turbo cars than any tax service.

    Possibly the worst thing about this spot is how much airtime it is getting. It is one of the most-aired spots since January 1st. I cringe at the amount of money Intuit is throwing down the drain.