First, listen to the commercial:
Now, what do you remember?
And that’s immediately after you deliberately listened to it. Imagine the impact that advertisement made on consumers who had the radio on at the time but had no reason to stop what they were doing and try to pay attention to it.
They begin by giving us alternate definitions of the word “new” — as though the targeted listener woke up this morning thinking, “Gee, I wonder what ‘new’ really means?” or even “Gee, I wonder what’s new?”
Here’s a line that’s guaranteed to put any listener to sleep: “The youngest and freshest in the Luxury Car class, backed by 125 years of innovation.”
Hint: If you want to sell the idea of “new,” don’t tell people that it’s a continuation of a 125-year old tradition. (Yes, they say “125 years of innovation,” but what sticks with the listener is “125 years,” not “innovation.”)
If you managed to prevent your mind from wandering away from this radio commercial, what’s the one thing that actually sounded interesting?
Right. The “Attention Assist, which can detect and alert drivers if they become drowsy.”
That’s a genuinely interesting feature. Perhaps even — as Mercedes claims — an innovation.
Too bad it was lost among all the meaningless blather, accentuated by blandly irrelevant music.
Oh, one more thing.
This radio commercial aired on July 24. Yet it attempts to tie Mercedes’ alleged innovation to the “New Year” of 2011.
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I couldn’t agree more on this one, Dan. I consider myself a student of copy-writing and I see this all the time. We could go on a 100 page rant about all the massive mistakes advertisers make but I want to focus on, what I see as, the biggest offense in this particular spot. The “It’s july but it says new year of 2011” gaff. I can see the benefits of an ongoing ad campaign using the same spot for a while but to purposefully date yourself like this is suicide. I see it WAY more often with small businesses with less budgets but for Mercedes…? I have a hard time understanding how companies this big can fail on such elementary levels.
You’re absolutely right. When I heard them mention the Attention Assist feature (and of course, I’m listening intently, inside a studio with no other distractions, so I actually CAUGHT this), my immediate reaction was, “Why isn’t this the first line of the commercial?!?”
I was lost after “new” definition, they would have been better served (the client) had they taken their money and tossed it into the street.
The endless yada yada yada of why 125 years of “innovations” defeated the actual purpose of the spot: To tell me about the Attention Assist feature.
If the spot had started with a guy snoring and then a blaring car horn, followed by the “attention assist” feature, I probably would have listened more intently, I too am sitting in a studio with no distractions, so I can nit pick this, if I were in my car or at my desk, it would melt as background noise, or I would be punching to my next preset
Puzzling to me is why Jon Hamm is forced to do speed reads on these. Just let him be cool that will sell MBZ.
After listening, the only thing I remembered was the “new year” statement, as it was such a “WTF” moment. I found myself listening closely to the disclaimer to catch the offer’s August 1st, 2011 expiration date to confirm that the spot was indeed current. Of course, your average listener will NOT listen closely to the disclaimer. If they think anything after hearing the spot, it might be something like, ‘Huh, station X just played the wrong commercial,’ before going on about their daily business with nothing from the spot sinking in.
By the time the term “new year” came around I had already lost interest, apparently, and missed it entirely. Perhaps I need Attention Assist. It was lost in all the generic blather.
However what stopped me in my tracks was the comment about the “reset”. A reset doesn’t start anything new, it just gives the computer another opportunity to start up the same old computer after it stops working. Not the image they wanted to brag about.
best thing I noticed or cared about this spot?
Dan O Needs a new set of rabbit ears on the FM receiver he’s recording this stuff off of…..
other then that……it’s just forgettable chatter.