theglobalmarketerblog.com

One doesn't want to see someone lose his job, but this case begged for an exception.

Given the over-the-top insensitivity of the so-called campaign for CNN's Cartooon Network -- it's hard not to use the words arrogance and stupidity in this sentence -- the resignation today of Mr. Samples blows a breath of fresh air over a sorry episode in the annals of TV tune-in promotion.

He did the right thing. One way of looking at it is that somebody had to draw the line up to which no one should go. So thanks to Jim and his nitwit agency for showing us where it is.

(See http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/09/news/newsmakers/cartoon_network/index.htm?postversion=2007020915)

Cartoons have to be funny to someone to attract an audience, and adult cartoons have to be edgy to get grown-ups to watch -- which means an agency probably has to go to unusual lengths to break through with an impression strong enough to last all day and get people in great numbers to go to their TVs and tune in to a certain channel and certain program at a certain time.

So hooray for the agency (which shall continue to go unnamed in this space) too, which after all really did deliver the goods. As Mr. Samples probably knows if he looked at the overnights, it was Mission Accomplished and then some. High fives all around.

On a CPM basis, this extravagant bit of idiocy was worth at least the $2 million that CNN will be paying to the citizens of Boston for their time and trouble. Our bet is that the ratings for that particular program on that particular night were better than they'd ever been, and than they'll probably ever be, from that point on.

So the agency gets the boot, Mr. Samples gets a career change just when it seems the time was right, and the bird-flipping robot becomes their legacy. It's almost poetic.

Meanwhile, congratulations (no-name) agency guys and gals! You really proved you can raise (or is that the word?) the bar. But hold the encore. We know what you can do.

Posted by Kerry Smith at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No surprise to us that Turner Broadcasting was willing to wipe the egg off its corporate face with a stamped-paid invoice for a sum totalling upwards of $500,000 in stockholder cash to pay the City of Boston for services so dramatically rendered during Tuesday's bomb-scare prank.

After all, having the knowhow to pick the right kind of agency (schlocky) to do the right kind of promo (schlocky) for the right kind of (schlocky) product in order to hype an audience of mind-numbed zombies for a drug-related nighttime cable-TV program: You get what you pay for, and the Cartoon Network appropriately got -- and continues to get -- about a gazillion dollars' worth of top-line, front-page publicity.

Of course it's the kind of publicity most companies would go out of their way to avoid --- think: notoriety -- but as the guy carrying the bag and shovel behind the elephant tells the parade watchers everywhere he goes: Hey, man, this is show biz. 

As for the agency, who else but this particular set of geniuses could have thought up getting dozens of live, on-duty city cops to tie up traffic, piss off thousands of motorists and pedestrians, scare millions of TV viewers and make public asses of themselves for an entire day on radio and TV -- without once stepping out of character?

As for the marketing part, the message is clear: There's nothing like a multi-site, multi-agency, multi-city, multi-market, daytime/drivetime, early-prime/prime, experiential promotion to generate awareness and build traffic on a massive nationwide scale for the debut of a worthless piece of ...well, you get the picture.

But that's just one opinion. What's yours?

Posted by Kerry Smith at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)