Hammerhead Advertising in Hoboken, N.J. is making a bold (read: brazen?) attempt to woo new clients. Apparently the ad agency has been leaving voice mail messages for the CMOs and VPs of Marketing at several hundred target companies. Except they aren't real voice mail messages; they are radio ads for the agency.
Neither are the radio ads disguised to sound like voice mail messages. They sound like a radio commercial that one would hear on the morning commute. You can listen to three versions of the ad here, here, and here.
I don't know about you, but if I were a busy Chief Marketing Officer checking my voice mails in the morning, I think I would be rather annoyed to find someone wasting my time with a radio ad in my voice mailbox. If you want my business, don't be spamming my voice mail. My customers don't want spam from me; I don't want it from you.
According to MediaPost's Media Creativity blog, apparently many of these targeted marketing directors feel the same way. They are disgusted with the move.
But then there are others who actually love the ads. Hammerhead has gotten a 3% response rate from the campaign; many of the respondents are delighted with the ads and excited to enlist Hammerhead in creating their own radio spots.
After listening to the ads, which are admittedly humorous, I could see how some people would appreciate Hammerhead's creativity and initiative enough to want to hire them.
And perhaps generating that "love me or hate me" attitude is good for the brand. Potential clients have to take sides. Hammerhead is defined; they're not just another humdrum agency in the sea of virtually identical ad agencies. They have personality. They are memorable. And even if that memory is distasteful to some, in others it may spark an immediate (and hopefully, lasting) fanhood.
Hopefully the customers of the clients who employ Hammerhead's unusual advertising tactics will feel the same way.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Voice Mail Message = Radio Ad?
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