Advertising Observations: How Flawed Ads Can Be Effective

Some of us who have worked in the world of advertising have sort of an innate sense for what might or might not work in an ad. After all, we’ve had our share of creating both. Sometimes we see an ad on a computer monitor or TV screen or magazine and can grasp what really works, in spite of the fact that the advertisement itself has serious flaws.

So … how can something with multiple faults actually be effective?

Case in point: the recent series of broadcast commercials for FreeCreditReport.com. Why to these spots work? It’s simple. The songs are cute and catchy, the lyrics tell a funny and relatable story, and you end up remembering what the commercial is for (that is, FreeCreditReport.com). That’s a key point. Creating an expensive, cool, funny, artistic, even memorable advertisement doesn’t do any good if most of its audience can’t recall what brand is being marketed.

The FreeCreditReport.com spots are fresh, memorable and do a bang-up job of putting their product front and center. (Even if you’re not exactly sure what that product is, or if you’re left wondering how a company can make money handing out free credit reports --- but that’s a subject for another post altogether.)

However, these spots have some serious flaws. Take the one featuring the fellow working at a fish-and-chips fast food establishment. There are some obvious problems with this ad (aside from being seriously offensive to anyone who happens to work at Long John Silver’s):

1. Look closely. You’ll notice the lips of the singer don’t match up with what’s being sung. This is also a problem with this advertiser’s sister spot about some young dudes riding around in “a used subcompact.”
2. Despite the fact that the song features some peppy acoustic guitar work, you’ll notice the lead character isn’t even making an attempt to play the instrument.
3. The final line of the song says, “…serving tourists in T-shirts.” But no one in the entire spot is wearing a T-shirt. We know this is picky, but would it have killed them to actually put someone in the ad to match up with what the lyrics are describing?
4. There’s an older woman in the background playing a customer who at first is shown smiling as if she’s enjoying the song and her meal. Then they cut to a close-up and she’s frowning and looking very uncomfortable. In the course of a few seconds she goes from a pleasant senior citizen to an angry old crone. Why?
5. Finally, there’s the lyric “Shoulda seen this comin’ at me like an atom bomb.” OK, seems harmless enough, and yes, they needed a word to rhyme with dot-com. But many of us have seen the documentaries and footage of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thus have been witness to some of the worst things that have ever happened to humankind. Sure, it was more than six decades ago, but the bottom line is that a fun, whimsical commercial jingle shouldn’t throw in a goofy line about an atom bomb. Not in this lifetime. Or the next.

We’re also idly wondering how having one’s identity stolen would force you to steer your career into serving deep-fried cod in plastic baskets. But we’re willing to go along with that one.

And no, we haven’t gone online to get a free credit report yet. When we do, we’ll probably be able to answer that question about how they make money giving out stuff for free.