One of these days, I'm going to get around to starting a bonafide blog site similar to Awful Plastic Surgery, only for all the myriad examples of bad marketing in the world. (And yes - I do realize that sites like this already exist, but I can do it better.)
It's amazing to me how many companies suck at marketing. Here's a list of companies that I hope go bankrupt because of their stupid marketing. Also, in some cases the companies themselves have inane, bullshit products and services. I'll let you know that as well.
Esurance
As part of the 18-34 demo these commercials are aimed at, I find these commercials intellectually akin to pumping a syringe full of bleach into the brain.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. In the case of esurance, they might as well be siphoning money out of Genndy Tartakovsky's personal bank account for ripping off his animation style wholesale.
Esurance's big marketing claim to fame is that it's online auto insurance: just quote, buy, print. Not that you can't do that with any auto insurance company these days.
The other bullshit thing that Esurance does with their marketing is claim that they are environmentally friendly by doing everything online. You see, they're saving trees by not mailing you anything. Again, just about any other auto insurance company does the same thing.
Now, I'll give credit where it's due: obviously these commercials have been very successful for Esurance. By all means, at the end of the day they've made Esurance a lot of money, because they can obviously afford to have them on TV 24/7. As a consumer, if I see a commercial on TV this often, I know the company has to pay for those ads somehow.
Bottom line: Price is not the bottom line in auto insurance, and it sure as shit isn't saving the environment. I'd rather have an auto insurance company that will really take care of me in a timely fashion if I'm ever involved in an accident. Esurance doesn't bother to address this point.
Go Daddy
GoDaddy is successful for one reason: big tits. Candice Michelle's tits. Big, luscious, milky tits.
Sure, I love tits, but I'm not quite sure why tits would convince me to buy web hosting. So let's take five seconds to get to know GoDaddy, beyond her tits, and see if anything is there.
GoDaddy.com is quite simply the one of the junkiest, most cluttered Web sites on the Internet (it's even worse than Yahoo! - more on that later.) Five million things on their homepage, no marketing. I've seen this type of site before: It's typical of a CEO who basically micromanages the marketing team, and wants everything at once without any sort of marketing message or benefit-driven content. There's nothing there to really address or educate the consumer.
Where GoDaddy excels with their marketing is in upselling (read actively confusing) domain and hosting-buying newbies into buying shit they don't need when they just want to buy a domain. Try buying a domain at GoDaddy, just for kicks, and see if they don't try to upsell you a million products and services YOU REALLY DON'T NEED.
Then we have the GoDaddy CEO, Bob Parsons, with his own Internet radio show and ego-blog. Newsflash: nobody gives a shit.
GoToMyPC
No video here. I'm referring to their countless commercials on Sirius Satellite Radio. Nice way to interrupt my favorite stations.
I liked your service the first time, when it was called REMOTE DESKTOP CONNECTION, a free utility for Windows.
Mac
"Hello, I'm a smug, self-righteous, over-simplifying prick."
"And I'm a PC."
Check yourself Mac marketing. Your OS really isn't bad, and your computers are pretty powerful. It's the air of smug (and false) superiority you have that smells. Bad.
Mac vs PC. Please. A dichotomy that is as ubiquitous as it is completely erroneous. Look: Each is good. Each is different. Each is good for different things.
Mac is a better choice for garden-variety people who are just not technically proficient. A one-size-fits-all, simplified OS - that in general works pretty well.
Mac marketing is actually pretty good, because they've successfully spread ideas and claims in their ads are just blatantly untrue: Mac computers never crash, whereas PC's crash every day. Mac computers don't get computer viruses, PC's might as well be bags of e-disease.
Now: What's worse than Mac marketing? I give you the inept marketing of...
Microsoft
Where do I even to begin?
First, I think we can start by saying Microsoft should be ashamed of it's marketing teams for allowing Mac to beat them like a red-headed stepchild. Mac has something like 8% of the OS market. They would have half that if it weren't for allowing the blatantly untrue claims in the Mac ads (see above) to go uncontested.
Second, most Windows ads are bad. Really bad. At time of writing there is a series of television ads (running more than any other Microsoft ads) that feature telephone interviews with various CEO's. These conversations are then animated over with stick-figure-style animation. Finally, there is no point to the conversations. There is no marketing message, other than a big Microsoft logo at the end of the ad. I'm convinced they just run these ads to burn money for the tax write-off. Here ya go:
Let's make an example of the above. The "narrator" asks the CEO what the economic tsunami means to a surfing CEO. The CEO rattles off a bunch of bullshit about technology being so great, and the commercial is over. That's the ad.
Of course, Microsoft has a long history of astoundingly bad marketing. Ballmer. Seinfeld. Baffling at best.
Now, Microsoft does have some great ads, but it never shows them. Take the ads for the release of the IE8 browser, viewable here. They're actually funny. They're actually good. There's also the commercial with the Kylie, the 4 1/2 year old who demonstrates how easy it is to edit and print her own photos on a PC. A great ad - just rarely shown on TV.
And now some constructive criticism. Microsoft needs to call Mac's bullshit. They need to show the good ads, and eliminate the crappy Enterprise ads. Enterprise ads need to outline the true benefits and reasons to go with a Microsoft Enterprise contract - and if that part of their business needs to be overhauled to provide value: DO IT.
I'd be alright if Microsoft came up with some new ads in the Crazy People-style for Windows 7 that basically said: Look, Vista really did suck. We're sorry. We made Windows 7 and it's actually really, really good.
Yahoo!
Notice the exclamation point in the name? Is it there because there's exuberance from over 10 years of bad management decisions? Or is it there as an ironic Scarlett-punction mark... Yahoo! being a cry of celebratory joy, when the company actually really sucks? Until this "!" question is resolved, let's just go with Yahoo?
Here's a little-known, well-known fact: Yahoo? used to be the number one search engine. That's right. When Google was just an itch in Larry Page and Sergio Brin's respective pants, Yahoo! (back then worthy of the !) was the top search engine used by web folk. (Okay - so they were actually a directory back then, but you get the point... they were what people used because it was the best thing available.)
As of writing, Yahoo had only an estimated 16% market share.
What the hell happened?
I've been arguing for years that Yahoo? simply has an untenable business plan: They want to be all things to all people: email, horoscopes, messenger, web host - and every other function you can think of under the sun other than search. They have had 10 years of upper management that has been unable to understand the simple fact that in business you really need to pick one thing, and be really good at that one thing. The rest is just window dressing.
Take a look at the homepages of Yahoo? and Google. Pretend you just stepped out of the Delorean from 1985, you've just found out about the Internet, and you're trying to figure out what the fuck you're supposed to do on these pages:
Hey Yahoo?: Here's an idea: It's about the search, dummy.
Ever since Google beat the snot of them, Yahoo? has been trying to play catch-up ball making stupid-fucking-widgits rather than making their search the best out there.
And as for the partnering with Microsoft? Way to deliver the killing blow there Carol.
In closing...
I'm also all about the good marketing.
Bookmark this page. I'll update it whenever I get a bug up my ass about someone's bad marketing, or if I put up a site with regular posts about commercials, I'll let you know.