Duxford Girl

I love marketing. I find the tricks of the trade fascinating and I'm always watching or reading ads to see what exactly the ad is trying to elicit from the watcher or reader.

For instance, Duracell (batteries) runs several commercials talking about how they are chosen for various emergency services, hospitals and NASA projects. What you need to know about that is that publicly funded agencies usually have to find the lowest bidder for everything. My guess is that Duracell deliberately bids low for these public services guaranteeing that theirs will be the battery used say in fire-fighter “man-down” alarms. It costs them initially because of their low bid but gives them great advertising potential. In my opinion, it's brilliant. Gen X has grown up. We've got portfolios, we're having babies, buying cars and going on vacations. Gone are the days of our torn jeans and cynical, alternate “we-hate-everything” rock bands. Of course, we're not too excited about admitting that we've lost our cool. A lot of companies have picked up on this and are gearing their advertising to say “it's okay Gen X, you're still hip, you're still cool.” Carnival Cruise Lines has ads geared toward the hipster-dofus couple showing them with their hipster-dofus kids scuba diving and spelunking while on day trips off the ship. One car company (I can't remember which; meaning that that particular ad was not too effective for me) featured a cool couple with their baby's car seat covered in tour stickers before putting it into a mini-van.

Another technique is the use of music. Most Gen Xers did their growing up in the 80s and so that music has special memories. Swifter almost always uses some tune from the early part of the decade, like Blondie. I bring this up because I'm watching Top Gun. The big ballad from this movie was Berlin's “Take My Breath Away”. When I was in junior high school, no dance ended without this being the last song. At any rate, I recently noticed that the song is being used to advertise Gain laundry detergent. I just have to get this off my chest:

TAKE MY BREATH AWAY SHOULD CONJURE UP IMAGES OF F-14S BURNING OFF THE DECK OF AN AIR CRAFT CARRIER WITH FULL AFTER-BURNERS, IMMELMAN TURNS AND WING OVERS NOT LAUNDRY

I feel much better. Needless to say, Gain is not winning me over as a customer.