April Winchell

A story showed up in the news today about Britney Spears having a cocaine problem. I know, I didn’t see that one coming either.

Anyway, I read the story online, and as entertaining as it was, it paled in comparison to the joy I felt when I noticed the ad running with the story:

Isn’t that spectacular? It’s the kind of fantastic placement I think every advertiser hopes for.

As someone who has worked in advertising for many years, I find this sort of thing completely satisfying.

You have to take into consideration that advertising is subjected to a mind numbingly complex battery of tests before it ever sees the light of day. Everything is studied, from the colors to the font, all to make sure it’s memorable, leaves the right impression, “breaks through”, gets your attention, and does everything else it’s supposed to do. This testing and research costs more than the ad itself in many cases, and almost nothing gets done without it.

It’s all bullshit, of course, because taste is completely subjective. You can’t measure the effectiveness of an idea by doing a random sampling of people; you’ll only get a read on those particular people. And the more you overthink and research a creative idea, the more it turns to garbage. That explains why there’s so much garbage advertising, and why people like me hate that kind of testing so much.

So when I see an ad completely undermined by something as random as placement on a web site, it just makes my heart swell.

Here’s another one I saved from a few months ago:

The Joy of Eating.

Really, you couldn’t do better on The Onion.