Viewers don't want to feel like they're being “marketed to” at all. In an age where you can skip commercials on your DVR and change tabs to Facebook while Hulu's loading, any media text that doesn't seek to entertain as much as it seeks to promote simply won't work. How outdated does this "hard sell" look? Yet 25 years later companies still employ the tactic.
When brands, like Jameson Whisky, stop insulting their viewers intelligence and deliver a beautiful, cinematic experience that actually engages viewers, they get trust and loyalty in return. In other words, an audience who actually cares.
I think it's telling the top rated comment is:
Jameson made their whisky an essential element to the story they were telling--the whisky is crucial, but only in that it advances the narrative. Notably, "Bushman1518" doesn't say it's his favorite commercial ever, he says it's his favorite story ever.
This is a prime example content marketing, a revolutionary concept I'll write more about in my next original post.
To bring this post full circle, here's a promo for the latest Black Keys album, called "El Camino," which makes fun of the "hard sell" used-car-dealerships-commercial trope to great comedic effect:
Yeah, I think this is a really fascinating shift in advertising as well. It's interesting to see the ways that companies are now trying to grab people's attention. It seems like there's a trend to create outlandish, odd advertisements that will stick in people's heads (Old Spice for example). The brand itself almost seems to be an afterthought now so that people feel that they're being entertained instead of being sold to.
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