Leave Me Alone

Remember the scene in Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” when they strapped Malcolm McDowell into the theater seat, pried his eyes open and forced him to watch violent, sexual scenes in an attempt to destroy his craving for such things?

Well that’s exactly how I felt when flying from Sydney to LA recently. Here I was strapped into seat for 14 hours, forced to look at the commercials and ads for Quantas and their advertising partners. Now since I am a marketing guy, traveling to Australia to speak to hundreds of people about marketing I thought this would be a great chance to do a little “research.” Well not only were the number of ads overdone but they were horribly unremarkable in their context. I mean BORING!

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the Aussie ads were bad. In fact most of the advertising was for American companies and they stunk. Badly.

How many of feel that sometimes the level of advertising is just too much?

Look at all those hands going up.

If you’re like most when you get tired of seeing advertising you just “look away.” If it’s a TV or radio commercial we can change the channel. If it’s a print ad or direct mailer we can turn the page or toss it in the trash. But what if you’re a captive audience at 38,000 feet traveling at 600 miles per hour with nowhere to turn for 14 straight hours?

The airline installs these monitors in the back of every head rest so no matter where you turn it’s in your face. You can’t even turn it off because as soon as you do the screen saver pops on and you have to look at what amounts to a PowerPoint display of ads. So I came up with a solution. I’d put the barf bag over the screen. Great idea, right? Well get this; Quantas, not wanting to lose the opportunity to turn us off with yet more bad ads, even sells advertising on the barf bag! By the way this was also true in Business Class!

Let me ask you, do you think I remember the great service on Quantas? (By the way they wait on you hand and foot.)
Sorry, NO!

Do you think I will remember the great deal? (Less than $1200 per person non-stop!)
NO way!

How about the timely departure and landing? (We arrived early BOTH in LA and Sydney!)
Wrong again.

What I will remember for a long time to come is the constant assault of those unremarkable ads. It’s funny I can’t remember the ads just the fact that I had to work so hard to get away from them.

There are a number of lessons you can gain from this story:

If possible, fly first class on a transcontinental flight.
Always keep your barf bag handy, you never know what you might need it for.
Now you know why that little Koala always said, “I hate Quantas.”
When you create your advertising make sure it’s interesting, remarkable and appropriately delivered. Or you may be spending advertising dollars to drive away customers.

Hey Quantas, I hope you made enough money from all that advertising to make-up for all the customers you’re chasing away. I guess even big airlines need to learn to stop chasing and start attracting.

Have a great week.

Mark Deo

PS: Check out www.attractmorebusiness.com for more about how to create marketing that works for you, not against you!

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