All I Want For Christmas...

 Less than two months ago, we couldn't wait for Election Day so that the barrage of political ads would mercifully end.  Now, I'm feeling the same way about Christmas.

As a career marketing veteran, I can appreciate the necessity of holiday advertising, the same way I know that political candidates need to run negative campaign ads; somehow it is justified as a contributor to positive end results.

Despite the tens of millions of dollars spent on holiday advertising, no one is tempting me with anything I want for Christmas.  The marketing campaigns that make the least sense to me are:

• Cars as presents.  Does anyone know anyone who actually has given someone a car for Christmas?  If it's only the fabled 1% (or less) that the auto manufacturers are targeting, surely there's a more direct way to reach them?  I guess the only people who would be enticed by the suggestion that cars make good presents are those who are looking for a vehicle to drive over the fiscal cliff.
  
• Jewelry = love.   For three years now, people have been holding back on making replacement purchases on things that are necessities, like appliances, cars, even shoes, while waiting for the economy to turn around.  If I were to spend hundreds of dollars for a special necklace for my wife, I'm quite sure that her reaction would not be astonished gratitude and amplified feelings of love.  More likely it would be a suspicion that I have lost all sense of reality (or that I'm guilty of something and trying to create a diversion).

The fatal flaw in these marketing campaigns is how badly they affect the desired emotional connection with their brand.  These luxury categories are certainly about aspiration and promoting the joy of giving (which ironically is a highly noble and Christian value).  Yet for the vast majority of people who are struggling through financial difficulties, these ads serve as a harsh reminder that we don't have enough money, that our careers haven't been successful enough, that we don't measure up to other people.  We want to do more, but we just...can't.  So the inadvertent outcome of these "brand building" campaigns is to make us feel worse about ourselves, and then associate those negative feelings with the advertised brand.  As my brilliant colleague Steve Gang (founder of Resonance Insights) notes, "rather than creating an engagement strategy, marketers who aren't in touch with what their audience really wants and needs are potentially creating an estrangement strategy."

The appropriate level of ad testing would likely uncover this double-edged sword, but I suspect that most agencies would eschew the need for testing because they are oblivious to the negative consequences.

If you have insights to add to this conversation, please join in.