My Mea Culpa: Zimmerman Doesn’t Suck Because of Mr. Six
After some vicious comments on my Zimmerman post by the lovingly anonymous “Concerned Citizen” and “MD”, I’ll admit, I’m an ass and did forget to update the post to reflect the fact that Zimmerman didn’t actually create the aneurysm-inducing Mr. Six ad for Six Flags. Good for them.
But, I stand by the intent of the post, which was to say that pick-n-clickads.com is an embarrassment for our entire industry. Is that really what we need to say?
Well, this shit is easy! Strategy, who needs strategy? Just take our generic ads and put your name on it, and whammo, you’ll have money coming out of your ass!
As one commenter (and probable Zimmerman employee) said, “Better yet, Pick-n-Click was made by a top-notch CREATIVE team, with a
real understanding of patterns in advertising and consumer behaviors.
So like it or not, it’s coming. And you’ll probably never notice you
saw an ad made by a machine anyway…“
Yup, MD, you’re totally correct. I won’t notice. In fact, I won’t notice the ad at all. Kudos!
And, as I write more, another comment. Apparently, I’ve got it all wrong…
“It’s not about pre-fabricated creative. It’s about finding consistent
patterns in your creative, and exploiting the modularity of the ads for
maxmim effect. Why spend the money to produce 50 tv spots, when you can produce 3-5 with hundreds of combinations?“
Doesn’t really sound too much like the website, which says the following,
“Holidays. Model-Year End Closeouts. New Car or Used Car Sales Events.
Credit Events. These are the known staples of the automotive
advertising industry, and now a complete, comprehensive creative event
is available for you to pick and click! Just like our other services,
choosing a creative event template is easy and fast.“
There’s simply no way around it. Advertising is about people; not automation, not templates. All you’re doing is making it easier to clutter, that’s it.
But, I will say this, if you are Zimmerman employees, it’d be nice if you would actually stand up for yourselves without hiding behind a fake alias. If you’d like to open a conversation, believe me it would be welcomed. But, if we do talk, you have to call me Luke Skywalker. (if you read the comments, you’ll get what I mean).
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Repetition, especially to excess, is hard on...
Initially, I was disgusted by this concept as much as you were, but I believe that maybe there is a place for this type of ad generator, especially if it opens up the time the creative and production folks have to focus on new, cutting-edge executions. Sure this is the less than sexy side of the advertising world, but if you look at many of the online DR campaigns through ad servers that allow for dynamic optimization, they may not be pretty or something you want to submit for an award, but if they convert then it was successful. I can’t imagine something like this used for building awareness or favorability.
"Concerned Citizen" also posted on my site: http://pick-n-click-ads.com/?itemid=379#c
AHAHAHA they just got burned.. both on this site and the fact that they were retarded enough to send out a press-releases BEFORE buying the domains!!
lesson learned the hard way..
Ryan- I see what you mean, but I think you are really arguing my point. These templates will inevitably just be another addition to the clutter. We already have so much, we should be working harder at being more “cutting edge” as you say. And the idea that a program like this will free up time and money to work on actual GOOD work is a fantasy. If a company is willing to using templates, you can bet they’re not the ones concered with making innovative creative.
Peter- That’s awesome. This guy really needs to take a couple deep breaths. He’s the type that will probably just be run over anyway. If you saw the other comment thread, he referred to us as star wars geeks with no jobs. I’m glad to know that this is the way Zimmerman views the blogosphere. I’ll be sure to steer clear.
And, that reaction to an honest opinion is a little shocking, and a lot unprofessional. A better way to handle it would be the way BBDO handled the copyranter (as Danny posted about yesterday)…
http://gawker.com/news/lies-well-disguised/lies-well-disguised-bbdo-neither-b-stands-for-bloated-230679.php
So, Milan, what do you think? Ready to fess up and stand up for your company as yourself? You actually seemed to be the reasonable one.
Didn’t Sergio Zyman warn us about this in the mid 90’s with “Cookie Cutter” marketing?
I’m a little annoyed that the Zimmerman cronies didn’t feel like their awesome pick ‘n click idea wasn’t good enough to defend.
[...] In what amounts to a bitchslap, Deutsch has created its own ad generator, a parody of Zimmerman’s disturbing mistake, pick-n-clickads.com. [...]
There’s nothing to hide, Mr. McEnany. As the chief architect of the system, I’m proud of the results after 2 years dedicated to building it. Truthfully, I felt very similar to the creative bloggers who’ve shared their sentiments on a variety of sites. However, as a former student of architecture and more than 13 years in balls-to-the-wall advertising, I strongly believe I’ve built a system that ENABLED clients to take control of their localized advertising and FREED agencies to focus on better creative.
There are really two Pick-n-Clicks. The first is a library of prefrabricated creative content, built for auto dealers by an agency with over 15 years of automotive experience, which can be customized (by the user) in all major media types. The second is a brand control tool – or content manager and media builder. Clients (ex: Best Buy) can have their agencies produce quarterly creative campaigns (with an eye for modularity) and maintain absolute brand consistency from Tier 1 to Tier 3.
Know what a Motorola ad looks like? Imagine the agency producing the creative, but the client (ex: regional marketing directors) choosing from a menu of specific phone/contract offers and a host of locations in our system? Does that really kill the human-touch, or does it simply enable for smarter executions and faster delivery to the marketplace?
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