http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/05/hard-sell-how-mad-men-spin-recession

In a striking admission of the chaotic new reality, in March the advertising goliath Ogilvy & Mather—which counts Coca-Cola, Ford, Kraft, and IBM among its blue-chip clients—launched a dedicated Recession Marketing Practice. Brochures announcing the new venture ooze confidence, but also give off a slightly ominous vibe; they open with a quote from Charles Darwin ("It is not the strong, nor the intelligent who survive, but those who are quickest to adapt") and prominently feature Ogilvy's fatalistic motto: "We sell—or else." ...

Conveniently for ad firms, students of recession and depression economics (from Wharton professors to basement-dwelling business bloggers) advise spending as much on ads as possible—to "steer into the skid," rather than slam on the brakes and wind up in the ditch. According to Ogilvy's own stats, companies with enough cojones "to increase marketing spend" will dramatically enlarge their market share during the recession and—just as enticingly—recover an average of three times faster once happy days return. Counterintuitively, product visibility, more than price cuts or gimmicks like BOGOF (buy one get one free), drives consumers' purchases in tough times. Better, in short, to blow your budget on aggressive advertising than to lose money offering discounts.

But the real challenge—the art, even—of recession marketing is perfecting a pitch that doesn't emphasize your hunger for your cash-conscious buyers' cash. Ogilvy recommends using "reassurance messages"—acknowledgments of the current situation, couched in a spirit of we're-in-this-together-ness. A good example is a recent Allstate commercial, in which Dennis Haysbert (known as 24's crisis-plagued first black president) intones over a Ken Burns-style slideshow of Depression-era photographs, "1931 was not exactly a great year to start a business, but that's when Allstate opened its doors." He goes on, "After the fears subside, a funny thing happens: People start enjoying the small things in life—a home-cooked meal, time with loved ones, appreciating the things we do have, the things we can count on. It's back to basics, and the basics are good." What exactly home cooking has to do with car insurance is unclear, but that's the point. Allstate is feeling our pain.

Not that any of this has to be true or even reflect consumers' best interests: Reassurance messages, Ogilvy notes, "don't need to be purely rational, of course. Indeed, there is growing evidence that emotionally based messages are more persuasive than rational ones." Hard to believe companies pay big bucks for news flashes like this.

Originally written by Jacek K. on May 19, 2009 9:35 AM http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/05/hard-sell-how-mad-men-spin-recession    they open with a quote from Charles Darwin ("It is not the strong, nor the intelligent who survive, but those who are quickest to adapt") and prominently feature Ogilvy's fatalistic motto: "We sell—or else." ...

So adapt they do. From http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/11/46_watch_dvr_with_commercials.php:

I love to use my DVR to fast-forward through commercials. In a one-hour show, I can knock out generally just under 20 minutes of advertisements. That means DVR makes TV watching around 30% more efficient. I can then use the saved time to do something useful or entertaining. According to a New York Times article today, not everyone has the same attitude as I do when it comes to skipping commercials. In fact, nearly half of DVR users let the advertisements play. While I found this shocking at first, I shouldn't have.

The Times says:

Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer.

[...]

That is excellent news for all the con artists this website is also abuzz about, as I mentioned earlier:

Originally written by Jacek K. on October 30, 2009 3:25 PM Statements like yours are tantamount to saying that being informed about fraud, for example, will prevent people from falling for con offers from various Lehman Brothers et al. It won't, just as people won't stop watching commercials and running to stores to act on them, believing every single word that is being sold to them.

And now in the bus near you... From http://polandian.home.pl/index.php/2009/11/16/bus-tv/:

Bus TV

I always thought the one thing missing from the whole experience of traveling by bus was the opportunity to watch mind-numbingly dull commercials on TV. Simply enduring repeated umbrella blows to the thorax from combative old ladies is not enough these days. As if by a miracle my fantasies have been fulfilled by the advent of Bus TV. ....

Bus TV, in case you’re finding the name confusing, is TV on a bus. I don’t mean in the sense of those people who try to carry 72-inch plasma screens home on the bus because they’re too cheap to pay for delivery, I mean actual TV you can watch on an actual screen actually on the bus. If anybody had told me when I was ten that in the future I would be able to watch TV on the bus I probably would have gawped stupidly at them so fantastically exciting would the idea have seemed. Like most things in the future it turns out not to be that great. ...

 It’s just adverts. ...

The second problem with Bus TV is that there are only five adverts in a continuous loop. After approximately two and a half minutes you’ve watching the same ad again. Even in a country where posters covering entire multi-storey buildings count as classy advertising this is a trifle infuriating. At least on Polsat you’re unlikely to see the same ad for ultra-soft flu tablets lovingly cooked by grandmothers more than twice in the same session. During a 35-minute close watching of Bus TV I saw the same five adverts approximately 9 billion times.

The third and not most insignificant problem with Bus TV is the depressing nature of the ads. I’ve become acclimatized to the mainstream world of Polish TV advertising in which all men are inept (or sick), all children are adorable (or sick and adorable), and all women stand in sunlight doorways fondling vitamins or soup packets. Not so on Bus TV. The first feature was an unpleasant public service announcement about the dangers of smoking featuring lots of close-ups of cancerous lips, the second was some kind of cartoon about electricians being electrocuted in bathrooms, and the third was a bizarre and inexplicable drama about babies crawling around on grass littered with dog feces. Somewhere in there was an invitation to visit the opera that did little to lift the mood. By the time I got off the bus I felt like I’d just attended an all-night showing of the world’s most disturbing cinema.

I took a close look at the Bus TV website and discovered that it costs just 120 zl to place a 30-second advert in one bus for one month. The next time I plan to catch a bus I’m going to phone up the day before and buy myself 500 zeds worth of Simpsons highlights on infinite loop.