Please stop. Please?

I need a way to block out the advertising and marketing. Halloween starts in September. Christmas started before Halloween this year — the CVS near us had their Christmas merchandize out in the middle of October. Thanksgiving was blown over everywhere except for folks who market to the foodies, who, thankfully (…heh), only did a small push a week or two beforehand. And I’ve already seen the beginnings of New Year’s advertising — why are your Best of 2004 and Predictions for 2005 lists already out? You know that Valentine’s Day will be pushed on the 2nd of January. Don’t we ever get a break?

My irritation is partially due to the fact that I read the newsletters for fifteen online newspapers every day as part of my job. (And that’s not counting the trade publications or websites I visit on the sly.) Most, if not all, of these are supported by advertising. Which means that I see a hell of a lot of ads, even when I don’t want to.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons I lovelovelove my TiVo. The more ads I see at work, the fewer I want to see at home. (Look! I just advertised for a brand.)

It’s an event-based structure: you go from holiday to holiday, disregarding what happens daily. What’s wrong with the daily routine? Apparently, it doesn’t make you spend enough money. (Although P&G’s got a nice little business over there dealing with folks’ daily routines. But they don’t shell out money for big holiday advertising campaigns either.)

Gah.

I’m Sick of Being An Ad

Second post on a theme: withdrawing.

Advertisers are befuddled by the idea of a clothing line that doesn’t have a brand logo. They think what it shows is that good creative (that’s the actual ad content for everyone who hasn’t been exposed to the advertising industry) will help drive people to the product without a logo.

They seem to be entirely, nay, blissfully unaware that people might just be getting sick of all the damn ads they see everywhere. Right now, at my desk at work, I can see advertising for:

• Lipton tea
• amazon.com
• comScore (Neilson/Netrating’s main competitor)
• Forrester Research
• Kate Spade
• Baby Innovations (they made my insulated lunch bag)
• Calvin Klein Jeans
• Vividence
• OIC (they make my paperclips)
• Kleenex

And that doesn’t even count my company logo.

Forrester published an article a few months back about how the most effective marketing was a good customer experience, and that any marketing strategy looking to increase loyalty had to actually improve your customers’ experience with the company. No, really?

Companies (and their advertisers) don’t seem to realize that people might be getting fed up with it. Well, with the advent of the TiVo, some of them are.

Look, the point is that putting your logo up in front of everyone all the time is a short-term way to make people buy your stuff. Giving people a good experience is the long-term way.