Waiting for Number Five

Recently I've felt that various advertising agencies have become lazy with regard to marketing campaigns. My most recent dissatisfaction is with the idea of using the product name as a verb.
Take the local i-mate campaign that starkly asks, "I-mate, do you?"

All right, even if I were to stretch it to the point of favoring it, I would think it to be kinky and almost extra-terrestial in its bluntness. I-mate, do you? I-Tarzan, You-Jane. I-come-in-peace.

Keeping their product image in mind, I can understand their strategy that promotes the imagined and unimagined extents of communications. One can tell what they're driving at with the dimly lit room and the numerous appeals to the senses.

So all in all, it's an effectively executed campaign judging from the mood of the television advertisement until the catch-phrase in the end.

Now take the example of the BMW showroom on main Zamzama Boulevard where the BMW Mini Cooper is on display. Streamers in the showroom read, "Let's Mini."

Now what on earth is that?! Let's Mini?! Let's Mickey! Let's Scooby Doo AND while we're at it, let's do the Hokey Pokey and turn around... Forget all that, let's polka!

What kind of image are they trying to portray with a campaign like that? A convertible for the foozy-
minded? BMW is not about that. It's about smooth cruising, not a happy jig.

Verbs work for catchy words, words that denote various meanings and moods, like jazz or mate and I honestly can't think of anymore at the moment, which is all the more reason that advertising agencies need to chuck out the first idea of making the product name do everything out the window, and come up with another, better idea.

In my extremely brief exposure to graphic designing I learnt the invaluable lesson that the first three or four ideas that a person usually comes up with are the mainstream ideas that almost everyone can think of. The trick behind effective advertising is to discard these initial ideas and come up with catch-phrases less thought of but more often remembered and repeated with spunk.

For I am repeating these slogans, but not with spunk.

Hey gang! Let's Mini!