Today's ad column in the Wall Street Journal focuses on Arnold's use of Lisa Harvey, a woman with a PhD in cognitive science, to help them figure out such hard-to-figure-out things like the fact that a spot for diet Ocean Spray cranberry juice that features women exercising is an easier "get" for consumers than a similar ad that shows them partying.
Ms. Harvey who the unlinkable article claims (I kid you not) walks around Arnold's Boston offices in a lab coat, also persuaded the agency to wait a few extra beats before announcing the name of the commercial because there was too much action going on in the ad (the exercising) for consumers to process the name right away.
No shit, Sherlock.
First off, WTF is with the lab coat? You're a shrink (of sorts) not a biologist. The purpose of a lab coat is to prevent chemicals, blood or other yucky things from getting on your clothing. I mean does she walk around with a monocle as well?
Second, in my world, we call observations like these "common sense." Exercising conveys "diet" faster than partying? Ya think?
So many people make so much money giving fancy names to things we already know. And with her lab coat prop, Ms. Harvey is certainly a master of this.
4 comments:
maybe she needs the labcoat to prevent getting ocean spray splashed onto her—it is a pretty toxic chemical.
is arnold responsible for those horrible spots with the morons standing in a cranberry pool? if so, they can't be expecting us to believe that shit required insights from lisa harvey.
Give this man a prize!
While I have not seen them personally, HJ, your description seems to match the one given by the WSJ: "The spot features two men, in the role of cranberry growers, standing knee-deep in a bog."
That's the campaign. The guy on the left is the older, "wiser" grower, while the guy on the right is his idiot son or nephew who evidently has an IQ approaching 50.
It's kind of like Bartles & James, but with Andy Dick replacing Hal Riney as the writer.
Finally saw the spot last night. Better than I expected and, fwiw, it was the only spot the 5 non-ad guys I was playing cards with actually laughed at that hour.
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