LEGO Batman, Or Product Placement To Art

Capes Are Impractical

Last Saturday morning, fulfilling a six-month promise to my youngest daughter (age 11), we went to the LEGO Batman Movie... and man alive, is this one *spectacular* piece of marketing. Wrapped in 104 minutes of in-jokes for comic book nerds, cultural references that span five decades, and a great voice acting performance by lead Will Arnett (full disclosure: I am a complete Arnett mark, going back to his work in "Arrested Development", but also "Bojack Horseman"), there's one overwhelming and fairly unrelenting message.

Buy your kids some LEGO.

Or, at the very least, some LEGO video games.

Hell, take them to LEGOland, too. There's probably some cool stuff there. (Confession: I've done this. A long time ago, but it was done. And there is cool stuff there. But let's move on from the free ad.)

Now, this isn't exactly news or surprising, given that the name of the toy is right in the title of the film. The sheer brazenness of the pitch made me completely OK with it, as a marketer, and even as a parent. My 11-year-old isn't quite immune to these pitches, but she's certainly very aware of them, and hasn't asked for more or less Lego in her life than what was there before.

However, just because the toothpaste is out of the tube, but it's good toothpaste and the counter was clean, doesn't exactly make this a wonderful development.

It's not exactly news that the movies are a very compromised art form, with a well-worn mix of casting in four key demographics to pack the house. There's also foreign sensibilities that have to come into play to make back the development and advertising costs, which tends to push things down into the non-verbal stage. With costs in the nine figure range, sequels and transfers from other art forms are rife. If you want to watch something truly ground-breaking or innovative, you are much better off with something on a streaming service or cable provider, where the story telling has more time to establish itself, and there's no need to please more than a niche audience.

The trouble is that just because LEGO does this well, directly and fairly above board, that doesn't mean that every one else in the kid movie market will behave the same, or will do so for work that is of excellent quality. There's something more than a little unseemly about how a movie for kids *has* to have jokes for the parents now, because when you make work for all audiences, you are compromising your effectivenes to some degree, and also your art.

Which seems to not be a big deal when you are dealing with something like an animated movie, and it doesn't all have to be Shakespeare, yes.

But the plain and simple is that there are only so many movies that I'm going to be able to take the kid to, and only so many moments in her childhood that you get to share. And while we had a great time today, I'm not sure how much long-term impact this movie is going to have on her.

Unlike, well, some animated movies that I've taken my kids to. Like "Spirited Away", a legitimately amazing piece of art, or "Iron Giant", or "Up", or "Inside Out"...

All of which, I think, would stay in the mind of the viewer a lot longer than "LEGO Batman."

And probably not make as much money, and certainly won't inspire sequels.

* * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The Emperor's Ad Costs

Clad In Rights Fees

Tonight in the Super Bowl, we had the first game that ever went to overtime, and the biggest comeback in the history of the sport. Lady Gaga performed to good reviews in the halftime show. Social media was alive with stuck helmets, amazing catches, inadvertently aired profanities, the post-game reaction of the Boston fan base against the league's commissioner, and many other game-related events.

Which means that... well... a very questionable marketing and advertising decision became ever more questionable, really.

I get why national advertisers are loathe to give up the Super addiction, honestly, I do. It's *hard* to spend five million, in a way that will get noticed, in a world with hundreds of channels and millions of feeds, and all of that was true *before* we had a 24/7 news machine in the White House. (Oh, by the way? He rooted openly for one team, but turned off the game before the big comeback, so that's going to be its own news story in the aftermath, too.) On some level, it feels like the game is the only television show that matters any more, rather than just the biggest.

But here's the thing; unless you are somehow able to get your ad noticed for the merits of the creative or your product -- unlikely at best, especially when the game is compelling -- you are pretty much playing the same game as 60-other odd candidates. Entertain with some kind of joke or visual payoff, hope that borrowed celebrity interest will make yours cut through the clutter, and "win" the news cycle of the next week, when any number of marketing and advertising writers pass out grades. If that news cycle even exists.

News flash: the grades don't translate into sales for your client. They might translate into awards for agencies, and I suppose that might create business down the line, but I've always thought the best way to make sure you've got business to do is directly, through increasing sales and awareness. Which isn't really what most big game ads do.

What could you do with the five million bucks that you need to pony up for a 30-second spot? In the case of small market awareness clients like Alfa Romeo, an inexplicable presence in this year's game, probably celebrity visits to individual buyers in key markets, because honestly, there just aren't that many people who've got the scratch and interest in supercars.

You could probably own a social media platform for the better part of a week for people who are actually targeted and attuned to your goods or services. Perhaps a few million unavoidable 30-second audio spots on streaming music services or podcasts, targeted spots that users can't skip or leave the room for on YouTube, goodies in direct mail, spots in theaters where people are pretty much a captive audience, outdoor and print spots that might actually help build your brand and make your other channels more effective, or just to be blunt, targeted discounts to a prospect list... or some very healthy combination of all of the above. That you could measure, learn from, and improve moving into the future, because you'd have a control, testing data, and all of that other really unsexy stuff. I've had this gig for other companies; we've done pretty far-reaching programs, with outreach in a dozen channels, for a fraction of that thirty second moon shot.

You know, an actual plan, rather than just a one-off approach that will be forgotten about in a week, or, in the event of a really compelling game like last night's, as soon as the spot ends.

But I'm sure it'll all be better next year, when the costs are higher and the audience is lower, because the NFL isn't doing quite so good of a job as you might like in attracting younger audiences. (It's also not as likely to have the same number as it did this year, since overtime hadn't happened in the previous 50-odd games.)

Honestly, how many years do we have to see that the emperor has no clothes before we stop buying spots in the fashion program?

* * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Your Choices In Crisis

Small fingered fist

Late last week, my teen aged daughter was asking my wife and I for advice, as she was overbooked and overwhelmed between commitments. "I feel like I can't win," she said, in detailing her options, and I was able, in a minor miracle given her age and nature, to get a word in edgewise. "Well, actually, you can't *lose*," I said, and pointed out that the story of how her weekend could go also had the same ability to be spun in a positive manner. My pitch worked, her outlook changed, she got her work done, and we're that much closer to the (blessed, blessed) day she starts college.

If you read my columns routinely, this is where you might expect the pivot to marketing and advertising matters. Not yet. Hold on for a little while longer.

Many people in our industry, since our work tends toward urban areas and diverse staffs, have felt personally impacted by the regime change in the U.S. this month, and even more directly by this weekend's changes to immigration policy. Even if you haven't been personally impacted yet, it's easy to find people in your network who have, either from travel uncertainties to social pressures, concerns over health care, and so on.

Personally, I find myself increasingly irritated by the amount of distraction and stress created by all of this. The silver lining from one party in charge of all branches of government was supposed to be a better economy, thanks to job-creating deregulation, better trade deals, badly needed and wildly delayed investments in infrastructure, and so on. Instead, there's been comedic overreaches about things that shouldn't matter to anyone, a continuing move of the goalposts in regard to conflict of interest disclosure, and now, censorship and a piecemeal immigration ban that seems more about where the family of the Oval Office resident owns hotels, rather than any real improvement to our national security, either in the short or long term.

So instead of being able to just focus on the day to day of your, well, day to day, you get to navigate this mine field of social media firestorms, and the alarm of people in your network who have already been negatively affected. Which all seems like a race to the bottom of seeing which side can make the other break first, either through executive actions or effective protest, legal challenge, and so on. American elections are among the longest in the world, and now, we've got one that will seemingly never end. (And before anyone feels that this is just how the losing side won't get over it... note how Trump's infamous Twitter feed dismissed the immigration opinions of Senators Graham and McCain by noting that they are both failed presidential candidates, as if this invalidates their opinions whenever it disagrees with his.)

Still with me? Good. Here's that pivot that I promised you.

As marketers and advertisers, it seems like we can't win. If we choose a side in this circus, we cut our audience. If we don't, we risk looking complicit or irrelevant. And if we are somehow mentioned in the dreaded Twitter stream, our stock prices tank, and all of our efforts are put in the media spin cycle.

But what's also possible is that this is a situation where you can't lose. If your product or service delivers a good and simple benefit, it's going to seem downright refreshing in the current climate. Boring is the new safe, and safe is the new peace. Consumer loyalties are going to grow as more and more of our brain cells are taken up by the viral politic. If you are a new player to the field, there will never be a better time to engineer a viral message by picking a side. Opportunities are, frankly, rife for both leading brands and challengers.

Worried that no one is paying attention to your ads in a multi-channel age? It's my belief that if the current condition is the New Normal, any number of people will begin to opt out of the social media channels altogether, or at least, to limit their time, because you can only block so many people before the exercise just seems pointless. Yes, we may have finally found a way to increase television ratings, or to get print media numbers to stop shrinking.

A final personal aside. Last Friday night, I held my every 3 weeks poker game. With my regulars bringing in more and more new players, the game has never been more popular, and we had the most players ever in my space. I've also made things trickier on myself by switching to playing records for background music. So I'm up and down a lot, tending my turntable, playing my hands, keeping both rooms aware of the blinds and ante levels, and such. In the hustle and bustle, I lost track of my phone, and didn't have it back in my hands for a solid eight hours, until the last hands were dealt, and clean-up was completed.

So for all that time, I had no idea what the Administration had done, what my network thought about it, or any of the noise of the outside world. I just had my friends, and my poker game, and my music.

I didn't win money on Friday night. I was fortunate enough to break even.

It was also the most fun I've had in weeks... and I think I'm going to be smart enough to start losing my phone more often.

Because choosing not to engage in a crisis is also a choice, and an increasingly refreshing one.

* * * * *

Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.