Humor, irreverence, formality, political correctness, or whatever quality doesn't seem to be the issue so much as it is authenticity of any kind.
But advertising never was authentic. The goal is to drive sales using whatever tools the audience can tolerate, however shameless, and advertising has always pushed boundaries, followed by the inevitable wave of copycats that turn the innovative into the mundane.
The tool in this case is constructing a parasocial sockpuppet personality as if McDonald's or whatever deserves a seat at your digital table in between your actual friends. When everyone is just an avatar grinding for likes and followers anyway, they might as well be.
It irritates me more than it should, but I hate how virtually all major brands and sports teams seem to have the same “voice” on social media now. They all have this “desperate to be hip” and snarky tone of an urban teenager, all express the same restrained support for the social issue of the day (regional accounts may be excluded), and all overuse emoji.
I feel a lot of big YouTube channels do the same thing. The terrible thumbnails, the editing out of any pause, thought, or breath, the quips and the half-smirks. It just seems kind of juvenile or a dumbing down of things.
I don't get it, but I'm also not the audience so I try not to judge too harshly.
I’m right there with you. The constant attempt to be relevant and jump in on every situation is obnoxious. We can see right through you that you’re trying to manipulate us.
I'm still not sure why so many people think that random household product companies should be a source of political opinions. But for some reason there is consumer demand for that, at least in America. It almost makes the obsession with movie stars' takes on unrelated current affairs seem sensible in comparison
Half the population has a double digit IQ. The methodology has converged on what it has because it works on the majority of the population. Most people don't see through it.
I agree that it is the strategy because it works, but I dont think you can just blame it on the stupids.
A lot of social branding is made by the upper class, for the upper class. After all, they are the ones with disposable income looking for meaning at the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
I'm not sure there's a reliable distinction between the wealthy and the stupids. Very little wealth is generated solely or principally as a consequence of applied exceptional intelligence or talent.
Increasingly, as pools of wealth become so concentrated as to be impossible to consume entirely within a statistically average adult lifespan, and are thus passed on to offspring, there is little to no intelligence or talent necessary whatsoever.
For an extreme example consider that in my country we are about to endow yet another habitual gambler with a multi-billion dollar fortune, instantly catapulting them and their entire family over multiple generations, into status of what amounts to minor nobility. And their contribution to society, at least as far as this reward is concerned, is that they had the foresight to spend $5 or $10 or $100 on lottery tickets for the unknownteenth week in a row.
I agree that it isnt deterministic, but I think there is a very real correlation between wealth and intelligence, however you want to define the latter.
How much disposable income does the illiterate 20% of Americans have, and who is targeting them with their social consciousness marketing
I work in marketing. Every brand I know complains that there is no humor anymore. And that they can’t be funny, and have to walk on eggshells with watered down messaging, because there are so many different groups that are easily offended.
I don't work in marketing. My exposure to ads/commercials is generally only during live sports.
The Superbowl used to be not only the ultimate NFL event but also the "super bowl" of commercials. They used to make you laugh. We used to actually want to watch them. The last 5-ish years of Superbowls have completely flipped that. Now we mute during commercials because they are all so sterile and unfunny or faking sincerity about this year's major social topic.
Now, watching NFL, the commercials are actively grating, annoying, and the complete opposite of entertaining.
I mute these shitty commercials now. I used to love them.
Marketing departments have ruined yet another thing that used to be enjoyable.
If you're still talking about it 24 years later, it did what it was supposed to.
> Heinerscheid, who became a vice president at the company in July 2022, stated that her goal was to evolve the Bud Light advertising to make it more inclusive, and to move it away from its "fratty and out-of-touch humor". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Bud_Light_boycott)
"Fratty and out-of-touch humor" stuck the landing well enough to be remembered for 24 years and counting. Budweiser's customer base being both brand-loyal and outspoken homophobes, Heinerscheid thought it would be a hip and trendy idea to associate a trans influencer with the brand. Now Budweiser is on its deathbed.
Talk about being out-of-touch...Heinerscheid must have been the former VP of advertising at Quizno's.
Yeah brands aren't funny (if they ever were), they are "clever" and "snarky" to the point of irritation. Sincerity is seen as unhip and unsophisticated and all the brands don't want that.
I think it's the same vein of quippy, pithy, nothing-is-serious line of humor that started to infect film after the success of the Avengers and the follow on films.
That seems to follow the comics. I think for the last 20 years or so Marvel comic characters are all sarcastic one-liner comedians committing ultra-violence on each other every month.
I'm begging everyone to embrace New Sincerity and Solarpunk. Doomerism, snark, and irony is extremely lame, and when corporations do it it's even lamer. Wendys social media is dystopian.
The future is going to be fucking awesome. We're gonna have cute girls on ebikes. We're going to have GMO food that eliminates hunger worldwide, and robots that harvest them and end farm worker exploitation. You're gonna have solar panels on your ADU, they'll power a little light, and you're gonna read a book and listen to the bugs and life will be good.
If all comedians are funny, is anything funny? Please. The problem is clearly that they're all only trying to be funny and most of them are not very good at it.
I've been reading these funny tweets for years from sh!tposters for years. It's funny but offers zero value. Wendy's was the first that gained traction, I think, and pivoted to a big payout.
But advertising never was authentic. The goal is to drive sales using whatever tools the audience can tolerate, however shameless, and advertising has always pushed boundaries, followed by the inevitable wave of copycats that turn the innovative into the mundane.
The tool in this case is constructing a parasocial sockpuppet personality as if McDonald's or whatever deserves a seat at your digital table in between your actual friends. When everyone is just an avatar grinding for likes and followers anyway, they might as well be.