Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal

Wait, What? Balenciaga Is Suing the Producers of Its Own Ad Campaign?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Oliver Darcy’s CNN Reliable Sources newsletter, when I came across these items.

• Kim Kardashian is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga amid backlash over the brand’s recent ad campaign that featured children with BDSM items. (NBC News)

• Balenciaga, meanwhile, is suing the producers of the ad campaign. (NPR)

Really, Doc, they get to do that – approve an ad campaign and then sue over it? Sounds kind of addled to me.

– Trying to Keep Up

Dear Trying,

Actually, it happens more often than you might think. (See here for a bunch of examples.) One of the most famous cases was this Super Bowl ad that retail chain Just For Feet ran in 1999.

Back then one of the Doc’s good pals produced a piece about the spot for APM’s Marketplace. Here’s how his commentary began.

Retailers are the hypochondriacs of the business world – endlessly taking their temperature at the cash register, constantly checking for downdrafts in the market, and looking over their shoulder at last year’s sales figures so often, it’s a wonder they don’t have chiropractors on staff. As for adventurous advertising, retailers may not be allergic to it, but excess creativity does tend to give them the sniffles.

All the more remarkable, then, that Just For Feet’s Super Bowl ad ever saw the blue light of day. The spot shows a barefoot Kenyan runner being tracked by white paramilitaries in a Humvee. They pull up alongside him, slip a Mickey into a cup of water that he inexplicably accepts, and next thing you know the runner wakes up to find a pair of Nikes on his feet.

(RUNNER) Nooooooooooooo  (ANCR) Just for Feet. To protect and serve feet.

Apparently, protecting and serving clients was not a priority for the retailer’s ad agency, Saatchi and Saatchi Business Communications. The press alternately labeled the spot reprehensible and racist, and Just for Feet kept seeing itself in the same sentence as Texaco and Denny’s. So the retailer sued the agency for marketing malpractice, which immediately raises the question, CAN someone violate the standards of an industry that clearly has none?

At least that’s the response Saatchi & Saatchi has filed in court papers according to a story in the Internet magazine Salon. That should put the agency in solid with its other clients . . .

Meanwhile, Just For Feet’s stock is down 75% since last year. Thanks to Saatchi & Saatchi, the stock of the ad industry could be even lower.

Just For Feet eventually dropped its $10 million lawsuit against Saatchi & Saatchi, shortly before the chain filed for bankruptcy.

Back to the present, NBC Today show contributor Lindsay Lowe detailed the origins of the Kardashian/Balenciaga dustup.

Kim Kardashian says she is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga in light of the brand’s recent ad campaign that featured images of young children posing with teddy bears that appeared to be wearing BDSM-inspired accessories.

 “I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven’t been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could have happened,” Kardashian, 42, wrote in her Instagram story on Sunday.

 “As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images,” she continued. “The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period.”

A couple of the ad images, for those of you keeping score at home.

So what did Balenciaga do about the media critiques of its campaign? The fashion house turned around and sued the creative team that came up with the ads. Balenziaga’s lawsuit rolled in an additional campaign with a controversial image, as NPR’s Emily Olson related.

Balenciaga, the luxury fashion brand that sparked back-to-back controversies over two recent ad campaigns, has signaled its plans to sue the production company North Six for its role in creating one of the ads.

The backlash began when online scrutinizers noticed a page from the 2008 Supreme Court decision United States v. Williams in the backdrop for an ad showcasing a $3,000 purse.

The ruling upheld the constitutionality of a child pornography conviction.

The ad, which has since been removed from the company’s website, was part of the fashion house’s Spring 2023 collaboration with the activewear brand Adidas.

As in Adidas, the company that just dumped Kanye West, who was recently dumped by his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, nicely completing the Circle of Brandicide.

For those of you keeping score at home, here’s the ad for the $3000 purse.

For the life of us, we can’t locate the offending document anywhere in the photograph. Then again, the Doc’s not an optometrist, okay?

But Google Images found it.

Anyway, here’s the current state of play as reported by Nick Kostov and Stacy Meichtry  in the Wall Street Journal.

Balenciaga filed a lawsuit in New York state against Nicholas Des Jardins, a set designer who worked on that ad campaign, and North Six, a production company involved in the photo shoot. In the lawsuit, Balenciaga alleges Mr. Des Jardins and North Six were responsible for including the excerpt of the court decision in the ad campaign.

“In no way was any controversial material intentionally placed by me or anyone on my team,” Mr. Des Jardins wrote in an email to The Wall Street Journal. “There were literally tens of thousands of papers on-set rented from a prop house,” he said.

North Six declined to comment.

Kim Kardashian has remained mum about the second ad donnybrook, while Balenciaga has deep-sixed both ad campaigns, saying they “reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.”

And for which Balenciaga should take a serious financial hit.

But that’s just our diagnosis.

Wait – 30,000 NH Campaign Ads on Boston Airwaves Since Labor Day?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading the Weekend Wall Street Journal, when I came across this item in John McCormick’s piece about the $7.5 billion being spent nationally on 2022 midterm campaign ads.

The Las Vegas market has had the heaviest advertising since Labor Day. Nevada is home to competitive races for governor and both chambers of Congress. Philadelphia, a top market in a state with open-seat races for Senate and governor, saw the second-most spots. Boston, in third place, covers parts of New Hampshire, where there are competitive House and Senate races.

What the hell, Doc – is it right that the good people of Boston should get dragged into the Granite State’s sadstravaganza?

– Campaign Addled

Dear Addled,

It’s not right, it’s politics.

Here’s the tally of campaign ads on broadcast and cable TV through October 17, according to AdImpact.

More to the point, the New Hampshire Senate race between incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan and challenger Don Bolduc (R-Gen. Strangelove) has produced almost $50 million in ad spending overall.

But here’s the difference: According to this Journal graphic on the share of negative ads aired, the Democrats are largely less combative overall than the smashmouth GOP.

That seems especially true in the Hassan-Bolduc race, given this YouTube compilation of Hassan’s recent ads, only one of which attacks Bolduc.

Hassan’s own YouTube channel doesn’t even include that spot, so she’s not exactly Maggie-fying Bolduc’s negatives.

As for Gen. Strangelove, he launched this TV spot – the first from his campaign – in early October

Check out this chart, though, from McCormick’s WSJ piece detailing what “candidates and their allies” spent  on TV ads from Labor Day through October 18.

That twenty-something million virtually all came from two Republican party groups – Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (representative samples here  and here) – both of which, according to this piece by New York Times reporters Shane Goldmacher and Trip Gabriel, have cancelled millions more in New Hampshire ad buys. 

The SLF had planned to spend $23 million on the Bolduc-Hassan bakeoff, but seems to have drawn the line at $18 million. Still, that’s throwing a lot of good money after a bad candidate.

Then again,  at least Boston TV viewers will be spared five million more dollars of attacks on Hassan by McConnell’s wet workers. Be thankful for small favors, yeah?

What’s Up With RadioShack Re-Branding Itself As RadioShock?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and waltzing through the Wall Street Journal, when I tripped over this Megan Graham piece about RadioShack’s latest marketing campaign.

Some RadioShack Dealers Aren’t Happy as the Brand Leans on NSFW Tweets

RadioShack’s crass new marketing strategy is disappointing some of the brand’s independent dealers, including one retail partner that says it is ending the relationship in response.

RadioShack’s Twitter account, once a source of electronics deals and blast-from-the-past ads, this year became a collection of porn-themed memes, sexual jokes and crypto-related posts.

C’mon – Radio Shack is where I used to buy cassette recorders and fuzzbusters. Now I need to buy into porn, too? What the hell, Doc.

– Buzzbuster

Dear Buzzie,

Yeah, right? Here’s RadioShack’s 2014 re-branding, which was launched in a minute-long Super Bowl ad.

And here’s some of the retail chain’s current re-branding via Twitter.

In July, The Verge’s David Pierce posted this overview of RadioShack’s “increasingly unhinged and sex-crazed Twitter account.”

In addition to tweeting things like “due to inflation 6 inches is now 9 inches” and “Just took an upper decker in @Applebees ama” the company has also gone big into cryptocurrency and NFTs. RadioShack would be an excellent meme stock if it hadn’t declared bankruptcy and then been bought by Tai Lopez’s company REV, the same investor that now owns Dressbarn, Pier 1, Linens-n-Things, and Modell’s Sporting Goods . . .

It seems a bit odd to see a brand go the shitposter route, but hey, it’s worked pretty well for Elon Musk, so why not give it a try?

Pierce also noted that 1) RadioShack nearly doubled its Twitter followers in the first two weeks of the campaign, but 2) the new campaign hasn’t seemed to help the chain’s stock price very much.

The Doc’s diagnosis? Just a RadioShuck.

Did Robots Really Write Kayak’s Latest Ad Campaign?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Patrick Coffee’s Wall Street Journal piece headlined “Robots Turn Creative as AI Helps Drive Ad Campaigns,” when I came across this passage.

Kayak worked with New York advertising agency Supernatural Development LLC, whose internal AI platform combines marketers’ answers to questions about their business with consumer data drawn from social media and market research to suggest campaign strategies, then automatically generates ideas for advertising copy and other marketing materials.

Supernatural’s AI found that Kayak should target its campaign largely toward young, upper-income men, who it said would respond to humor about Americans’ inability to agree on basic facts in politics and pop culture, said Michael Barrett, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Supernatural.

Tell the truth, Doc – are robots going to take over the world?

– Robby

Dear Robby,

The Doc doesn’t know from robots taking over the world, but they sure might take over advertising if the Kayak spots are any indication.

As the Journal piece noted, “[most] travel ads focused on ‘the family reunion space, soft piano music, the get-together on the beach,’ said Matthew Clarke, vice president of North American marketing for the Booking Holdings Inc. company. Kayak took a different approach with the ‘Kayak Deniers’ campaign, which went live in January and poked fun at the rise of online conspiracy theories.”

To wit:

Beyond that, there’s this totally depressing news from marketing technology website MarTechSeries.

Waymark, a pioneer in using artificial intelligence to scale up video production, has launched a revolutionary AI-powered tool that allows users to create ads in minutes with no creative expertise required. Waymark AI Video Creator empowers local media companies to instantly create high-quality ads and get them to air quickly, shortening sales cycles and creating new opportunities for growth with local businesses.

So that’s umpteen ad guys and gals soon to be pounding the pavement.

Then there’s Patrick Kulp’s piece in Adweek documenting Heinz-sight in ketchup advertising.

Heinz Taps State-of-the-Art AI to Design Its Next Ad Campaign

Heinz tapped an artificial intelligence-powered art generator to create a clever demonstration of the ubiquity of its brand in the condiment aisle.

The company’s marketing team fed a series of generic ketchup-related prompts into research group OpenAI’s state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm, Dall-E 2, which conjures up eerily detailed images from simple text inputs.

The results are all over the place—from a Tron-like neon-shaded bottle to a cute container in the shape of a dog—but the one commonality is that most seemed to have adopted the trademark fringe, shape and lettering of a Heinz label.

The Doc’s diagnosis? It’s time for copywriters and art directors to catch up. How they do that, though, might take some machine learning.

Did Juul’s Extremely Effective Advertising Effectively Trigger Its FDA Ban?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and perusing the Weekend Wall Street Journal (the WSJ set doesn’t read, it peruses – just ask Peggy Noonan), when I came across this piece by Jennifer Maloney, Andrew Scurria, and Alex Harring about “a federal appeals court [that] granted Juul Labs Inc. a temporary stay of the Food and Drug Administration’s order for the vaping company to pull its e-cigarettes off the U.S. market.”

Here’s the part that jumped out at me.

Regulators and lawmakers have connected Juul’s fruity flavors, hip marketing and USB-like vaporizer to a surge of underage vaping in the U.S. in 2018 and 2019. Juul has said it never targeted teens. It halted most of its U.S. advertising and stopped selling sweet and fruity flavors in 2019, part of an effort to repair its relationship with regulators, lawmakers and the public.

Is that true, Doc – Juul never targeted teens? Sounds kind of vaporous to me.

– Jewel

Dear Jewel,

It’s more accurate to say Juul always targeted teens, as this New York Times piece by Steven Kurutz noted.

When Juuls were first sold in 2015, the brand surged in popularity, partly on the strength of a vibrant ad campaign that showed young people smiling, laughing and striking poses beneath the word “Vaporized.”

By 2018, Juul had grown so popular that the brand name became a verb, with teens furtively “juuling” in high school classrooms and hallways. That same year, Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, agreed to pay $13 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul Labs.

This 2020 piece by Terry Turner at Drugwatch was even more damning.

HOW JUUL CREATED A TEEN VAPING EPIDEMIC

Throughout the summer of 2019, as congressional staffers plowed through 55,000 documents Juul Labs had previously never made public, a picture emerged of a carefully planned effort to expose American kids to one of the world’s most addictive substances.

The documents revealed a perfect storm of stealth marketing, sleek design and high nicotine doses that Juul Labs seemingly engineered to slip under adults’ radar, buying time to addict kids to the company’s vaping products . . .

Congressional investigators found Juul Labs “deployed a sophisticated program” paying schools as much as $10,000 each to let company representatives deliver its message directly to children. In at least one presentation, without teachers or parents present, a company representative showed kids how to use a Juul e-cigarette. Other evidence showed that Juul Labs also targeted preteen kids through summer camps and out-of-school programs.

Overall, the Drugwatch piece noted, “Juul Labs’ internal documents and statements by its founders reveal the e-cigarette manufacturer lifted trade secrets from Big Tobacco to market its highly addictive vaping products to youths as young as 8. The company’s deliberate marketing plan proved successful, doubling the size of the U.S. vaping market and dominating competitors in just three years.”

Juul controlled over 75% of the e-cigarette market by then and was red hot among teens, as this 2019 Time magazine video detailed.

Here’s just a sample of the news reports that have tracked Juul’s marketing to kids over the past several years.

• The vape company Juul said it doesn’t target teens. Its early ads tell a different story.

• Juul Bought Ads Appearing on Cartoon Network and Other Youth Sites, Suit Claims 

• Juul, accused of marketing to teens, settles vaping case for $40m

Last week, Insider News posted this deep dive into the rise and fall (TBD) of Juul.

To recap:

• Youth cigarette smoking rates dropped from 18% in 2005 to 10.8% in 2015

• Thanks to Juul’s relentless targeting of teens on social media, its U.S. market share went from under 5% in 2016 to 29% in 2017 to 75% in 2018

• The FDA said whoa

• Juul phased out its social media accounts

That last, of course, meant nothing: Teenage Juulers kept the social media machine whirring quite nicely all by themselves.

Regardless, why does the FDA now feel comfortable canceling Juul while greenlighting VUSE and NJOY e-cigs?

Here’s the Doc’s diagnosis: During the past few years, Juul’s teen targeting has gone over like the metric system with the American public. Maybe that’s part of the FDA’s conclusion that Juul is the black hat and VUSE and NJOY are the white hats in terms of protecting the public health.

Your smoke and mirrors go here.

Why Are Democratic Groups Airing Ads Promoting Potential GOP Opponents?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Axios Sneak Peek, when I came across this item from Alayna Treene headlined “Dems’ sabotage ads.”

Democratic groups are buying ads touting some of the most extreme pro-Trump candidates in Republican primaries around the country — meddling in GOP contests to set up more favorable matchups in November, Axios’ Sophia Cai reports.

Why it matters: The risky gambit assumes general-election voters will reject candidates who embrace conspiracy theories or lies about the 2020 election. But it could dramatically backfire by vaulting fringe Republicans into national office.

Does that make any sense at all to you, Doc? Seems kind of Demwitted to me.

– Chris Cross

Dear Chris,

Yeah, this is one where the ratf**kers should have just set their money on fire.

Sophia Cai’s Axios report calls the roll of the failed efforts.

Sabotage ad #1

Ahead of last week’s primaries, the Nancy Pelosi-affiliated House Majority PAC funded a 30-second TV ad promoting self-declared “Trump Conservative” Chris Mathys against moderate Republican Rep. David Valadao in California’s 22nd District.

And Valadao isn’t just a moderate – he’s a turncoat. “David Valadao claims he’s Republican,” the ad’s narrator says, “yet David Valadao voted to impeach President Trump.”

Golden State election results tend to treacle in, but here are the CA-22 numbers according to Ballotpedia.

That’s David Valadao 1, House Majority PAC 0, if you’re keeping score at home.

Sabotage ad #2

In California’s 40th District, Democrat Asif Mahmood has been running ads casting Republican Greg Raths — who had to apologize last month for using antisemitic tropes — as his head-to-head opponent instead of moderate Rep. Young Kim.

Once again, Ballotpedia has the scorecard.

So, oh-for-two.

Sabotage ad #3

[I[n Colorado, a new Democratic super PAC cut a TV ad boosting far-right, election-denying state Rep. Ron Hanks in the June 28 GOP primary to decide who will take on Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).

The group has reserved at least $1.49 million in TV ad slots across Colorado over the next few weeks.

Hanks’ moderate Republican rival Joe O’Dea accused Democrats of “hijacking the Republican nomination for an unserious candidate who has zero chance of winning.”

With primary day June 28, the jury’s still out on that race. Also awaiting a verdict on the 28th: GOP candidates in the Illinois gubernatorial primary, as Karl Rove notes in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Aurora, Ill., Mayor Richard Irvin—a conservative veteran and former prosecutor who emphasizes fighting crime, cutting taxes and spending, and cleaning up politics, and who happens to be black—would be a strong contender this November. That’s why Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association are spending an estimated $32 million labeling Mr. Irvin’s principal primary opponent, state Sen. Darren Bailey, as “too conservative for Illinois.”

Thirty-two million makes the other kneecapping efforts look like lunch money, even though Rove says the Democratic super PAC in Colorado could spend “as much as $3.5 million attacking [Ron] Hanks as—you guessed it—’too conservative for Colorado.’”

The Democratic Governors Association is also meddling in Colorado’s GOP gubernatorial primary, running an ad campaign with $1.5 million that the DGA laundered through a couple of PACs.

The Doc will make some house calls at the end of the month to determine the health of those Democratic investments. And prescribe condolences accordingly.

Is Louis Vuitton Just Dreaming That Its ‘Towards a Dream’ Ads Will Work?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading the Wall Street Journal the other day, when I came across this full-page ad for Louis Vuitton.

Wait, what? Luggage with legs? What’s gonna happen to all the Sky Caps, Doc? How are they supposed to make a living when bags move themselves?

– Sky Cop

Dear Sky Cop,

Here’s what Louis Vuitton’s website says about that print ad.

With its unique aesthetic and historic monuments, France’s tidal island Mont Saint-Michel serves as the backdrop, welcoming a group of local children to frolic on the shoreline. With an exhilarating sense of joy, they embark on an imaginary odyssey, embodying a future where anything is possible.

As for the whole Towards a Dream campaign, here’s the official LV-Speak describing it.

At Louis Vuitton, the Spirit of Travel goes beyond discovering a physical destination, it also sparks curiosity for what lies within. The Maison’s core values come alive in a far-reaching journey to dreamlike settings around the globe. Captured by Viviane Sassen, the images are an evocative ode to the inner child, set free in a reverie of otherworldly beauty and infinite possibility.

Like this.

And this.

Evocative odes to the inner child aside, this is not grocery shopping, people – which, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jaewon Kang reported yesterday, is all about a race to the cheapest.

Well-known brand names and flashy ad campaigns are no longer enough to command U.S. consumers’ loyalty in grocery stores, retail executives said. As inflation spreads and stretched supply chains leave gaps on shelves, shoppers are becoming increasingly fickle, with availability and price determining what goes into their shopping carts.

Louis Vuitton, by contrast, is all about a race to the longest lines possible outside its retail stores.

Representative samples.

So for anyone who thinks Louis Vuitton’s ad campaign is just dreamcasting . . .

Dream on.

Is the New MoonSwatch Collection Really ‘An Abomination’?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Jonathan V. Last’s Triad newsletter at The Bulwark, when I came across this item.

3. Watch Talk

It’s been a while since and I know that this if [sic] frivolous, but this just happened:

I have no words.

Taking the iconic Speedmaster Professional—the watch that went to the frickin’ moon—and turning it into a candy-colored hunk of plastic quartz . . . this is an abomination. An offense against God and nature. It’s like the Louvre partnering with Oscar Mayer to sell a Bologna Lisa.

So here’s my question, Doc: Do you want to see the Bologna Lisa as badly as I do?

– Swatched at Birth

Dear Swatched,

We’ll get to the art part shortly but first, commerce.

Here’s the full-page ad that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

And here’s the press release from Swatch.

SWATCH AND OMEGA “REACH FOR THE PLANETS” WITH THE BIOCERAMIC MOONSWATCH COLLECTION

Swatch and Omega come together for an innovative take on the legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch.

Outer space inspires a new collection of eleven BIOCERAMIC watches named after planetary bodies that will have you reaching for the stars.

The Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch is legendary and a must-have for collectors. BIOCERAMIC Moon-Swatch collection makes the iconic design accessible to fans everywhere.

The Doc assumes that JVL would like nothing better than to stick the whole thing in a Falcon Heavy and fire it into the sun, but he’s distinctly in the minority according to this Gear Patrol piece by the site’s watch writer, Zen Love (apparently his real name).

This Omega x Swatch Collab Is Breaking the Internet

An unexpected collaboration has watch fans over the moon. Omega and Swatch have teamed up to offer a collection of 11 models of what they’re calling the MoonSwatch. Recreating the exact proportions and design of the famous Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch, these are quartz watches in Bioceramic cases…and they cost $260.

The Speedmaster is an absolute basic of watch collecting, but its current version costs around $6,400. The chance to get it for a mere fraction of that — with a dial actually co-signed by Omega itself — is exciting for a lot of people. Let’s face it, though, even if you already have a Moonwatch, or never even wanted one (which is hard to imagine), these are just fun.

Yeah, tell that to JVL.

(Not to get technical about it, but Mr. Love never does explain exactly how the MoonSwatch is breaking  the Internet.)

As for the Bologna Lisa, the Doc did find a bunch of Lisa Bolognas, but none of them seem to have an enigmatic smile. Your punchline goes here.

Shouldn’t Mark Zuckerberg Just Set His Super Bowl Ad Money on Fire?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

It’s well known that Meta (a.k.a. Facebook/a.k.a. Instagram) is getting its ads kicked by TikTok and even Snapchat nowadays. So what is Mark (Data) Suckerberg doing about it?

Running a Super Bowl ad.

As Todd Wasserman reports at MediaPost, Meta’s big game ad will follow a fourth-quarter earnings report that included the company’s first-ever quarterly decline in daily active users.

Meta’s Super Bowl teaser, via Anomaly, features a shot of a virtual hangout called Questy’s. Questy’s looks a little worn, as the ad shows the restaurant at night, when it’s empty and dark (except for a flickering neon sign).

The ad is a direct reference to the Oculus Quest 2 headset, which Meta released last fall. Questy’s is actually a virtual hangout in Oculus that is a portal to games and other activities.

The music in the ad is a callback to TV themes of the 1980s that advance a good-timey virtual reality experience and a sign that Meta wants to leave behind the Internet and social media and instead usher users into a virtual world.

Empty restaurant? TV theme music of the 1980s? That’s what Zuck brings in the wake of last week’s knee-buckling 26% plunge in Meta’s share price, which vaporized $237 billion in market value?

Is this just wish-casting, Doc? Or what?

– MetAverse

Dear MetAverse,

For starters, here’s the teaser ad in question.

A 60-second version of the ad is scheduled to run in the first quarter of the Super Bowl at a cost of roughly $13 million, which is, of course, lunch money to Zuckerberg.

Problem is, he’s getting his lunch eaten by TikTok, as the Wall Street Journal’s Salvador Rodriguez reported yesterday.

Meta Faces Uphill Battle Against TikTok

Amid a dismal earnings report, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. on Wednesday highlighted its short-video product Reels as a bright spot and perhaps its best bet to kick-start flagging growth.

The challenge is that in the increasingly important fight for video dominance, Meta faces a heavyweight rival that is only getting stronger.

While Meta executives said Reels is now the company’s fastest-growing content format, ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok is growing even faster. It was the most-downloaded app of 2021, and overtook Meta’s Instagram in popularity among coveted young users.

That makes a switch to Reels and away from TikTok a tough sell for a lot of advertisers and creators.

Especially when you consider these numbers in the WSJ piece: “In 2021, TikTok reached 63% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 weekly, up from 50% a year prior, according to a November survey by Forrester. Instagram, meanwhile, declined from 61% in 2020 to 57% in 2021. Other industry data shows similar trends.”

So, to conclude: How many Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 do you think will be riveted to a TV screen for next Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast?

Yeah, us too.

Not to be repetitive, but memo to Zuck: You should have just set that $13 million on fire.

Seriously, Is Tom Steyer Crazy?

by Campaign Outsider

[Aditor’s note: As you might – or more likely might not – have noticed, Dr. Ads has been (in)conspicuous by his absence over the past several months. We’d rather not get into the details; let’s just say he’s been under the care of an actual doctor. Yo.]

DrAdsforProfileWell the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, just minding my own business and reading Politico Playbook, when I came across this:

VIDEO DU JOUR – “Tom Steyer’s ads test the boundaries of the ‘bizarre,’” by Darren Goode: “Steyer is trying to sway national climate policy and the midterm elections with an ad campaign that is raising eyebrows among independent fact-checkers, some television stations, his political opponents and even a few allies — using an approach that strikes observers as anywhere from groundbreaking to downright bizarre. … [Chris] Lehane, who wrote much of the ads’ scripts, said they are born from creative sessions after Steyer’s team has identified its target audience and message.”

Have you seen these ads, Doc? I mean, I’m all for combatting climate change, but Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, eh?

– Al G.

Dear Al G.,

We’re talking about some nutty stuff, even for the Doc. Start out with this TV spot from Steyer’s NextGen Climate advocacy outfit attacking Iowa GOP Senate candidate Joni (The Castrator) Ernst.

 

 

Really? Is the average TV viewer gonna pay enough attention to that mishmash to get what it’s trying to say? We’re thinking not.

That ad is almost as strange as this spot NextGen ran last year attacking the Keystone XL Pipeline.

 

 

So how effective has Steyer’s climate police campaign been? The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel answered this way in her column last week.

A Climate Crusader’s Comeuppance

Billionaire Tom Steyer’s vow to make politicians toe the green line isn’t working out so well.

As political comedowns go, there may be few to compare to the humbling of Tom Steyer. Six months after the climate activist roared on the national political scene vowing $100 million to impose his agenda on this fall’s midterms, it would appear that this billionaire don’t hunt.

Remember the liberal huzzahs that greeted the February pledge? The New York Times gave Mr. Steyer the front page, heralding a coming “hard-edge campaign of ED-AS551A_edp08_D_20140814190209attack ads” that would pressure officials to “enact climate change measures” and persuade voters to back a climate agenda. Democrats hailed him as their new power broker, crowing about a war chest that could rival the Koch brothers and even up the midterm election odds. Environmentalists welcomed a white knight who would finally align the party and public behind their priorities.

Or not. Mr. Steyer at an Aspen conference this week revealed that little if any of this is happening. The left is as split over energy as it has ever been; the public isn’t buying the climate line; and the hedge-fund-manager-turned-activist looks to be regrouping.

Strassel adds this about the current NextGen ad:

NextGen, which bragged in May that it would make climate a “wedge” issue in “political races,” couldn’t even bring itself to mention the environment in its first ad of the political season, against Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst. It instead hit her for supporting lower taxes.

Yeah, hit her like a Nerf ball. Our Rx for Tom Steyer: Find the NextGen of admakers.

Yo.