Comments on: Bad Advertising – Ziba, What Were You Thinking? Part IV

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:45:52 +0000

Out of curiosity, what day of the week was it? That would certainly impact the number of people in the store. Was the rest of the mall packed with shoppers?

By: Francis Ardi

Francis Ardi — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:03:49 +0000

What is this all about? All you’re showing is a photo of an empty mall boutique store. You’re just telling me basically what is wrong with the advertising. What advertising? Why didn’t you post the “bad advertising”
you were mentioning? You know I’m interested in these things. After all, they are of great educational value.

By: Arne

Arne — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:53:17 +0000

This is not uncommon to see other places. I have often wondered what ads are promoting. At night when we watch a little TV I see ads and after it finished we look at each other and ask, what are they promoting?
Even in newspapers we see this often. Talk about expensive ads.
You are doing a great service to point these things out to us. We all need to look at our ads and landing pages and make sure we are not making the same mistakes. We might not spend that kind of dollars, but still need to have action.
Keep up the good work.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:46:17 +0000

The corporate “herd” keeps on mooing and has no respect for direct marketers.

GREAT example of the difference between direct marketing and “branding”.

After reading your series – I have visions of Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove branding a big “Z” for Ziba on the “herd” in the mall parking lot, and having a drink after a long day’s work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVBjBClBSao

By: Marte Cliff

Marte Cliff — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:01:14 +0000

Why is everyone so chicken to leave a comment? Because we think maybe at some time we’ve been guilty of poor advertising? I expect everyone has made a blunder if they’ve been doing anything at all.

Meanwhile… I live in a REALLY small town where anyone who advertises uses the local (8 page, weekly) newspaper. And some of those ads are SO bad. The ones that really get me are for new businesses. A good percentage of them do not include the address! Even if they clearly state what they have to offer, no one knows where they are.

Our town is very close to another small town just across the Washington/Idaho border, so businesses in each town place ads in the small town newspapers in each town. That means that these ads could be for a new business in either town.

Do they seriously think that would-be customers will search through both communities to find their new businesses?

Kinda makes you understand why start-ups come and go here so fast that a lot of them close before I ever wander in to see what they’re about.

I guess the good news for these businesses is that they paid only one or two hundred for the ads, as opposed to the thousands probably spent on your Ziba example. But, it only means that they’ll be not quite so far in the hole when their stores close.

I know, as a copywriter I should contact them and offer help. But they think the girls at the newspaper who do it for free save them a lot of money…