The Academy Awards from Hollywood made me think we should have awards in our industry for advertising. It's our nearest thing to show business. As an instructor at Bane-Clene® Institute, part of my job is to watch how others in advertising practice their craft. I'm astonished by the stupidity of most television commercials. Probably an insurance company or a big bank would take the "Dumbest Commercial" prize if there was such an award.
In our industry in years past, I've focused on the most negative and damaging ads and given them our "Kool-Aid®" award in recognition for "Bad Ad of the Year." Twenty years ago, I was threatened with a law suit by a large corporation over the award. Five years later, a cleaner from West Virginia threatened me, too. Neither came to fruition because the awards were deserved.
Of course, there are the usual Bait & Switch ads that will always be with us, and a few negative ones. But most ads in our business recently have been very sensible and we should be proud of our advertising leaders. There have been more positive ads that deserve recognition than I can ever remember. If we had an award for current advertising, the nominees would be:
- Stanley Steemer® for their "conventional series" of residential television commercials.
- ServPro® for their "animated series" of commercials for fire and water restoration.
- ServiceMaster® for the "most realism" in a television commercial.
- And the winner would be ServiceMaster.
Stanley Steemer and ServPro ran well-produced television commercials on regular schedules which is the accepted way of generating sales. But ServiceMaster takes the prize for managing to be seen on national TV in a premier auto racing event. Their truck, logo and all, was in the blazing crash scene at NASCAR’s Daytona 500. Congratulations to ServiceMaster.
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Please e-mail me at wfbane@baneclene.com.
