Bairdyblog

Punishment

And so the RiFivers come under some debate (again) for awarding this month's award to an effort  consisting of a pun which, at least the judges had the grace to concede, outdates even the chesspiece as an industry institution.

It's not this MPU is bad. In fact, it's almost a guilty pleasure, being badness done in a reasonably good, proficient way. But will we ever recognise that puns are not - that's not - the epitome of creativity?

I suspect the problem is that our HR clients, who aren't trained in marketing, let alone advertising, fall foul of the common misconception that puns make good ads. And why should we attempt to dissuade them, when they're paying our mortgages?

Generally speaking, the purpose of a headline is to draw the attention of a reader (or viewer) likely to be interested in that ad's proposition or the advertising organisation's values. Sometimes it's possible to do this with a pun. Clearly, most of the time it isn't.

Worst puns #1: A director of an agency I worked for wrote an ad recruiting software engineers into UAE. The visual was a cartoon camel with a microphone. The headline was 'Dubai-dubai-doo.' Looking back, that was probably the day I should have shot myself.

Anyway, Oliver Scott from Blackbridge send me a link to the video above yesterday after a discussion which involved fish puns. After this, there's nothing more to be said on the subject. Perhaps we should play it to all new entrants to rec ad creative departments, just to knock the filthy habit once and for all out of the punorama of employer marketing creativity.

See what I did there?

Submariners site makes me feel subnormal

 
I really wanted to like this site. Really.

In many ways, it's fantastic. In terms of what it does, it may well be the best ever. Certainly, it beat off tough competition to win its FEMA category in the recent Aussie rec ad awards.

Plus, it confirms all of my theories regarding this type of advertising. (Namely, that the more the western world becomes blighted by actual war and terrorism, the more forces recruitment filches escapist tropes from Hollywood and the games industry.) But I can't like it as much as I want, because I don't quite get it.

Admittedly mine is not the profile that would have topped the list of user journeys at testing stage. But all the same, it's a devil to get your head around. Everywhere you go is a page telling you to wait for something. When you do, the technology takes ages to load. The pages briefing the main game go by so quickly I feel like a moron for not being able to scan them quickly enough.

As for accessing the game itself, it would be easier to get a round at Gleneagles.

Then there's the detail. Even the detail has detail. Want to know how fit you need to be to apply? Here's a pages on that very topic. In fact there's even a video of a bloke telling you about fitness. And here are some illustrations of the exercises you'll need to be able to do. Not sure how to do them? Then watch one of a range of other videos. By which time of course I'm not just out of breath, but my narrative thread has completely gone out of the window.

 

Admittedly, it's immersive. And hats off to anyone trying a sell a career which involves living in a tin can, under the sea, knowing that practically any moment someone might fire a torpedo at you and blast your insides all over the barrier reef. But when I get to copy like this, I don't know whether to give a military or a two-fingered salute:

"Unseen we seek the enemy in Silent Service. We are at the forefront of national defence, we are the vanguard. With skill and resolve we conduct our training and our mission. Courage and tenacity are our greatest weapons. Against all odds, fearless and ferocious we will fight on in our charge to defend the weak."

Blimey. Just like they to used to write in Warlord.

Of course, the best proposition for the armed services is that recruits benefit from the cultural construct that all fighters are noble and desperately sexually alluring to the opposite sex. If you doubt that, see what Oz naval commander Tom Phillips had to say about girls in bikinis helping recruitment. Terrible sexism of course, but perhaps a bit of that on the web site might have helped to keep my interest.