"We're Not Boring! Really, We're Not!"

In a recent blog entry, Who Needs Enron? Microsoft Just Got Talked Into Doing A Great Sally Fields Impersonation At The Oscars For A Mere $1.7 Million Per 30 SECONDS... And It's All Perfectly Legal, David Garfinkel, one of my copywriting mentors nicely outlines the general problem with most advertising and branding agencies.

And what did Microsoft's ad agency come up to utilise the 30-second ad space?

"We're not boring! Really, we're not!"

This is amazing. Anyone with some marketing knowledge knows that the subconscious mind can't handle negatives. As the message shifts from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind, the word "not" mysteriously vanishes.

And what stays in people's subconscious minds is...

"We're boring! Really, we are!"

Then the agency's ad executive explained the situation this way...

"You do something to seed engagement in the minds of people watching it."

What engagement? The fact the Microsoft is not boring?

Anyway, read the full blog entry and admire how allegedly savvy businesspeople still fall for the, more often than not exaggerated, promises of fancy advertising agencies.