Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Funny Advertising of the Week

I'll have the ad banners themselves later, but I have to laugh at the advertising campaign for True.com, a dating service. The whole message of their campaign is that only single, non-felon-type people can be found in their date pool. But their campaign is so aggresively negative, that it just seems to put down the entire online dating concept and does a dis-service to their own brand. (Secondary complaint, they should have a pulldown or a checkbox where the user indicates their single-ness... more than just that it's part of the rules and that they prosecute people, there should be a specific "I state that I am single." checkbox. Or "Married? Try one of these other services where they don't seem to care." with links to other sites like Match.com or Yahoo!Personals where it's common knowledge that everyone is looking to have an affair.

To me, it's the same as the ads as the ads for Washington Mutual which tries to use people acting stupidly as a vehicle for humor but just ends up making it appear that all Washington Mutual customers and employees are idiots. (From my experience, you would have to be a fool to choose Washington Screwual over any other bank -- at least in this state -- but I don't think that's the message they're trying to convey.)

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