Herman School of Business
I Want It All...I Just Can't Seem To Get It Right Today
Two catchy songs play over commercials that seem to be on about every five minutes during the shows I watch. One bursts out “I WANT IT ALL…I WANT IT ALL…AND I WANT IT NOW” which for the younger set of readers is a great piece of music by QUEEN from way back in the day.
Let me digress here a minute. I recently bought a boxed set of CD’s of QUEEN’s greatest hits and listening is like being transported in a Time Machine back to a place when I was staring up at the mountain and not sitting on top of it. (That’s right, I feel like I have made it to the top!) Run out and get a set for yourself…because Freddy Mercury was a freaking genius and even a staid, conservative businessman like me loved watching QUEEN perform his stuff.
Now, back to that commercial that blares this music. I have heard the spot dozens of times. And when those first few bars come on I just get that visual of Freddy and the band standing on stage in all white clothes harmonizing together before breaking into yet another big hit record. I just asked my wife if she knows this spot and she said she loves it too. But neither one of us has a clue what the spot is for. We have no recollection of the product or service being sold. None. Maggie says it is because “we have no memory” but I refuse to agree with that claim.
To me when a commercial uses a powerful song from the past, where people connect a memory with that song, they immediately get side-tracked into that old memory and block out the commercial or the product you are trying to sell.
The other commercial that plays incessantly has a song where the singer sweetly says… “I just can’t seem to get it right today…I just can’t seem to get it right today…I just can’t seem to get it right today…I guess I’m gonna give up” and this music by Joe Purdy is infectious. It strikes a mood we all feel. You become mesmerized by the music and the message. And you stare at the video of the guy driving the Kia to the wrong side of the pump because he hasn’t purchased gas in so long he forgets what side the gas goes in.
Perhaps there is a lesson here. Pick a catchy tune for sure. But not one that already has a memory attached to it. So the message you want conveyed becomes the memory you have with the song. My memory-less wife Maggie could not only sing the tune…she, like me, remembers what they are selling in the commercial.
- Posted: 22 April 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business success
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