NolinLeChasseur.com
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head on – apply directly to the forehead
In: Marketing| Television
5 Oct 2006I can’t avoid this annoying little spot to save my life. It shows up in sponsorship and advertising spots inside some of the shows I watch, it shows up in commercial breaks, and as of last night it even shows up coming out of Stephen Colbert’s mouth and pasted to his chest in his intro (he apparently sold the 5 seconds to the highest bidder).
I’m willing to bet that 95% of you who read this are already having nightmare flashbacks of that suddenly infamous female narrator’s voice repeating, "Head on! Apply directly to the forehead. Head on! Apply directly to the forehead. Head on! Apply directly to the forehead." I bet you started hearing that slogan ringing through your head as soon as you read the title of my post.
What does the instant recognition and recall of such a simple, common slogan say about the effectiveness of such a basic advertising tactic? Why is such an uninteresting phrase about a mystery glue-stick that I want to rub on my forehead so unforgettable. Why has the visual of a woman smearing something directly to her forehead emblazened on my brain in a most permanent fashion? Even the tone of the narrator’s voice is impossible to forget.
Has the agency that produced this little gem of a television spot discovered how to embed subconscious trauma into TV ad creative? Is there some sort of psychological cocaine injection that I get every time I expose myself to this ridiculous ad?
And most importantly, now that I have somehow independently developed the assumption that this annoying little glue stick is a cure for headache symptoms (and I SWEAR I have not spoken to a soul about this so I find this development my assumption interesting in and of itself) will I drop cold hard cash on this product to try it out next time I have a nasty headache and I’m walking through the drug store?
Why does this commerical have so much influence over me? Over you? Over the thousands of people who are already blogging and vlogging about it? How did such a basic, generic, simple piece of advertising creative become a piece of pop culture so quickly?
I would love to hear your ideas.
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1 Response to head on – apply directly to the forehead
avril
October 5th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
The Head-On thing?
Ooo, so glad you asked. This is toothsome.
It’s the resurrection of annoying sincerity as an advertising approach.
I don’t mean the actor is sincere, I mean the advertiser is sincerely convinced that this is the thing that’ll sell their stuff—and goshdarmit, they’re right.
Have you noticed all the retro ads out there?—the ones that send up Advertising as a way of excusing themselves from doing what works? You know, the nerds and the shills and the sarcastic slice-of-life dramas with people beaming shit-eatingly over the products?
The head-on people (and others) are flashing back to the breathy 50s-60s, the first rush of media-bonerism when everyone was all thrilled that they could talk to big audiences all at once and thought they had to somehow *yell* to make it work!
the Head-on ad is kinda like that, only the repetition functions as the yelling. As well as the terse, imperative, military syntax from the perky chick.
(Which also happens to work beautifully with our steadily melting attention spans. Gimme seven words, three times, and I don’t gotta do no work to remember. Me happy.)
There’s a sweetness to this, it’s like watching something our kids made when they were playing dress up. (They wanted to make a commercial but they’re just too excited to do anything except jump up and down and yell their slogan over and over.)
Remember, everything else in advertising *has been done.* The only thing LEFT to throw out there for fun and profit is plain old BAD advertising, cuz we don’t trust earnestness anymore, anyway. So now we’re full circle back around to *Fuck It, Bad Ads WORK.*
And all the ad agency execs who won awards for their campaigns that produced a lump in the throat can kiss the asses of those whose campaigns produced a lump in the pants called a wallet. Sell my shit, period.
p.s. nother angle:
we like to give each other verbal cues in public that we’re With It. and these little sticky phrases (like the head-on one) are perfect to show the acquaintance, like the old primate display of teeth—only now we display our real-time awareness of what’s new. we intimidate with information. useless, maybe, but VERY CURRENT.
SORRY FR LONG POST. a.d.