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Yes, It’s a Spoof, but It’s Also Selling Something
The fitness enthusiast Tony Little on infomercialmadness.com
THE camera zooms in on a pitchman straight out of the 1970s, complete with bad hair, a turtleneck and a medallion on a chain, then presents viewers with every clichéd scene from direct-response advertising, including shots of waves crashing on a beach as product titles scroll up the TV screen.
But wait, there’s more! The titles listed are not for songs from a compilation of greatest hits by the Captain and Tennille. They are for online games like Pong, Crazy Taxi and Defender. The commercial is a direct-response spot for GameTap, an Internet game network owned by the Turner Broadcasting System of Time Warner, that spoofs direct-response advertising.
“That’s the irony of it,” said David Reid, GameTap’s vice president for marketing. “It gave us both an opportunity to have fun with a commercial on the one hand, but on the other hand, to deliver on a sales message.”
Straight direct-response pitches hardly ever work anymore, and increasingly agencies have turned to spoofing their own industry to attract viewers long enough to deliver a new message.
Several advertisers mock commercials for prescription drugs, including a spot for the Toyota Tacoma that presented the truck as a cure for low levels of adrenaline and a commercial for the new Nissan Versa declaring it a treatment for “auto-claustrophobia.”
Geico often presents spots that spoof other spots, which are interrupted with entreaties about how much Geico can save car owners on insurance.
The ad parody is so popular that Mullen in Wenham, Mass., which handles GameTap, has a term to describe the tactic: genre-jacking. But the agency is quick to say it hardly invented the idea.
Ted Jendrysik, senior vice president and group creative director at Mullen, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, pointed out that “Saturday Night Live” spoofed Ronco Records’ “greatest hits” spots long before Mullen did.
But spoofs seem to be having a moment because they are fun and they get consumers’ attention, he said.
The latest wrinkle in the trend is spoofing direct-response ads, perhaps first popularized by Lucille Ball’s famous “Vitametavegemin” skit on “I Love Lucy” in the 1950s.
Mullen also has a GameTap spot that spoofs the long-running commercials for the Save the Children charity featuring Sally Struthers. Another parodist of direct-response ads is Microsoft, with a campaign for MSN Search.
Direct-response advertising as a genre is especially appealing to parody because it’s “so cheesy,” Mr. Jendrysik said. It is an inside joke that the public gets, he added, even the GameTap target audience of 25- to 35-year-olds, who may be too young to recall the ’70s pioneers like Ronco, K-Tel or Ginsu knives.
Mr. Jendrysik said the spoofs were also a good strategic fit for GameTap, which was introduced nationally last year and is trying to build its subscription base. GameTap offers hundreds of games on demand, he said, but to list all of them would be boring; the “greatest hits” format enables the agency to deliver all that information in an entertaining way.
The spots are running at least through the end of the month on national cable networks, including those owned by Turner. The GameTap advertising budget is estimated at $50 million.
Another decidedly millennial-era product mocking traditional direct-response advertising is MSN Search, introduced by Microsoft to compete with Google and Yahoo. A viral campaign began in August with a Web site (infomercialmadness.com) that pokes fun at late-night infomercial kings like Matthew Lesko, the money guru; the fitness enthusiast Tony Little; and Anthony Sullivan, who promotes products including the OneSweep broom.
The Web site includes video clips, a sweepstakes — and a definition of infomercial for those not in the know.
Maloney & Fox in New York came up with the idea for the campaign after reading a newspaper article about a man who was infatuated with his Bowflex exercise equipment.
“It made us laugh, and then we realized that everyone seems to have a story about these infomercial guys,” said Brian Maloney, a partner at the agency. “They have such huge personalities, they are stars in their own quirky right.”
In its quest to compete with Google and Yahoo, MSN wants to be seen as “big and bold” like the infomercial kings, Mr. Maloney said, adding that it was hardly an effort to sell the idea to Mr. Lesko, Mr. Little or Mr. Sullivan.
The video clips on the Web site were produced by McNamara Production in Los Angeles. A Web design marketing company in Seattle named Wexley School for Girls created the site for MSN.
“These days you have to figure out a way to break through as unique and differentiated,” said Justin Osmer, MSN senior product manager, “and this is a real fun way to do that.”
After the Web site was put up, Maloney & Fox sent e-mail messages containing links to the site to a select list as part of an effort to get attention for the campaign.
As of early last month, the site was getting 900 visitors a day, which Mr. Maloney said was impressive considering it was a viral effort, done without advertising to drive computer users to the Web site.
