4 Keys to a Quality Advertisement

Because of Memorial day on Monday, Tuesday felt like Monday and Wednesday felt like Tuesday and today feels like Wednesday, so, needless to say, I have dubbed this Thursday an honorary "Marketing Wednesday"!

I have always said that a good marketing campaign is built on 4 things:

Fear, Innuendo, unqualified legal advice, and an appeal to people's political beliefs.

That is why I feel like Utah Valley Records Management almost hit a homerun with the ads on their trucks.

"'Thanks for the drug money'…. DRUG USERS LOVE DUMPSTER DIVING"

Classic fear mongering technique. Blame the druggies. Tell me this, when was the last time you saw a credit card number on a receipt? At most you see the last 4 digits. Furthermore, I don't know any drug dealers who accept credit cards* and I don't know how how a druggie would get money out of an ATM with only a credit card number. 

I am not saying that identity theft is something that shouldn't be taken serious, but it seems to me that if you should be afraid of anyone getting your credit card number, it is those daggum online shopping addicts. 

Things get even stranger on the side of the truck:

Why would you need to shred "last season's bowling ball" and care that "shredded evidence… is not evidence" unless you killed someone with a bowling ball. I think I am going to have to call "homicidal innuendo" on this one. 

While we are on the subject, nothing like a little unqualified legal advice to generate sells… Are you sure that shredded evidence is not evidence? Seems like if you could put it back together like a puzzle, it could still be used as evidence. 

This also begs the question, how many crimes does this company think the average person is committing?

It is one thing to shred documents in order to protect identity or proprietary information - I do this all the time - but I can honestly say that I have never found a need to shred "evidence". 

Based on the customers they seem to be trying attract, it sounds like Utah Valley Records Management needs to add money laundering and metal melting** services and partner with alibinetwork.com, then they would have a complete line of criminal protection services.  

However, the one thing missing in this ad is an appeal to the political beliefs of their target audience. Now, if history has taught us any one thing, it is that just because a person is a professional basketball player doesn't mean you can count on him to make his free throws***. But if history has taught us any two things, the second is that there is no such things as "off-limits" when it comes to politics. Seriously, as near as I can tell, you can say anything when talking about a political candidate because people don't care about details like "facts" or "truth" when we are merely talking about little things like the leadership of our government. 

Given that this is Utah Valley Records Management, the obvious sell would be to some how blame the need to shred documents on Obama. If they could somehow work that angle into their ad, they would be an unstoppable force****.

Editor's Note: There may have been a slight hint of sarcasm sprinkled throughout this post…

*Technically, I don't know any drug dealers... period. But I don't imagine they take credit cards. 

**To destroy guns and knives, of course

***This statement serves two purposes: first, to commemorate the official retirement of Shaquille O'Neal (The unofficial retirement was in 2007 when he stopped caring). Second, I am not totally over Derrick Rose missing huge free throws in the Eastern Conference Finals and allowing the Heat to move on to the Finals.

****I like using asterisks and having footnotes. Also, this post is not intended to support or slander any political candidate or government official. If you, as the reader, do happen to take this a criticism of the media or the political process as a whole, that is fine.