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What Makes Great Advertising?

October 5, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments 

If you’re expecting a post about insightful strategy, a celebration of great design, or words that touch the soul, leave now. This post is about boobs.

More specifically, it’s about the troubling observation of fact that sometimes, a pair of fun bags beats a full house of all the things we celebrate here in the advertising blog-o-sphere.

At some level I am troubled by this. I am an enlightened man, an educated man. While I’m as curiously fascinated with the female form as any such man, I can say truthfully that I actively dislike the “Go Daddy” guy, and that I think his advertising diminishes us all.

He defends it in the context of four other “rules of entrepreneurship” in this piece, which I believe was originally titled, “Why I’m So Freaking Great, And You’re Not”:

Whatever, dude. Go knit yourself a Harley cozy.

But… dammit… from a 16% share of all new domain registrations to a 25% share of the same market, worldwide. Nine share points. Overnight. DAMN.

And thus my dilemma.

I think great advertising is advertising that delivers great results. Awards are nice (and I have a few, thank you), but we want to be an agency that — first and foremost — gets results. Period.

Does that mean, by our own definition, that this is great advertising? If we delivered something less offensive, and likely less effective, would we be breaking our own rules?

Now, don’t wimp out and give me that “Shock works for a while but great brands endure” stuff either. GoDaddy is still killing it, even after all this time.

So which is it? Is obvious crap like this “great” if it delivers the goods? Or is it always better to trade off business impact for work we and our fellow PBS-supporters can celebrate?

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About Mike Troiano
Michael Troiano is a Principal of Holland-Mark, a leading independent advertising agency in Boston. He spent his early career at top advertising agencies including McCann-Erickson NY and Foote, Cone & Belding, San Francisco, defining business and marketing communications strategy for clients including AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Taco Bell. He joined WPP Group in 1994, reporting to Group chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, and became the founding CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Interactive in 1995. Mike co-founded New York-based strategic Internet services firm Brandscape in 1996, acting as the firm's CEO and establishing client relationships with Unilever, HP, and EMC before combining assets of that firm with Primix Solutions in late 1998. He became President of the NASDAQ-listed systems integrator in late 1999, increasing annualized revenues from $5.6 to $30.8 million, doubling gross margins, and adding nearly $200 million in shareholder value before the market crash in late 2000. He was with mobile content pioneer m-Qube from its inception in 2002, acting as the General Manager of Interactive when the company was bought by VeriSign in May, 2006 for approximately $280 Million. Mike serves on the boards of several VC-funded technology companies, including that of Cambridge-based Crimson Hexagon. His blog, Scalable Intimacy , is listed on both the AdAge Power150 and Alltop, and he is ranked in the top 1% of the most influential people on Twitter. Mike is a graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard Business School.

  • Just to add one more point to what made me choose Godaddy in the first place was the word of mouth recommendations I was getting. There were a ton of "Use Godaddy, there are cheap and reliable" pointed in my direction. I still hate their advertising though, without question!
  • I'll admit I use Godaddy....Not because of the boobs either. It's is the rock bottom prices and dependability that keeps me with the brand, as tacky as it is. I keep doling out the $4.95/mo [$250 in total to date] per blog that I host with them yet would never put one of my clients on the service. You are right they are killing it and maybe it's the boobs for some but the rock bottom price point and dependability for others is helping with a low attrition rate. They are capitalizing the flood of web wannabes whether it be small business, new bloggers or people that just don't no better.

    For some reason I think that Bob Parsons has even managed to find some group or organization to give him and award for the low brow style of advertising...seems unlikely that he wouldn't have at least tried.
  • anthonybutler
    "Domains Gone Wild"
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