Oh my gosh my eldest son has turned into a walking car insurance advertisement.
First, we were driving past the shopping plaza at Ashburn Farms Parkway and Ashburn Village Blvd. We've never had nor dealt with State Farm Insurance before, and I make no endorsement or recommendation with regard to their business.
ES saw the State Farm store front in the strip mall and said, "State Farm is THERE!"
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for State Farm's ad agency.
Then, this afternoon I got home just before dinner and the boys were playing out in the front yard. ES sounded like a broken record. He kept singing over and over and over and over and over... "Nationwide is on your side." Curious, I asked my son if he had any idea what "Nationwide" was. Much to my surprise, he informed me it was a car insurance company. WHY on EARTH would a 7 year old care or retain that information?
So, Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for Nationwide's ad agency.
We came inside for dinner, and it only took about 5 incantations of "Nationwide is on your side" for my wife to go nuts and ask him to stop.
[Pregnant Pause]
You'd think ES had the yellow pages in his noggin. He flipped to the next business listing in the category and said, "oooh, how about the Gecko?" He started spouting off some slogans from the Geico ads with the gecko.
So, Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Chalk up an Effective Advertising award for Geico's ad agency.
That one at least makes a LITTLE sense why a KID would remember it. I can imagine a kid remembering a cute gecko, but not the State Farm or Nationwide jingles.
He got bored of the Geico slogans (no catchy tune), so then he decided to take our insurance company, USAA, and started MAKING UP jingles for USAA.
So here's a question for those of you with ad agency experience...
Do they have a summer camp where they put kids to work at ad agencies? How old do you have to be to apply for an ad agency internship?
Cute stuff. :) My older son was like that too. I've heard that Sesame Street was designed to mimic commercials because that's what gets the kidlets attention. Seems maybe they knew what they were talking about.
ReplyDeleteahh, the psychology of advertising. Well, that just shows the level to which they advertise ;). Maybe ES is going to follow Uncle & Grandma into advertising. :) With his creativity - he would be a natural!
ReplyDeleteI can remember @ that age both of his Uncles were making up their own jingles for local biz... "Krusty K-Mart Fall Apart"..... "Stinky Toes GI Joes".... etc. etc. etc.
Ahhh, you think the Pentagon is the only one secret mind control tricks? The stats say moms and kids are most likely to be watching during off-peak (mid-day) hours. As an advertiser, you buy these spots at a premium price and repeat the spots as often as you can afford during a specific program -- you'll see car insurance during talk shows (Rachael Ray, The Doctors, Regis & Kelly, etc.) and offers for Legal School programs during courtroom dramas, etc. The new approach is "album style" which runs families of ads (same advertiser, same brand/jingle, varied messages) in succession during the same programming hour. This approach has proven most successful creating what's called "minor regurgitation" (a reference to the age of the most influential party in the household) -- which is the term for your Son acting as the speaker broadcasting advertisers' slogans in your home, even when the TV, radio and internet aren't being used. Beat him at his own game… next time he starts, ask him “Are you in good hands?” lol
ReplyDeleteFascinating. And thanks to pdxboxer for explaining why ES seems fixated on car insurance ads. So, is ES a talk show fan? I was, at his age, believe it or not -- although I preferred the nighttime variety whenever I got to stay up late!
ReplyDeleteAnd Hilary, as one who was around when Sesame Street began -- I was six days short of my 13th birthday (so no, I wasn't a viewer) -- I can confirm what you heard. That was exactly what their stylistic inspiration was. Commercials!