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This week’s nominee comes from a friend of Ad Mavericks with a keen eye for detail – and a strong “Buy Into the Circle” determination to support local businesses!
Have you seen the latest tv spot from Office Depot?:
Creative? Yep. Clever? Check. Well produced? You got it! Off the mark? Absolutely!
Just for kicks, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of “Dan” the owner of the small barber shop in spot. Dan’s the little guy. The guy who has spent his life working, paying taxes, furrowing away enough money that he could both make a comfortable-enough living to support his family and hopefully someday retire. Then one day, a competitor comes in. The “big box” guy with the slick marketing plan and cheaper prices. The one that could ultimately drive Dan out of business. Little versus big. Local versus national. David versus Goliath.
Fortunately, David (in this case Dan) is clever enough to develop a strategy to defeat the big box titans. Unfortunately, he probably does it at the expense of one of his local business comrades who has worked at the local office supply store for years. See, Dan opts to spend his money with ANOTHER BIG BOX RETAILER to battle the one that moved across the street to compete with him.
This is a brilliant spot if you’re a local independent like Tripletts or Storey-Kenworthy or Koch Brothers. But when you’re the national, big-box retail brand suggesting that you battle the big guys by buying from the other big guys? That dog just won’t hunt!
So congratulations Office Depot, your oxymoronic ad makes you our Worst of the Week!
Author: AdMavericks
www.lessingflynn.com
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! SO surprised they didn't consider the fact that the "little guy" would not go an buy from the "big guy" when his buddy, also a "little guy" probably has the same products. Come on Office Depot! You are the big guy who puts local Mom and Pop's out of business!!! Not as much as Walgreen's or Walmart…but you do!
Nice grab Admavericks!
Okay….I agree that the ad, if viewed through that prism, is wierd BUT what if if Office Depot is trying to say they don't view themselves as just another Big Box? What if their goal is to offer the benefits of a Big Box but give you the Mom & Pop feel? Maybe they are positioning themselves as the friend of small business. Just something to think about. I watched this commercial on TV (I know crazy!) a few weeks back and smiled after it was over thinking it was clever and that their goal was accomplished…making me feel good about Office Depot.
So I don't disagree with your post…it can certainly be seen that way. Maybe I am too open to a positive interpretation!
@Pete – you are right. Think about the stationary stores that used to be in Valley Junction.
@Matt, thanks for the comment. Good observation and I had not considered that. But, if Office Depot wants to befriend the mom and pop shop, they should do it without attacking a big box store, which they are.
That would be like Lessing-Flynn running an ad that said companies should never do business with an ad agency in Des Moines, well, except for us, yeah, that's the ticket!
Can't you give some honorable mention in the same category to the unbelievably annoying Staples ad which features the guy shouting "Wow! That's a low price!" repeatedly.
Nothing says marketing like depicting your own customers as uninformed doofuses.
Plus it's extremely annoying.
Enough to make me want to throw my shoe through my TV.
MV
@mike – just for you – I think honorable mention is certainly deserved.
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I think Office Depot is living in Candyland if they think they can position themselves as "not a big box". That or they're just oblivious to the huge oxymoron that existed within that commercial.
I think it would be a better strategy to position themselves as a smart solution for small business owners to get ahead because they offer great rates or whatever. Reach out to the little guys without insulting big box retailers and confusing and irritating your potential consumers. Nobody will ever see Office Depot as a mom and pop.
Yall don't get it at all.
Dan the Barber's banner from Office Depot (created according to his specs) didn't run Nitro Cutz out of town.
Dan's skillz as a barber who could cut anybody's hair ran them out of town. Broadcasting that fact helped and expanded his business, as the neighborhood found out exactly what a $6 haircut was like. In other words, quality trumped quantity.
Check out my explanation here: http://thisblksistaspage.wordpress.com/2010/02/02...
Yes, OD is a big box business, they've run stationers and office supply businesses out of town; however, I don't think that was the point. The point was that using his head, and requesting a simple banner that had a lot to say about what he was like, Dan saved his business.
A very long time ago, when I was in the fourth grade perhaps, we read a short story fiction about a guy who invented putting ice cream in a cone. His ice cream stand did amazingly well, until a bigger company showed up and stole his idea and undercut him.
Just when he was going to go out of business, he came up with the ice-cream sandwich idea. Sure, in time that idea would be stolen as well, but not right away, and the smaller businesses ability to come up with a clever idea, and have it implemented faster than a corporation, leads to survival.
The commercial was about YOU, DAN, SURVIVING, so you can live to fight another day, and if it takes thinking of Office Depot, who may in fact have previously taken out your small business friend, as an ally, for now, than that is what you do.
There can be some level of mixing between box houses and small business, it just takes market demand and small business ingenuity to hopefully find a balance. The office depot commercial is brilliant because it probably inspired and reminded a lot of small business owners that they can control their own destiny more often then they may have previously believed they could.
Otherwise, Dan is gone as well, and just what does that serve?