Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Yesterday, in a move of "cut off your nose to spite your face"-ness, ABC rejected FCB's ad for KFC citing it's subliminal nature as against policy.

"Two executives close to the situation said that ABC wanted to steer clear of any subliminal persuasion since not every viewer has the technology to slow down the spot and see the hidden message. “Some people still watch TV using rabbit ears,” said one."

I don't even know what to say.
FCB tried to make a move towards re-establishing the value of a 30 sec. spot and the network that makes it's money selling that airtime rejected the premise. I backed up and re-read the article with my monitor set to 800 x 600 just 'cause i felt embarrassed for the guy and wanted to be sympathetic.

Contrast that with Current TV who, despite a comparatively small number of viewers (4.9 million in January) just cut deals with Sony Electronics, Toyota and L'Oreal worth a rumoured 1 to 1.5 million each to "enlist the network's viewers to produce commercials (for their brands) and pay to air the best of those spots". Sony's Chief Marketing officer offered a supportive comment along the lines of 'hey, this is the way the consumers we want to reach operate and we want to contact them on their own terms and put them to work for our brands'.

KFC, meet Current TV. Who's your network daddy now?

Interesting side note: web site visits to KFC generated 11,000 entries on airing of the spot pre-incarceration (not bad but not stunning)...yesterday, after the ad was pulled, 70,000 people went to the effort of finding and submitting the subliminal codes...to win a 2 dollar sandwich.

For those of you who may have missed our earlier discussion around Current, read more about them here

Colleen