Mondays. We hate them. We forever complain about them. We dread them. The thought of getting up early after a peaceful weekend frightens us. The daunting challenges that Mondays naturally present, scares us. What could make these days worse? One word: traffic. The mere thought of sitting in my car in the morning is enough to make me envision myself on an island far far away. I will further my questioning as I ask you what could make the mundane task of sitting in traffic on a Monday morning even worse than the dreadful experience it has become? The answer: bad radio advertising.
As I’m sure we all do at some point during the week, I often find myself stuck in traffic. Being stuck in traffic has got to be one of man’s most frustrating past times. It is the reason we are late for meetings, and reason we arrive at work in a bad mood. Traffic, is however made bearable thanks to Radio. Radio provides us with a perfect distraction from the evil that is traffic. We all have our favourite radio stations and some of us even look forward to tuning into them, particularly during early morning traffic. We listen to our favourite DJs, we find out what’s going in the news, and we keep up to date with the latest music. These are the fundamental reasons we listen to our favourite Radio stations. What we are forced to listen to, like it or not is: Radio Advertising. Some good, and some bad. The good ones inspire us, they motivate us to purchase a specific product or invest in a particular brand. The bad ones make us want to drive slowly into oncoming traffic.
The ad campaign I am reviewing is FNBs ‘Steve’ ads. If you know what I’m talking about I trust that this campaign infuriates you as much as it does me. If you haven’t heard it, allow me to break it down for you: In the ad there is a phone call. Steve is calling from an anonymous bank which is bleeped out in his voice over. He starts to question the person on the receiving end of the phone call about their banking habits. He is ultimately trying to persuade the potential customer to join his bank. The customer responds by saying that they are more than happy with their current bank which is ironically, FNB. The customer then begins to list the benefits of FNBs eBucks initiative. Steve is left lost for words, and sheepishly ends the phone call.
Now that doesn’t sound all that bad does it? Try hearing the same ad four times in the space of an hour. It is exhausting. If anything this ad makes me want to do anything but invest with FNB. It has become so annoying that I immediately switch off when I am forced to listen to ‘Steve’ and his phone call. This ad is not terribly clever and is relatively straight forward. The insight into their potential customers is relatively simple: People get annoyed with Banks phoning them. To their credit though (and it pains me to admit this) I believe they have done an outstanding job in creating awareness about the benefits FNB has to offer. As annoying as the ad itself may be, everybody is talking about. Whether they are blogging as to how shocking the ad is or complaining about it to their colleagues at work, they are talking about it. Any publicity is good publicity right?
Whilst the ‘Steve’ campaign may prove to be successful in terms of raising awareness I feel that the ad in question is not. As I alluded to earlier I think the message was portrayed poorly and the insight into their consumers and their behaviour was virtually non-existent. The people responsible for creating this ad could have done a lot more with this brief. Personally I can’t stand these ads as I find them incredibly irritating. However they have created awareness through repetition. Is it a successful ad? Probably, yes. Is it a good ad? Absolutely not.
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