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Originally Posted by dirty  They are everywhere.. On every game you see on TV (except FSN) in Football. If you watch the MLB baseball package every team has a AFLAC Trivia Question. They are on the FOX game of the week in Bases. The Hawks have them on local Telecasts here. They are every where  |
Try 310 million on media advertising the last 5 years Dirty!
Quack attack March 30th, 2007 | By Dave Newbold
I happened upon a recent example, packaged in the form of a trade journal article titled, “AFLAC CMO Says: Shut the Duck Up.” You know the AFLAC duck – probably all too well. It’s practically a cultural icon. It shared a couch with Ben Affleck on The Tonight Show. It made a guest appearance in the movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s a very famous fowl.
The problem? Few people (myself included) clearly understand what AFLAC is, according to Ad Age. Few comprehend what is sells, or what it stands for. That’s after AFLAC spent about $310 million in media on the duck over the past five years. Big oops.
So the new CMO will make the duck far less visible, and focus more marketing dollars on what AFLAC does. Sounds like a good idea.
The supplemental insurance industry is a difficult one for people to comprehend in the first place. Being known isn’t enough. Not even close. You must be understood at a deeper level than, in this case, an iconic duck provides.
It’s a lesson for all of us. The brand/ad idea has to be useful beyond just getting attention. There’s a lot of “art for art’s sake” advertising that snags your attention — without having much, if any, affect on the advertiser’s bottom line. Case studies abound.
A marketer’s job goes far beyond awareness. It is to help your brand stand for something meaningful.