Historically, State Farm has done some terrific campaigns. Remember their “And like a good neighbor, State Farm is there?” campaigns? Brilliant, not only from a strategic point-of-view, but from an executional point-of-view, too.

In addition, State Farm is a very sophisticated marketer. You’ll find their campaigns in a number of non-traditional channels (like YouTube) and they even publish some very sophisticated tracking studies that highlight the success of their efforts.

But every so often, no matter how good a marketer you are, a real clunker slips through the cracks. In this case, it’s the State Farm “Feelin’ Kinda Sunday” ads which feature groups of people singing the Frank and Nancy Sinatra song.

What’s wrong with this campaign and what can you learn from State Farm’s mistakes? Here you go:

1. It’s a Feel Good Commercial with Absolutely No Message: There’s nothing wrong with doing a feel good commercial if it sells the brand. McDonald’s and Nike are masters at this. But the difference is that at the end of their commercials, your response is “Ahhhh. I get it. Nike. (Or McDonald’s) That commercial relates to their brand and their product.” But with these “Feeling Kind of Sunday” commercials, you’re simply left scratching your head saying “Huh? What was that about? And what does it have to do with State Farm?”
2. It Ties Into a Campaign Theme, but Each Commercial Doesn’t Stand On Its Own: With long-running campaigns, it’s normal that you’re going to have a series of commercials where your target audience hasn’t seen every single one of them. But when that happens, you need to make sure that each individual commercial can stand on its own. This campaign doesn’t work that way. Again, at the end of the commercial you’re left scratching your head asking, “What the heck?”
3. There’s No Link Between the Theme and the Brand: “Feeling Kind of Sunday” has no relation to the brand or the products and services State Farm provides. You can sometimes get away with this, but in most cases, if you’re selecting a theme (or song) to represent your brand or marketing strategy, you need to make sure there’s a natural link between the two. State Farm misses the mark on this front.

To be sure, State Farm has a long history of doing very solid work. And there isn’t a marketer out there who hasn’t had a clunker slip through the cracks. But these commercials are a big waste of money for State Farm and don’t do anything for the brand or the products and services. If it were up to us, we’d nuke these spots and put the money against some of the other strong ads in the State Farm toolbox.

What are your thoughts? Are there other commercials that are as bad or worse than these?

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008, 9:26 am   |   Uncategorized  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback