Career Builder’s Absurdity
Friday, February 23rd, 2007
Have the people at Career Builder lost their minds? What the hell kind of Kool Aid are they drinking over there? They can’t possiblity be that stupid can they? In what has to be the most absurd of all reasons ever uttered publically, CareerBuilder put its account up for review today saying that the Cramer-Krasselt Super Bowl ads failed to rank in the top 10 in USA Today’s viewer poll. Yes, that’s what they said to C-K. The USA Today poll for God’s sake. A stupid poll that no one gives a rat’s ass about. That doesn’t reflect results, sucess or anything of any meaning whatsoever. But, because they didn’t make the top 10, they are putting the account into review. Lunacy!
Cramer-Krasselt president, Peter Krivkovich immediately resigned the account. (Good for him!) And sent out at an internal memo, summarizing his take on the split. According to AgAge, his memo reads in part:
“To our amazement, to our total astonishment, all that astounding business success was less important than one poll,” reads part of Mr. Krivkovich’s memo. “C-Kers, we have to tell you — in our entire history, hell in the history of this crazy thing called advertising, I’m not sure there has ever been any thing as baseless or as unbelievable as that. It’s so ludicrous and they are so serious about that poll it’s almost funny.”
“They wanted us to make them famous; we did that in spades (brand awareness up by 64% — even Millward Brown, the venerable research firm, said their brand-building model couldn’t explain such incredible growth). But the TV ads did not make the top 10 in the USA Today poll — a poll that everyone knows doesn’t mirror results (see the continuing Bud sales decline for one!) — they just told us they will do a creative review.”
“‘Wait a minute,’ we said, ‘what about the incredible growth that is going on, the shares, the revenue, the awareness, the two best internet sites ever, the massive buzz, etc, etc.? What about all of that? That’s huge.’
“‘Yes,’ they responded, ‘but you [C-K] didn’t get the top 10 in the USA Today poll.’ ‘Hold on … we crushed every possible business metrics/barometer for success. Out of all the metrics and polls, it’s all about this one? You have to be F’ing kidding, right!?’”
“‘No, that’s it. It’s because of the poll.’ That was about the extent of the conversation.”
In the ideal world the agency industry would take notice of this lunacy and just say “NO” should the Career Builder folks come knocking at their door. Sadly, given the millions that CB spends, that won’t happen. But it would sure be nice if the industry had some balls or even self respect.