MarketingInsideOut.com

Is an ad that is nothing short of brilliant! It is captivating consumers and annoying the crap out of commercial hating zealots. I don’t know who did this ad – but I am in awe. They’ve taken a sing songy, hard pressed to rhyme jingle, added some goofy looking average as hell guys and some totally lame head bobbing and they’ve created the latest cult following.

And just why are we so mesmerized? Well, to start with, these guys are people we know – they’re so common we see them everywhere – we identify them with the average, but slightly grungy, person that we all know. So they’re relatable. But when you add that to the fact that they’re singing a song that required no talent to write or perform you have to wonder why’s it so cool? And I think it has a lot to do with the attitude. Devoid of any emotion the lead singer is giving a matter of fact accounting, and jarringly humiliating demonstration, of his own financial devastation. You don’t see anger or pent up frustration – just bad rhyming and goofy head bobbing. And good luck trying to get that jingle out of your head!

The picture he paints in each spot is so common to so many people, but in reality the prevailing attitude is generally one of depression or rage at being forced unfairly into a reduced lifestyle. Not so for our lead singer. He gets that his poverty status is his fault because he didn’t take advantage of “F – R – E – E that spells free credit report dot com, baby.” While his nonchalance in the face of unexpected poverty serves to validate our own stupid mistakes – if he can roll with it so can we – by showing us what his stupidity costs him, he is at the same time educating us to take those credit gremlins seriously so we don’t end up in his predicament. Its pain free learning with a dash of humor on top!

What’s really ingenious is that the ad takes an incredibly mundane topic – checking out your credit status, and manages to get three key messages over to the viewer without risk of sending them into coma – or to another channel. First, they get a clear and scary picture of what bad credit can do to your life, Second, they get that there’s a F – R – E – E service that can help them find out their current credit status so they can make some educated decisions about how they should proceed with purchases and Third, they learn just exactly how and where to find this information. Such a difficult thing to accomplish and they make it look so easy. And the campaign has real legs to boot.

I now know that neglecting your credit rating can cause you to have to live in your in-laws cramped basement, make you work in a cheap restaurant wearing a pirate’s hat and drive around in a junk that will make you the laughing stock of the road. I just hope they keep going – I can’t wait to see where they take “the band” next!