The world of advertising is changing. People are no longer excited by things like YouTube videos or viral posts. New media is not new enough anymore we want innovative media. Innovative media is not edgy enough we want shock and awe mediatising. A brave new world of advertising is afoot…or rather should we say underarm. Enter the new frontier of advertising brought to you by Right Guard deodorant, I give thee Pitvertising! Eww…pitvertising you stammer. Yes, pitvertising I answer in the affirmative.
No, I’m not kidding you folks; apparently somebody in the Right Guard camp out of London came up with the smart idea of sewing digital TV screens into the armpits of shirts. Right Guard hired male models referred to as “Pitvertisers” to go out on a summer excursion and promote the brand in this innovative fashion. According to Right Guard, “Pitvertising is a new and unexpected way of reminding the consumer to stay cool this summer!” The Pitvertisers took to mass transit and did whatever they had to in order to make their underarms public business. Now I’m not sure if this marketing method will make it anywhere in the United States but I beg of them to please stay out of South Carolina. Our humidity here is crazy as it is and I do not want to hear about any accidental deaths on the news from a silly advertising medium such as this. Now what do you think people, is this going too far? Or can you see this being applied to some other body part? Scary isn’t?
Tammy said,
June 18, 2009 @ 2:04 am
I say for one, I think this is nuts, I personally can’t stand having pits around my face, so just picture the smell and how close you would really have to get to actually view the whole thing.
As you stated this is South Carolina so 10 months out of 12 you’re looking at needing extra deo and sweat and electricty just don’t mix…. just gross.
missmarketing said,
June 28, 2009 @ 11:53 pm
I’m with Tammy, it’s just gross. Evidently we are not alone, Tim Nunn, the AdFreak says, “The whole thing, of course, is the pits (even Axe’s legendary Pitman would probably disapprove), and is rivaled in its distastefulness only by that other burgeoning bodily ad medium: crotchvertising. Via Gizmodo.”
On the other hand, you never know if an idea is a good one until you try. In manufacturing we ofter point to Thomas Edison as a guy who tried thousands of ideas before he came up with a winner. “Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward….”
Maybe pitvertising could become heartvertising or morph into yet another good idea. Right Guard is an old brand reinventing itself for a new generation. I have to think they are doing a lot of measurement in London to see if this idea achieves their business objectives.
Links: http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/right-guards-pi.html
http://www.thomasedison.com/quotes.html
sClarke said,
June 29, 2009 @ 9:50 pm
Well this advertising tactic could get awkward quickly. Pitvertising, eh? This in one extreme guerilla advertising technique. You have to give it to them, it’s the first time this has ever been done and it will get people looking. But will look on with disgust, intrigue, or will they simply be baffled. In all honestly, all three could be very possible.
This tactic is receiving quite a bit of negative attention…
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/07/armpit_televisions_promote_stinky_ads-2/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/jul/17/pitvertisingthenewwhiffof
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/right-guards-pi.html
Weburbanist has found five guerilla marketing tactics that have gone wrong. One was prior to the release of the movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. “There are many fans of the new movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall – unfortunately, most women named Sarah Marshall aren’t among them. Guerilla-style scrawled ads posted around the country have featured disparaging phrases like ‘You Suck Sarah Marshall’ leading up to the film’s release. Perhaps it never occurred to the guerilla marketers behind these campaigns that there are, in fact, many real-life women with that name. Responses have ranged from frustration to raging retaliation (with comparable ‘You Suck’ signs aimed at the film’s director). The lucky woman, however, who owns SarahMarshall.com was relatively pleased with the tens of thousands of visitors her website received.”
See the remaining four at http://weburbanist.com/2008/05/06/5-great-examples-of-guerilla-marketing-gone-wrong-from-olympic-fumbles-to-bomb-scares/
sClarke said,
June 29, 2009 @ 10:17 pm
Wow. Pitvertising. I hope this doesn’t catch on because who knows what they’ll move onto next. I’m a fan of guerilla marketing but this one takes the strategy a bit over the edge. Right Guard may be able to turn some heads, but most of them may be in the other direction. This tactic is a bit baffling. Sure it makes sense, armpit TVs for deodorant, but does the big picture make sense? This pitvertising is receiving quite a bit of negative attention:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/jul/17/pitvertisingthenewwhiffof
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/right-guards-pi.html
I’ve found five more guerilla tactics that have gone wrong.
1. During the Athens Olympics, one man, wearing a tutu, decided it was a good idea to jump off the diving platform into the Olympic swimming pool with the words, “GoldenPalace.com” across his torso. The attempt to market the online gaming site caused the Canadian to be sentenced to several months in a Greek prison for trespassing and creating a disturbance but was released and only had to pay fines for several hundred dollars.
2. A person postering Microsoft Zune advertisements was detained and handcuffed in Texas. A witness overheard the police saying something along the lines of, “We’ll have none of your advertising for your cripplewared crappy MP3 littering our town.”
3. Prior to the release of the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, guerilla-style posters with the words, “You Suck Sarah Marshall” were plastered all over the country in lieu of the movie’s debut. One thing that did not occur to these marketers is that there are in fact actual women named Sarah Marshall. Some of which responded with their own posters saying, “You Suck Judd Apatow” which were aimed at the film’s director.
4. Some guerilla marketing campaigns’ aim is to casually mention products so that passers-by will overhear a name-drop and it’s not surprise that this strategy has found its way to the internet. Nvidia is one of a number of companies that has been accused of seeding online forums with fake-fan support for their products. Of course, when the truth comes out real forum users are often none-too-pleased with the deception and the lame excuses provided by the marketers or companies accused.
5. Post-9/11, multiple LED signs were intended to promote Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But they were mistaken as bombs. Perhaps installing a myriad of these wire-filled devices with their own power sources on things like bridge supports was not such a good idea. Even worse, the marketers and device designers did not make it a note to alert the police of their devices even after they realized authorities were treating them as bombs. No arrests were made but Turner Broadcasting paid millions to city police and Homeland Security in order to resolve the matter.
Maybe pitvertising doesn’t seem so bad when put in the same category as these five.