I live in the ‘burbs, but I go to school downtown. This means about 75 minutes of commuting, one-way.

As I was coming back from class early last week, I was walking down the subway platform to get to the end as I usually do when I noticed a giant mural that wasn’t there before.

I was walking relatively quickly, so I didn’t pay too much attention to it. However, I did notice that the art was pretty good looking. It was nice to see some colour on an otherwise dull wall.

Except, it wasn’t a mural…it was an ad!

No problems so far – the ad definitely got my attention.

But then I got to the company’s logo and slogan, and that’s where I had a WTF moment.

“American Express – Realize the potential.”

Whaaa!?

Beautiful artwork -> Credit card company -> Realize the potential (?)

I have this reaction all the time to car commercials. They generally play the same two types of music (lively/upbeat, or sentimental/emotional stuff), the slogans don’t match the products, and what you see doesn’t relate to what you hear.

Realize the potential?

What potential…my potential of using your brand of credit card more often so you can earn more in fees?

They make their credit card sound like a gift from heaven that is supposed to enrich your life in a profound way.

Nuh-uh, I don’t buy it at all.

I got an email the other day with the subject line “RE: Paypal” from a guy who will remain unnamed. I don’t mean to knock the guy because I happen to respect him as a person, but you can’t help but question his email marketing methods.

I had a WTF moment after reading this email. See for yourself:

Hope you had a great weekend!

PayPal is NOT accepting payments for
this offer as I have arranged to make
it free for you today

<link deleted>

Grab this now before the “Buy Now”
button reappears again.

<link deleted>

Talk soon!

Putting aside the vagueness of the message and the poor choice of subject line, one thing that strikes me is the lack of relevance between the advertising and the offer.

The offer in question, by the way, was a free traffic report.

I won’t go into false advertising as that’s a pretty different topic, but this is just poor advertising.

Trying to grab people’s attention is one thing. Being totally irrelevant is another.

That ad in the subway platform grabbed my attention, but totally lost it with its incongruent message.

To be fair, incongruence isn’t always a bad thing. A term I learned from Jason Fladlien is “incongruent juxtaposition”, meaning to stick together two things that don’t logically go together, at least not at first glance.

I actually find that kind of funny, because I knew of the words “incongruent” and “juxtaposition”, but never thought of putting them together

Anyway, an example of incongruent juxtaposition would be the following headline from the legendary John Carlton:

Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And Slices… And Can Slash Up To 10 Strokes From Your Game Almost Overnight!

You wouldn’t expect a one-legged person to be able to play golf, much less teach you how to dramatically improve your game.

So in that instance, incongruity is effective because it piques your interest.

Incongruity used improperly, however, is usually an instant turn off.

Would you dress up as a clown and walk around your neighbourhood to advertise your newly opened martial arts school?

Sometimes the craziest things actually end up working (e.g. goats on the roof), but there’s a fine line between crazy and stupid, and unless I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t take any chances.

Until next time,

Curtis