Ciceron Blog Archives

Genie the Bottle

The TV ads have been toned down, much to the pleasure I'm sure of CoqRoq's critics. But they've missed the point: the genie was let out of the bottle when the "raunchy" ad campaign launched first on the Internet and was passed around worldwide like a bottle of Jaggermeister. Millions of people voluntarily saw the ads, e-postcards, "tour photos," and other content developed just for that very reason to reach consumers and bypass the censorship of the FCC, publishers, or other "filtering" entities.

In essence, Burger King genied the bottle.

def. "Genie the Bottle": 1) to bypass the filtering restrictions of traditional media (a.k.a. the "bottle") by first launching an Internet campaign; 2) Disintermediated content. As in: "Dude, that CoqRoq campaign gave us 10 million impressions last week. We totally genied the bottle on that one!"

As a company that completely embraces measurability and performance, those of us at Ciceron are always suspect of these types of "buzz" campaigns. However, as a close follower of how traditional advertising is transforming itself, campaigns that hope to genie the bottle are no less fascinating. These campaigns experience no direct filters from the FCC. No accommodations to competing advertiser pressures. Nothing but pure, unadulterated content from the source published directly to consumers. Burger King's ad campaign lets the consumer decide whether CoqRoq is cool or offensive. It taps the Court of Public Opinion, not a Board of Directors.

These campaigns are important because they lend credibility to the changing consumer landscape. As a twenty-first century consumer I want to be in control of deciding the value of content that has arrived straight from the source, unfiltered by outside influences. The Internet, still unregulated, provides me a forum in which to access all types of content, make personal judgments as to its value, and, if compelled, share this content with others whom I believe may agree. I personally may not believe the CoqRoq campaign is of great artistic or moral value, but as a marketer, it's intriguing -- enough for me to tell you about it. As a result, I turned a "buzz" campaign into a viral campaign. In that sense, CoqRoq is multi-dimensional, appealing both to the Howard Stern shock-jock crowd and the marketing professional alike.

My 'forwarding' this content to you is part of a behavior set that creates a very targeted consumer niche. Those who may be offended by the CoqRoq ads were largely avoided because I as a consumer used my social network (e.g. my friends-list in Outlook), rather than a third-party entity (e.g. Viacom), to filter the content. These types of campaigns are economically sound because they do not require -- especially in most business-to-business settings -- a mass media but an extraordinarily targeted niche. The waste in irrelevancy is miniscule. For Burger King, the ad works because those who want to be titillated by it have actively and voluntarily visited the ad campaign because other people (trusted sources) have either forwarded it to them or received high ratings from thousands of people who have seen it. Both 'forwarding' and 'ratings' are examples of consumer behaviors working in concert with brands and their agencies hoping to create a wildfire of advertising impressions and impact.

Now if those agencies would just move the dial a little further to measure these campaigns' effectiveness on brand building or product sales, then I'd be even more a fan.

Do you even know what Burger King is selling?

Chicken fries. Mmm-mmm.

(NOTE: In my original newsletter post today, I used the term "Out-Genie the Bottle." Several colleagues in the copywriting business -- a copywriter I am not, by the way -- suggested the slight modification to just "genie the bottle." If you don't like that one, then just use "cat the bag."