It happens all the time. The creatives get together and cook up an ad, a campaign or a new slogan. There is excitement in the air, everyone in the room nods enthusiastically and it is approved.
Nobody wants to test it. Nobody wants to hear someone else bash their baby.
But, they so should.
I recently saw a sign in a hotel elevator that said, regardless of what floor you're on, their service is on another level. So, if you're on the top floor...that would mean the service there would be sub-par.
My first DMO's slogan (before I got there) was "An hour away, a world apart." While we were an hour from Chicago...what exactly did such a slogan say? If you liked where you lived...it meant, get ready to rough it?
And then, there is IHOb. I get this was a last gasp media play...but didn't anybody there recognize the ridicule that would rain down upon them. The most stinging of which came as a Tweet from Wendy's: "Not really afraid of the burgers from a place that decided pancakes were too hard."
They're going to say the ridicule gave them the publicity they craved. But, I'm not going to try an IHOb burger because of it. Are you?
If we've learned anything from our DMOvizion research...it's that really creative ideas don't always test out as well as one would imagine.
Create, to be sure. But then, test.
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