I just finished watching Mad Men. Every time I finish the show I think I’m an ad man for about 45 minutes and start to analyze various marketing ploys and commercials from companies, and then think about how I can make it better. Tonight was no different, but what is different is that tonight, I’m taking to my blog as opposed to my girlfriends ear. I take that back I did go to my girlfriend’s ear, but truthfully I don’t think she was listening, and I don’t blame her.
That product: 5-Hour Energy Drink.
You know 5-hour energy drink – it’s the little red and black bottle that promotes 5 hours of energy if you chug 1.93 FL oz. The reason it’s 5 hours and not, say, 8 hours is because it’s supposed to last the equivalent of 5 hours of coffee/caffeine.
The commercial that we saw focused on the “why wait for coffee” motto. It was bunches of people being totally inconvenienced just to get their morning pick me up. If you haven’t noticed the main leg that the little drink sits on is the coffee aspect - which is fine, but it’s making a huge mistake.
Lets forget for a second that 5 hour energy drink is intimidating because it feels like it’s bad for you simply from the packaging, lets pretend like we can overlook the fact that it calls itself a dietary supplement, and then lets pretend that the commercial isn’t totally kind of creepy (commercial below) – lets focus on the coffee aspect.
What these people behind 5 hour energy drink don’t realize is that one of the main appeals for coffee is that people like to have things in their hands. People like to be doing things and drinking coffee is one of them. In the work environment, there is nothing better than having coffee in your hands so you don’t feel like your hands are hanging aimlessly at your sides when you’re talking to someone. The idea of coffee is appealing because people are accomplishing something – We accomplish nothing while opening a 5-hour energy drink.
This energy drink needs to adjust their campaign from “a coffee drink” and focus on what it really is – it’s the thing you take when you cram for exams or drive cross country. If I were sitting in a room with the heads of this energy drink I’d go Draper on every ass and steal them to be my client. Someone is doing an incredibly bad job with the campaign. Someone needs to adjust their campaign to make it fun to drink the energy and not make it seem like we’re robots consuming something because we’re weak and need the “pick me up.”
Don’t you get it 5-hour energy drink? We know we need the pick me up but it’s more than that, coffee is social and appealing. Make your drink social. And then when you’re done with that put more than $15 in your ad department and re-do your commercials.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLdBOTuX1GI&w=560&h=315]