Just a few weeks ago, every marketing message was centered around the holidays which are celebrated around the time of the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere). Now, those images have shifted from snow and reindeer to hard bodies sweating in the gym. Oh what a difference a few days can make! If you want your January message to "stand out", then go ahead and feature the fat bearded guy dressed in red. Your message will definitely "stick out" but the term "sore thumb" also comes to mind.
Early January is ripe for playing to the "making resolutions" types of ad… and Nike has a great "no excuses" spot running featuring UW-Whitewater Wheelchair Basketball Player Matt Scott
where he recites the many "excuses" we average humans make about why we don’t exercise.
While the message is timeless, it plays EXCEPTIONALLY well at this time of year.
Back in May , I posted an article on my "main" business web site on how blogging is like exercise. This morning when I logged on, I found a flurry of trackbacks to the article. The message is the same as it was back in May… but now the post is being found because people are searching for how blogging is like exercise and they’re finding that post.
While that kind of "sleeper post" is possible on a blog, it’s not possible when you’re utilizing other media. Had that been a traditional advertisement (running in radio, television, newspaper, billboards, magazines, etc.) it would have been "here today, gone tomorrow." There is no such thing as a sleeper advertisement.
Would the Nike "No Excuses" spot featuring Matt Scott be powerful if run in May? Of course it would be, but it grabs even more attention being run the first week of January.
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