I had the chance to go to SES Chicago today for the second year in a row. I saw some old friends there, tried to get Barry Schwartz from SEO round table to grab lunch with me but he had an early flight, heard some awesome speakers including Maile Ohye from Google, and Shari Thurow from Omni Marketing Interactive, and sadly missed Aaron Goldman partially because I had limited time there and figured I can catch most of it in his book, Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned From Google, and partially because of the following story.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Why I believe old mento’s commercials were awesome marketing had some of the best marketing.
So there I am listening to Shari Thurow when I get this strong whiff of coffee. I already had a cup when Maile Ohye was speaking and its alraedy been a good 45 minutes since I had any, no one around me has, so I cant imagine where the smell is coming from. And then I look down and what used to be this nice clean white shirt that now had a gigantic brown stain in the middle.
For the life of me, I have no idea how or when this happened. And I was too embaressed to continue networking with people so I decided to head out and go back to the office. I figured I would stop at the nearest store and just buy a polo shirt, but as I left the Hilton, I saw a cleaners. And then the Mento’s music started playing in my head and all I could think about was the guy who sits on a painted bench and then pops in a mento and proceedes to roll all over the bench to give a nice layer of pin stripes to his suit.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHSPXgdNHgs[/youtube]
I have to admit as well, this is not the first time I have thought of that commercial. Pretty much any time I spill, or think there is a clever way to fix my problem, the Mento’s commercial music starts going off in my head. After all these years, that’s what I think of. I would day that’s the sign of a successful advertising campaign.
And of course you are probably wondering what clever thing I did to be like the Mento’s commercial. And no I didn’t pour coffee all over my white shirt to make it a brown short. Although I will admit, that was one of the insane thoughts that crossed my mind. I did however walk into the cleaners and ask if there was anything they could do immediately to clean it. Of course she said no, but then I asked if they had any shirts that people just fogot to pick up. And wouldn’t you know, she showed me a small selection of shirts and I bought one for $4. Problem Solved!
So Mento’s thanks for being a great candy. Too bad I could never eat you because you arent kosher 😉
What are some memorable commercials for you and why?