I’ve become a huge fan of the AMC TV show Mad Men. The show centers around a character named Don Draper – a 40 something advertising executive working on Madison Avenue. Don’s character has a knack for simplifying a marketing message down to the essentials – identifying the underlying motives behind the decisions we make – and speaking directly to those perceived needs. I’ve always been more interested in the technical aspects of SEO instead of the nitty-gritty sloganeering involved in branding and marketing but this show has started to change my focus. I can’t help dissecting slogans, the tone of a message, and the various call to actions barraging us from all sides.

One of the worst examples of a confused, ineffective marketing message has been gracing our tv screens from the fine people at Kmart. I truly feel sorry for the poor shlubs trying to craft any marketing message for Kmart.

Kmart Christmas Commercial

There’s smart, and there’s Kmart smart

This tag line presents itself as a dichotomy between two states of being:

• smart
• not smart (Kmart smart)

I don’t generally like throwing other marketers under the bus, as many of my sites are guilty of similar sins, but this doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective marketing message. I can empathize with whatever agency is responsible however as Kmart gives them little to work with. Wal-Mart has the value proposition angle on lockdown. Target is the trendier, cooler cousin. Kmart is the last refuge of the blue haired stuck in a fleeting era when spinning blue lights had the same effect as Pavlov’s bell. That being said there are a couple of fundamental flaws in their approach.

1. K-Slogan doesn’t speak directly to the consumer – Kmart has opted to emote a vague feeling that kmart shoppers might be something other than smart (hopefully smart-er but we’re hazy on that).
2. K-Slogan doesn’t evoke an emotional response. What is marketing other than encouraging consumers that they NEED your product, that they NEED to get off their asses and pick up the phone or rush out to the store? It may qualify as advertising, but it certainly isn’t marketing. No one is jumping off their sofas running to their local Kmart thinking, “I will not be one of those merely smart people goddammit! I will be one of those other than smart people or die trying!!!”
3. K-Slogan falls in the “differentiation” bin without clarifying how it is better – clearly differentiating your brand from others is useful, but it does so in a non specific way. As a result it fails to elicit a positive response.

Best Buy Christmas Commercial

Best Buy on the other hand does nearly everything well. The most recent slogan I’ve heard is Buyer Be Happy. This slogan implies that shopping at best buy will make me happy – as opposed to something other than “merely smart”. Best Buy’s slogan is a play on the latin caveat emptor – buyer beware and has one other significant factor in its favor – an excellent name. In combination, the name and slogan elicit the feeling that Best Buy shoppers will get a great deal and end up happy – effectively mitigating the empty feeling many of us experience upon leaving a big box: Cognitive Dissonance (buyer’s remorse).