WSU Fumbled By Pulling Winning Ads

To quote a well-known Spokane TV sports personality, “Are you kidding me?”

Washington State University pulled the plug prematurely on the best radio and TV ads ever for Cougar football after four people born without senses of humor complained.

I hope you saw or heard the ads.

They were funny, to-the-point and effective.

A little old grandmother’s voice starts bemoaning violence on TV.

Football violence, she muttered. Bone-crushing, helmet smashing, college football violence is just about the most awful thing on Saturday afternoon TV.

Then, in a quirky, funny twist, the little old grandmother said, “Boycott TV Violence. Come see the Cougs in Person!”

A picture flashes on the screen of a killer hit laid on a player (a Husky?) by a WSU defender. On radio, the jarring sound of pads meeting ball carrier rapidly repeats itself three times.

In your mind, you get the picture.

Cougar football is a big-time, big-hit deal that’s worth a drive to Pullman.

In the last few seconds of the ad, the little grandmother plays her role to the hilt. She identifies herself as a representative of Mothers Against Mediocre Entertainment, or MAME.

There is no MAME. The whole ad is satire built on all-so-correct ideas of anti-violence, earnest goodie-goodie grandmas and activism.

It’s a put-on.

It’s an ad trying to have just a little fun in a very serious-minded, don’t-laugh-at-the-wrong-time world.

Of course it would ruffle a few feathers.

When it did, via a handful of letters and e-mails, the ad got yanked before its time.

“Maybe it’s a little like shoeing a horse,” WSU athletic director Rick Dickson said a few days after he pulled the ads off Spokane-area radio and TV stations.”The ad drove the tack a centimeter too deep into the hoof and got a reaction.

In Coeur d’Alene at Hanna and Associates, the agency that created the Mothers Against Mediocre Entertainment ad, Wayne Asmussen acknowledges being a bit confused about the decision to pull the ads or the offense taken from them.

“We’re selling football here,” Asmussen pointed out. It’s sports, not life and death. I think it is very appropriate to put some humor into an ad like that.”

Humor, whether it be a gentle poke of fun or an over-the-top parody, has an edge to it.

Humor, though often built at the expense of someone or some thing, rarely leaves a lasting scar.

The fact that a movement (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) or person (someone’s nice old grandmother) becomes the object of a humorous message could be viewed as a badge of honor and success.

That is not to say every advertising campaign should be believed or its message followed.

Good consumers use the channel changer or turn the page when an obnoxious or annoying message prompts them.

“There is a lot of advertising that irritates me,” said Hanna’s Asmussen. “That’s why there are buttons on the radio. If I hear somethng that I don’t like I switch stations and that’s it.”

At WSU, it’s important to remember next time that four complaints do not a groundswell make.

Even athletic director Dickson now senses as much. “I went on four different talk shows as a follow-up to these ads and found out the overwhelming sentiment was that people liked the ads and thought they were good,” he said.

Any good ad must accomplsih four things to be successful:

Get attention. If people don’t notice an ad, it is ineffective from the first time it airs or is published.

Create awareness. A good ad quickly identifies the item or service being sold.

Be accepted by the audience. Some ads and themes are too gross, too obscure, or too boring for words or pictures. It’s a fine line, but a good ad generally passes beneath the sensitivity radar.

Lead to action. You see the ad, you buy the car, the beer or the football tickets.

Interestingly, the recent Cougar ads seem to have helped sell Cougar tickets.

“We’re expecting a sellout or near sellout for the UCLA game,” said WSU’s Dickson. This is impressive given the fact that the game is scheduled for next Saturday, Labor Day weekend.

The arguable point of discussion about these ads has to do with whether the images in it can be, or should be, accepted by consumers.

On this point, the killed Cougar ads have one strong argument going for them: truthfulness.

Football is violent.

People who watch football, including little old grandmothers, are drawn to the head-knocking, rough and tumble realities of the game.

Football also is just a game.

It has its absurdities, and that is its appeal: controlled violence where otherwise passive people cheer and boo, feel passionate in victory and disconsolate in defeat.

Then they turn off the TV and go out and mow the yard.

The Cougar ads that were pulled sold the game of college football with humor and a kernel of truth.

Instead of being pulled they should win a prize.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review.