Why are media owners such bad clients? It’s one of the few
advertising generalisations that comes anywhere near to being an
invariable rule.
In the past, perhaps because they have had to sit through so much
rubbish paraded by agencies as facts about their business, they resorted
to taking their work in-house and relying on media independents to buy
space and time. Understandable perhaps, but, as a result, they have
earned themselves the reputation of being intractable, unappreciative,
suspicious, mean-minded so and sos (a bit like the journalists some of
them used to be, I suppose).
These accusations are probably a bit harsh for the people at the
Christian Channel, who have been bombarding us over the past couple of
weeks with cryptic teasers from ’God’ to mark the channel’s relaunch
after two years. And yet, as so often happens with carefully thought-out
teaser campaigns, when the work was finally revealed it was a huge
disappointment - and not just because we initially thought the messages
from God had something to do with David Abbott passing the time
fruitfully in his new civilian role.
It was a huge disappointment because the work seems so wrong for its
target audience. Am I alone in thinking that offensive lines such as
’God the Father, God the Son and God the TV channel’ and ’Virgin
Television’ seem more appropriate for Smart Alec TV than the Christian
channel?
Before hands trembling with outrage reach for pen and venom to castigate
me, I would like to make it perfectly clear, as John Major was fond of
saying, that I have no constructive criticism to offer. I suppose one
alternative would have been for the ads to talk more about what the
channel will actually be offering us over the next few months. Now let’s
see ... TV evangelising from the US, bibles by post, that sort of thing.
Like I said, no constructive criticism.
