Thinking outside the box - not again!?!?!

[Papadoc]

I won't mention names because they are a WPW advertiser, but I just did a quickie random market test with about 30 of my colleagues about an ad I just received with an opening line and a subject message of "Think Outside The Box". My question to each of those colleagues was simply to ask them for their first impression.

To a one, they all wrote back with some comments asking if the company was serious or about firing the ad company that did it. To a one also however, none actually read past the opening line. The ad is actually a fairly clever ad and attempt to use the cliche in a tongue in cheek manner.

While I have to give advertiser credit for the attempt, I think there are some ad cliches that are just too hard to get by, and it points out the need to run ads by target focus groups before going national with it. - A Lesson To All - You can develop what you think to be a killer ad campaign and it might fly or might not. It might also fly with one group, but not another.

I wish the advertiser luck and hope that my thoughts and results aren't typical of what their response will be.