Advertising We Hate: Yahoo’s Purple People Eater

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This is how a campaign like this sees the light of day: Ten execs sit around a big table while one exec stands in front of them holding a dry erase marker. He writes a sentence on the board behind him, circles it, underlines it twice, then turns around and reads the line out loud: Reaching Gen Y! Then, the execs make a mind map and come out with one big idea: Hipsters. This progresses into a discussion about how this demographic is really into recycling. It is during this debate that the 11 execs find their aha! moment: Let’s recycle every bad idea Gen-Y hunters ever had. This meeting helps the execs “guide “ their ad agency.

And that is how you wind up with 1) A visual featuring a jumping hipster in blue and green plaid telling everyone (else) to wear purple; 2) “Go ahead. Take the road less traveled. Zig when others zag. Wear purple after Labor Day. Be you with Yahoo!”; 3) A total alienation of hipsters.

Ahem.

Comments

  1. Chris Reinhard September 16, 2008

    Step 1a) Incorporate hipster

    Step 1a) Incorporate hipster music from 1999 that has since become mainstream to the point of international tours and festival top billing.

    Does anyone else want to never wear purple again?

  2. appleZ September 16, 2008

    Anyone else think of

    Anyone else think of this?

    When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
    With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
    And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
    And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
    I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
    And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
    And run my stick along the public railings
    And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
    I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
    And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens . . .

    Not so much hip as hip replacement….

  3. Justin McCammon September 16, 2008

    Guess someone at Yahoo took

    Guess someone at Yahoo took Seth Godin’s Purple Cow idea a little too literally.

  4. Chris Maley September 16, 2008

    Maybe they just had too much

    Maybe they just had too much money in their marketing budget, so they created this to help get rid of some of those dollars.

  5. Brian W. September 16, 2008

    choking on google’s dust,

    choking on google’s dust, yahoo coughs up a purple hair ball before being stripped apart by microsoft.

    be you with us. sounds strangely familiar.

  6. mnik September 16, 2008

    Uh. I think this was a mood

    Uh. I think this was a mood board put together by Brand Planning.

  7. Kyle September 17, 2008

    So what is this supposed to

    So what is this supposed to be promoting? I expected a recruiting site, but it’s not.

    “What can brown do for you” makes sense—it weaves a recognizable attribute into a customer-focused message.

    This is more like a grade school-level “I LIKE PURPLE!!!” pastiche. Good for you guys, but what does that mean to me? Jack s***, that’s what.

    +1 for the sound effects, though. Nice touch.

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