Shame on you, Mercedes Benz!

An apostrophe is just a little thing. Why do so many people get it wrong?

Looking into my crystal ball

I predict that location-based marketing is The Next Big Thing!

This innovative 'poster' dispenses doggy treats when you 'check in' on FourSquare.

Woof, woof!

The slogan that made me splutter with disbelief

'Nuff said.

When it’s OK to break all the rules

Ling is the ‘Chinglish’ IT geek and constant creative who famously turned down investment from Dragon’s Den.

LingsCars is her chaotic website, often nominated ‘world’s worst’. It would not be considered ‘elegant’ by any stretch of a web designer’s imagination. However, Ling has won endless awards for her business.

Admittedly, the site will only appeal to people who ‘get’ her sense of humour. For example, she writes ‘WAH’ all over the page, has a ‘car-u-like-ator’ that works like a fruit machine to help you choose your new car, and includes a ‘moans’ page where she deals publicly (and cheekily) with complaints.

What comes through is a genuine personality. (People do business with people.)

Her secret of success? She’s coded a highly automated system that is also a very human experience. Placing an order makes you smile at every stage.

At one point in the process you are offered a free gift such as a ‘cash bribe’. You are then sent a branded envelope including a personalised letter, a banknote worth 6-7p that her sister picked up from the bank in China, together with some wrapped Polo mints that she’s taken from the counter.

It makes you actually enjoy the process of dealing with leasing paperwork. The cost to Ling is endless imagination plus a stamp and a tiny percent of her profit. The result is this blog and allegedly more letters from satisfied customers than any other site on the Internet.

Ling does cheap car leasing, but she could have sold anything from theatre tickets to holiday bookings. Imbued with her customary humour and customer service focus, I’m sure she’d make a success of those businesses too. Even if her website does nearly make your eyes bleed.

Lovely livery

Marketing encompasses business uniforms, building signage and vehicle livery too. So whaddya think of this piece of creative design work, then? Clever old PepsiCo.

In times of austerity...

consumers clip coupons, use voucher codes, and look for any discount offers they can find.

There's a TV ad running at the moment for FantasticSavings.com, with an animated piggy bank and script proclaiming the money you can save. Trouble is, the voiceover talks about 'exciting brands' with an image showing a pack of Tampax Pearl.

Exciting? Not really.

Spot the difference

Frank Sinatra

Harry Connick Junior

Two handsome singers. 'So what does this have to do with your Bad Ads blog?', you may be asking yourself. 'What does this teach me about UK advertising and marketing?'

Well, I saw the first picture displayed as a poster in a café on Saturday, during the lunchbreak from the London meeting of the Professional Speaking Association. The poster was at the far end of the table, so I couldn't read the caption, and at first, I thought it showed Harry Connick Junior (I don't think I'd ever seen a picture of Frank Sinatra looking so young).

But this blog post isn't about my poor face-recognition, nor Frank Sinatra, nor Harry Connick Junior! It's about using speaking as a way to promote your expertise (and therefore your business products or services).

So far, I've learned that speakers can get paid more than trainers (as you may know, I'm a trainer as well as a copywriter and author). So I may well be spending more time at the PSA and in the café looking at the young Frank in future!

Would becoming a speaker be a useful addition to your marketing mix?