What are companies that do a poor job of target marketing and could do a lot better?

I buy my targets from Remington. Sometimes Colt.

There is no way of determining that – it is subjective.

Look at commercials in which you cannot determine what was being advertised after viewing the ad.

@Marina there are plenty of ads like that on the Net, too

20th Century Fox botched the marketing for the movie “Jennifer’s Body” just worse than I’ve seen any movie studio do since 1993’s “Last Action Hero”. Basically I saw the trailer for this a couple times in the theater, and from the trailer, I got the following information;

1) It stars a young actress named Megan Fox, who is unarguably quite attractive
2) Her character is really slutty
3) She turns into a vampire
4) She has a dowdy looking friend (or at least in comparison)

Then I’ve been for the past several months kind of on a cartoon kick…whereas I used to watch Letterman and/or Conan at night, basically I could sit down at 9pm and watch nothing but repeats of Family Guy and King of the Hill (with maybe one episode of the Simpsons thrown in for good measure) until about 1 or 2 am just about every night of the week, and I only have to change the channel once. Usually that happens at about midnight, when I switch to Adult Swim, if I stay up until 2, I see 2 episodes of KOTH and 2 of Family Guy. And for, and I’m not exaggerating, one entire MONTH before this movie came out, they started playing a truncated version of this same theatrical trailer. 30 seconds, and pretty much drove home those same points, with a LOT more emphasis on Megan Fox being a slutty sexpot. And every night, I kid you not, I would see this trailer no less than 1 dozen times (some times it was slightly modified, usually to emphasize the slutty sexpot angle even more) every single night…for a MONTH. Basically, I’d say I saw this trailer at LEAST 300 times all told in the month before it came out, and what I knew about it was:

1) It stars a young actress named Megan Fox, who is unarguably quite attractive
2) Her character is really slutty
3) She turns into a vampire
4) She has a dowdy looking friend (or at least in comparison)

It was not until the DAY the movie came out that I heard someone on the radio giving away tickets to it, and they said it was written by Diablo Cody. Well, Diablo Cody is a BIG name here in the Twin Cities as she used to be a stripper downtown and then she went off and wrote Juno, which was widely hailed by fans and critics alike for the snappy dialogue and wry, dark humor.

So, THAT was the only thing that even piqued my interest in the movie, I looked up some information. And sure enough, it was a COMEDY. I NEVER got that from the trailers. Aparetnly it’s a very DARK comedy, and hey, I like dark comedies. It’s also a spoof of sorts of the young attractive vampire movie, written from more of a female point of view. Now, had they advertised THAT movie, I might have wanted to see it. I heard it wasn’t as good as Juno, it sort of fell flat in some ways, but at least I could have appreciated it for what it was had I KNOWN what it was. But basically, by the time it came out I was just thrilled that I woulnd’t have to see any more fucking commercials for it. And then, what happened? The movie FLOPPED. $6.7 million on opening weekend. I’m betting they spent more than that on the ads on Adult Swim.

So, basically, they targeted it to horny young guys who stay up all night and watch cartoons, where I’m a sad, middle aged married guy sho stays up all night and watches cartoons. But the target market didn’t buy into it, and why? Well, probably because you either want to see a horror movie and be scared, OR you want to be turned on by a hot chick…very few people are really going to find anything all that sexually stimulating about a hot cock tease who will rip your throat out before you even get a taste of the goods. Even if I were 15 years younger and 15 years hornier, I’d probably just save the $10 on the movie ticket, pull up some pictures of Megan Fox on the internet and grab a jar of vaseline and a roll of paper towels. Essentially what they did was to make a movie which made fun of a certain type of movie, then they marketed the movie they MADE as the type of movie they were making fun of! How fucking stupid is that.

Which is why it reminded me of Last Action Hero. For those of you who don’t recall, California Governor Arnold Schwazenneger USED to be a big action movie star. Then they put out this movie called the Last Action Hero, and it was an outright spoof of big budget action films. Arnold plays a movie action hero, and a young boy who is a big fan is pulled into Arnold’s fake world, where Arnold doesn’t even know he isn’t just a character in a movie (who is this Arnold Braunschweiger you keep talking about?). But the marketing for that movie was like it was a full on action flick…“you’ll be pulled out of your seat and into the action” or something along those lines. This movie also flopped.

Here’s news for any future movie studios who might make that mistake. If you make a movie, and that movie makes fun of a particular genre of movies, market it as a spoof, not as the type of movie you’re making fun of. Because people will go in looking for what was advertised, and they will leave, feeling like they’ve been cheated out of their money and mocked for their tastes in the process.

@dalepetrie Wow, I’m kind of depressed for you sitting up all night watching cartoons. :)

I personally think one of the worst is Olive Garden. Their target is young couples & families on a budget, trying to give off an atmosphere of fun for all. Not only do their commercials fall short, they don’t even come close to making their audience feel like their restaurant has a fun atmosphere. In fact they come across as being so out of touch that their audience is left with a senior citizen buffet feel, not a fun family dinning feel.

Their advertising shortcomings can be seen on the street as Olive Gardens in “younger” areas (malls, city hubs, etc) go out of business, new ones pop up in “older” areas near airports and hospitals.

Don’t believe their commercials are off their mark? Just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgNEpbfkqzo&feature=related. Sad as it is this one of the least annoying spots they’ve run and it still manages to make me feel like smashing my TV every time I see it.

@drClaw I didn’t realize Olive Garden was targeting a young market. I would have to agree with you.

The overall problem with Olive Garden is their food sucks. Soup and salad is one of the few things worth while.

@JLeslie I’m with you on their food, but they do have relatively low prices and for that fact alone they should be able to do a better job at getting the younger set into their restaurants.

@chyna – I haven’t had a job in 7½ months, I can’t afford to do anything else, and I have a 52” LCD TV, might as well find my fun where I can.

Ours :)

@drClaw There is nothing trendy about that restaurant, I don’t see why they would target younger people? It feels more family to me.