Just because you put a cute dog in a commercial, you won’t automatically communicate effectively with your customers.

Storytelling is a key component of effective marketing and often of the very best advertising. But, you have to be really careful in the use of storytelling for a brief TV commercial that addresses millions of viewers who are not giving you their full attention from the get-go.

That’s why the State Street SPDR commercial featuring a cute Jack Russell Fox Terrier misses the mark.

If you are Garrison Keillor, you can take a long time to tell a story about Lake Wobegon in which none of us know where you’re headed and are willing to give you as much time as you want to get to the point.

TV commercials do not have that luxury. Unless your story is so intrinsically compelling that we will follow along without knowing where you’re headed, you are likely to lose us at least conceptually early on. So it is with the State Street commercial.  Moreover, unless you have an incredibly sophisticated audience, your story must make an obvious customer benefit connection. The State Street commercial does not.

This 60 second spot was shot in vintage black-and-white with an unintelligible French lyric playing in the background. It stars a Jack Russell Fox Terrier who is on a search for the perfect toy for his best four-legged pal. I’m guessing that those of us who are crazy about dogs can spend a pleasant 60 seconds following the ultimately successful search for a buried bone that proves to be preferable to a half-dozen doggie toys delivered earlier.

But, the main reason I paid enough attention to get to the point of the commercial was that I thought it would be great fodder for a blog post. And, not in a good way.

The basic idea is that finding the right dog treat is just as important and just as challenging as finding the right tailored ETF investments for the appropriate customer. But we have to spend virtually the entire commercial following the dog and trying to understand what the heck the French singer is singing in order to get to the pay off–which has nothing to do with a pair of dog buddies.

Here are the three biggest problems I have with this commercial:

1. For the first 45 seconds of the commercial you have absolutely no idea what it’s about. If you are in a relaxed mood and love dogs, that may be okay. But for most viewers, it’s critical to get to the point early in be obvious about the benefit to them.
2. When they do it to the point about 15 seconds left, they make an implicit analogy about a dirty old buried dog bone (that only a dog could love) and their high-tech, sophisticated ETF solution. That’s quite a stretch to make in terms of analogies.
3. Unless you already know what an ETF is and how they can be custom tailored, this commercial won’t tell you anything. And, even if you do know, the wrap up line “precise in a world that isn’t,” doesn’t really provide you a clear benefit or differentiation from other suppliers of targeted ETF’s.

This is a lovely, sweet commercial that those of us who are soft on dogs and on French music can appreciate. But it’s a very inefficient use of 60 precious seconds of commercial time.

A much better example of putting a dog to work is Duke, the golden retriever in the Bush’s baked beans commercials. Click here to see why we believe that is so effective.

if you have an extra 60 seconds to see if you think I’m right or wrong, click on the video below. What do you think? Does it work for you?

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