A sidenote to eBay’s earnings call this afternoon was the announcement - well, warning is more like it - that eBay is about to start turning up the volume on its dreadful “windorphins” ad campaign.
This was surely the darkest news to emerge from a conference call that sent eBay’s stock lower. When eBay unveiled the new campaign last month, I thought “windorphins” was some kind of marketing synergy with Microsoft Windows. No, it was just eBay being “fun”. “It’s that fun, great, euphoric feeling you get when you win on eBay,” Meg Whitman said today.
And yet it was more nausea than euphoria that I felt going to windorphins.com (a domain that eBay actually had to strongarm a journalist into giving up). It’s peppered with video ads that all made me cringe and colorful blobs with blinking eyes, which I guess windorphins are supposed look like. You can even design your own windorph avatar. (Caution: If you try this, do not click on the “jazz hands” tab. It may induce thoughts of suicide.)
Most people found the last eBay campaign - where people fetishize the oversize yet lower-cap letters “i” and “t” - perplexing and smug. Before that, there were campaigns like the Nike-ish “do it eBay” and the Hallmark-ish “the power of us” - harmless enough but it apparently moved no one. (Actually, some of the oldies are actually pretty good.)
It’s been said often enough that traditional advertisers have taken forever to wake up to the realities of the Internet. So why is it that the same is true for Internet companies attempting to advertise through traditional venues. With notable exceptions - a few Super Bowl spots from employment sites, pretty much anything from Apple - offline campaigns from tech-savvy companies are rank. Does anyone miss the pets.com sock puppet?
Not long ago, eBay was a cultural force to be reckoned with - a new worldwide lifestyle for the digital age. Now it’s message is being reduced to brightly colored, blinking blobs. Surely a $7 billion company can afford to create a better marketing message than that.
16 comments so far
10:34 PM PT
Refreshingly blunt and candid article. Awesome!
However, its easy to point out flaws. How about outlining a couple of suggestions - excuses about not being an “advertising” guy are unhelpful :)
11:05 PM PT
Like Kevin, I was also under the impression that this might be a new kind of product from Windows people. Oh well.
11:42 PM PT
Jonathan, you have a good point. I tried to address it by pointing to Apple, etc., as well as eBay’s old TV spots.
That said, I don’t think TV commercials are aimed at other ad creators - which I am not - but at consumers - which I am very experienced at. As a consumer, eBay’s old commercials got me excited about the site. The new ones don’t.
12:01 AM PT
Wow. Just, Wow.
The big question is how eBay can spend millions on something like this without a clue and yet ordinary people like me can know in an instant that it was a bad idea, and that it will fail utterly.
I hope eBay realizes their mistake soon.
Also, those videos may be the most disturbing thing I’ve seen this year.
1:18 AM PT
Oops, dangling modifier above. Well, I hope you get the idea….
“As a doctor, I think what you are doing is morally wrong.” - Tony Soprano.
5:01 AM PT
I saw it on a bus in Palo Alto, and thought it was from a hot bay area startup. Then I saw it in New York, and thought it was a well-funded internet media company launching some new funky service. When I finally went to the windorphins website, I was very disappointed that it was just an advertising gimmick for ebay, apparently without any new functionality or services…
Windescribable. Winconceivable. Winsane…
8:09 AM PT
See, when you warn about things like the “Jazz Hands” tab, it just creates extra incentive to check it out for the car wreck factor.
And yes, that was truly nauseating.
Anyone else having flashbacks to the “I’d Hit It” McDonalds marketing campaign?
http://mikeelliottsblog.wordpress.com
9:29 AM PT
i think you’re all a bunch of whiners. i thought eBay’s brand was a massive unorganized auction of random crap (that’s not a bad thing - it’s where i go whenever i want to buy or sell random crap). i hardly see how windorphins are going to tarnish that image. i think pitting laettner vs. field is a riot, and shows the spirit of the people behind this campaign. i am curious if legal verified whether those video clips were uploaded to YouTube by their copyright owners. i totally agree that jazz hands are absolutely nauseating, but they’re also hilarious, which i think is a fine way to stay in the minds (and stomachs) of consumers. i wonder how many times the developers got ill while perfecting the “hand in your face” action.
9:48 AM PT
I checked their website and it looked very amateurish. The selection of colors is disturbing and those freaks are just creepy, imho.
And yeah, when I tried to hit the back button, their site kept reloading, which pissed me off even more.
But it won’t make me stop using eBay though.
11:40 AM PT
I glanced at a windorphins billboard and assumed it was an ad from a utility or energy company touting wind power and the benefits of green energy.
12:57 PM PT
I had the same reaction as durf — that it was supposed to get me all warm & fuzzy over some alternative energy. I see the ads all over SF and keep meaning to visit the site, so thanks, Om, now I don’t have to.
Seems like this one can join Ask.com’s algorithm campaign in the category of crummy advertising for online companies. That said, there are plenty for offline companies as well.
1:39 PM PT
Jazz hands rock. I’ve always felt my online identity lacked a certain Tommy Tune-ness.
10:06 AM PT
Sorry, but I don’t think us techy types (who know Web 1.0 from AJAX) are the right target for this.
Case in point …
http://logicalreligion.blogspot.com/2007/07/advertising-genius.html
It’s the compulsive shopper types who have Amazon Prime membership and EBay super-buyers (if it existed) and buy everything online.
2:16 PM PT
I don’t get why Ebay doesn’t at least have a logo on their ads. I was sure this was a Window’s ad trying to compete with Apple until I read this. Not very good branding if you ask me.
1:21 PM PT
Nicely said. Your thoughts bear out: I just posted a rough quantitative analysis of the success (er, failure) of the Windorphin campaign thus far here:
http://experienceproject.blogspot.com/2007/08/windorphins-ebay-campaign.html
9:17 AM PT
[...] It kinda looks like that other ad campaign that’s been plastered all around NYC, promoting “the joy of Windorphins” — yep, another sleazy campaign, this time for eBay, a company famous for succeeding without the need of expensive SuperBowl ad campaign (read this comment from GigaOm). [...]
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