Monday, October 11, 2010

Borders E-book Ad


Snapped a picture of this Borders ad I saw on Metro today. Anyone care to share their thoughts on the marketing angle? Is this guy supposed to be a pimp? Strikes me as bizarre, not clever.


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3 comments:

  1. HeatherOctober 12, 2010 at 7:08 AM

    This seems rather odd to me, as well. Are they trying to market to high school students and younger commuters? It seems so, given the model's attire and the Twilight image on the second e-reader screen.

    I honestly think a marketing campaign for Metro would be better pitched toward the working professionals who commute to work and might be interested in portable reading solutions. The high school students I've encountered on Metro are definitely not focused on reading.

    -- Heather Walrath

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  2. LizROctober 12, 2010 at 12:36 PM

    Maybe they were trying to come up with an image of someone who isn't the current demographic of Kindle users? And they ended up with someone out of Starsky & Hutch? Bizarre, indeed.

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  3. Sarah W.October 12, 2010 at 4:13 PM

    Consider this another vote for bizarre. I understand where they were trying to go with it, with the idea of someone who breaks the mold of the 'typical' e-book/e-reader user. However, I think they should have exercised better judgment in the image choice, given all the connotations and associations that image brings up. There are plenty of recognizable images of eccentric people that could demonstrate an unusual taste without being offensive.

    Heather, I also noticed the juxtaposition of the main image and the smaller examples of books below. Placing them together in the same ad causes us to think they're related, when I'd bet they use those same 4 covers (or at least another set of unrelated, taste-spanning best-sellers) for other ads. Within the 4 covers there is variety that speaks to the 'every taste' idea, but there should be at least one that plays on the central image, if you ask me, to make the ad's elements connect.

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