Stupid Campaign Watch: Most Off-Target Creative Ever

And the winner for worst-targeted creative in 2008 goes to an e-mail campaign that arrived in my wife’s inbox just before Christmas.

The subject line: “The perfect gift for the foodie on your list.”

What did opening the message reveal? A newfangled lemon zester? The perfect garlic peeler?

Nope.

Opening the message revealed … drum roll, please … the Tuna-Mate.

Yep, the Tuna-Mate—a plastic, pliers-like gadget with tong handles on one end and a tuna-can-sized perforated disk on the other to allow the user to squeeze every drop of water or oil out of the can without getting it on his or her fingers.

The photo of the Tuna-Mate was taken in a kitchen with a black stone counter with stainless-steel canisters on it and a stone tile backsplash. Someone clearly thought about this campaign’s creative.

Now don’t get me wrong: I love a good tuna sandwich with extra mayo. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: You, Ken? Extra Mayo? You always struck me as a my-body’s-a-temple kind of guy. Well, it is a temple—a temple dedicated to the worship of protein, fat, beer and vodka martinis.

In any case, when a so-called foodie is being one and preparing a dish involving tuna, the fish generally ain’t coming out of a can.

And it’s not as if the Tuna-Mate is useless. There very well may be a market for a gadget that allows people to squeeze canned tuna dry without oiling up their fingers. But the foodie positioning in the Tuna-Mate campaign subject line not only set up expectations that were not met, it invited ridicule.

What’s next for the foodie on my list, the Kraft Mac-and-Cheese-Mate?

Maybe the Tuna-Mate’s inventor—a Connecticut paramedic who conceived the gadget while making sandwich melts—thinks he’s got a product for gourmet cooks. After all, it’s often the client who insists on off-target product positioning in ad campaigns.

Also, in my decade-plus of interviewing marketers, I’ve found that many like to think their products are for upscale consumers even when they’re not. Claiming to sell products for upscalers makes for more impressive professional and cocktail-party conversations. Heck, even when marketers can bring themselves to admit their products aren’t for the upscale, they’ll claim their customers are “value conscious.”

Most consumers aren’t upscale. Selling products aimed at middle- and lower-scale consumers is a perfectly respectable way to make a living. And upscale the Tuna-Mate is not.

Someone with a no-nonsense direct marketing background needs to explain to whoever is responsible for the Tuna-Mate campaign’s foodie creative who the gadget’s prospects are likely to be. Then maybe recipients will start responding with dollars rather than guffaws.