# 211 Blog, Wednesday 21 May 2025.
https://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2025/05/212-boshbash-ad.html
Posted by Denny Hatch
The Most Expensive Advertisement
In the History of the World.
This Creepy-Crawly Cringe-Worthy 2025 Super Bowl TV Ad
Cost a Mind-Blowing $17 Million for 60 Seconds of Air Time!
URGENT NOTE: After you have clicked on the link below to see this nutsy-Fagan unbelievably gross and grotesque TV Spot, here's how to get back to my blog commentary:
Go to the very top left of your screen and look for these two arrows....
one or more times, you can click on the Right Arrow at the
top left and you'll recapture the video. In this mode,
Super Bowl ads can be drop-dead
fascinating. To reach the audience of 126 million viewers on Sunday, 9 February 2025, the base price for advertisers was $16
million for 60 seconds of air time — plus an estimated $1 million paid to the ad agency
and performing "talent" for creating and producing the actual spot/commercial. Total tally: $17 million for those 60 seconds when you ducked into the john.
The list of advertisers was announced a week before the game. I downloaded 42 advertisers and links to their actual ads which I alphabetized. Booking.com was first. I clicked on the link, watched a gaggle of ugly, noisy Muppet puppets (including Miss Piggy) and jotted down some notes.
The second ad was the above from Bosch
USA. It was (and is) unbelievably gross — and the subject of this serious blog post.
The Eight Inviolable Rules of Advertising
Compiled by Denny Hatch Over 60 Years.
Rule #1: “The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.”
—Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising
Rule #2: “Your job is to sell, not entertain.”
—Jack Maxson, freelancer, creator/designer of the Brookstone catalog
Rule #3: “If it doesn’t sell, it’s not creative.”
—Credo of Benton and Bowles, Chicago, in the 1930s
Rule #4: “Every time we get creative we lose money.”
—Ed McCabe, president of BMG Music Club
Rule #5: “Beware
of humor in advertising. People don’t buy from clowns.”
—David Ogilvy
Rule #6: The 7
emotional hot buttons that make people buy:
Fear – Greed – Guilt – Anger –
Exclusivity – Salvation – Flattery
—Bob Hacker, Axel Anderssen, Denny Hatch
Rule #7: “The prospect doesn’t give a damn about you, your company or your product. All that matters is, ‘What’s In It For Me?’”
—Bob Hacker
Rule #7a: "Always listen to W-I-I FM."
—Direct Marketing Old Saw
Rule #8: “Always make it easy to order.”
—Elsworth Howell, CEO, Grolier Enterprises
Meet 56-year-old Aussie Adman David Droga. He started as
a fledgling copywriter at the giant FCB (Foot, Cone & Belding) with 120 offices in 80 countries with 8,000 employees.
“In 1996, he moved to Singapore to become Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore and Regional Creative Director of Saatchi Asia. Droga was promoted to Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi London in 1999. In 2002, Advertising Age awarded Droga the World's Top Creative Director.
“Saatchi & Saatchi London won Global Agency of the Year at the Cannes International Advertising and both Advertising Age and Adweek named Saatchi Agency of the Year. In 2000, Publicis Groupe acquired Saatchi and in 2004, Droga was promoted to Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of the Publicis Network, which took him to New York City in 2005.
“Droga founded his own agency, Droga5 in 2006. The name Droga5 comes from the number-coded laundry tag his mother sewed on his clothes to help differentiate his clothes from his brothers at boarding school." —Wikipedia
About Denny Hatch's Marketing Blog.
As co-founder, co-publisher with my extraordinary wife, Peggy, and as editor of the newsletter, WHO'S MAILING WHAT! one of our earliest subscribers was a true direct mail marketing wizard (and lovely guy) the late Malcolm Decker. He once said to me:
"There are two rules — two rules only — in Direct
Marketing:
'Rule #1: Test Everything. Rule #2: See Rule #1.' "
It's
clear to me that David Droga is not — and never was — a classically
trained marketer. With no reply mechanism, it is impossible for a viewer
to contact the advertiser and order product. You want it, you buy it retail? Ergo, no
way to measure ROI — Return on Investment. With no ROI, ain't no way to
measure the success or failure of an ad. These Super Bowl ads make tons
of money for the networks and advertising agencies. Alas, the
corporations and their stockholders ponying up cash for these
seven-figure entertainment extravaganzas take huge monetary losses. They
get their jollies off by amusing their friends, families, colleagues,
competitors and getting media coverage. I'm reminded of the caption of a
cartoon where two giant railroad engines in Sweden crashed head-on into each other at
full speed. One onlooker said quietly to his companion, "Dat been one helluva way to run a railroad."
Droga's CV
The Wikipedia entry on David Droga (above) highlights immediate acceptance into the
smarty-pants glitterati and creativity of Mad. Ave.'s Saatchi &
Saatchi, Publicis Groupe, Cannes International Advertising Festival, Advertising
Age, Adweek. In other words, fugedabout the
drudge work and arithmetic of testing — "allowable
cost-per-order," "affordable CPM" and
"cost-of-goods-sold." Leave the nuts-'n'-bolts and antiquated
"rules" such as testing to the old-timer wonks — Max Sackheim, John
Caples, Harry Scherman, Vic Schwab, John Stevenson, Fred Briesmeister,
Bruce Barton, Stan Rapp, Tom Collins, Lester Wunderman, Elsworth Howell,
Bob Hacker, Axel Anderssen, Bill Bernbach, Maxwell Dane and David Ogilvy to
name a few.
A Bizarre Takeaway to Consider
I watched this thing over and over trying to get inside David Droga’s head. What the hell was he thinking? Suddenly the final frames popped into my head.
I had never heard of Bosch. This $17 million dollar TV ad wasn’t selling anything. Rather maybe it was bent on making “Bosch” into a kind of weird homonym for “bash.” People in the ad (and watching at home) are bashed all over the place — physically and emotionally.
David Droga Came up with the Homophone/Word-play "Bosch" as "Bash!"
No! I'd call it "Brand Wreckognition!"
I invite you to have a look at David Droga's weird Manifesto.
###
A Riveting Rave Review of Denny Hatch's Masterpiece.
By Oluchi Samuel
10 December 2024
An official OnlineBookClub.org review of Method Marketing by Denny Hatch.
5 out of 5 Stars
To
make a lot of profit, business owners need to understand and employ
marketing. As the name implies, Method Marketing by Denny Hatch is a
book that educates readers on method marketing. The author also shares
the stories of some people who employed method marketing.
Marketing
is the business of acquiring customers and continually thrilling them.
Method marketing, on the other hand, is the ability to get inside the
heads and under the skin of the people you are marketing your product
to. Direct mail is the largest advertising medium, and it is the medium a
lot of method marketers build their businesses on. The author shared
the stories of some marketers with huge businesses. These marketers were
Father Bruce Ritter, Martin Edelston, John Peterman, Bill Bonner, Bob
Shnayerson, Curt Strohacker, David Oreck, and William Kennedy. They
owned businesses like The Boardroom, J. Peterman Company, Agora
Publishing, The Eastwood Company, The Oreck Corporation, and Western
Monetary Consultants. He shared their stories, how they started their
businesses, and he also dropped points for marketers to pick up from
their experiences.
This is a wonderful book with lots of great
lessons in marketing. I loved that the author shared some successful
marketers' experiences. He used these stories to educate us. He
discussed how they started their businesses and some of the mistakes
they made along the way. These real-life stories made me understand his
lessons quite well. I appreciated them. Readers who are planning on
venturing into these businesses could learn a great deal from these
stories. The author also exposed me to some businesses I hadn't heard of
before, like The Teaching Company, Agora Publishing, Quest/77, and The
Oreck Company.
Copywriting is a business venture I have been
meaning to start. Luckily for me, I got the opportunity to read this
book. The author showed the significance of copywriting and also shared
tips on how to write a great copy. It gave me insights and taught me how
good a copy should be written. The story of the First Bank of Troy was
one of the stories I loved. The president of the bank, Frank O. Brock,
operated a customer-friendly business. He paid personal attention to all
his customers. He would go over lists of customers and call or give
personal notes to them at least once a month. As a novice in marketing, I
appreciated the appendix the author added at the end of the book. It
saved me a lot of trips to the dictionary.
For all these reasons, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.
It is an amazing book that all marketers should read. There was
absolutely nothing to dislike. I found one error, showing that it was
professionally edited. I recommend it to marketers and people planning
on venturing into marketing, as it contains a lot of tips to flourish in
marketing.
METHOD MARKETING
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
You can request a sample
And Read the First 31 Pages FREE.
###
