Marketing can be a mixed bag of emotions—a melting pot of creativity, psychology, risks, and results. There's never a dull moment, and there's always plenty of room for outside opinions. I'm sure we've all seen some flawless campaigns over the years... and some not-so-flawless ones too. Looking at you, Bos Nation.
From ideation to design to execution, it takes time, resources, and money to truly make a splash in this oversaturated world of content and media. Even then, there are no guarantees that your "creative" ideas will work or stand out from the rest.
In today's post, we'll dive into the strategic thought process behind "This Ad Sucks"—how it came to be, the KPIs we focused on, and why we think it could work for other brands, products, or services. We believe in sharing, so we encourage others to take this idea and adapt it to fit your brand or services.
For Context:
We spent about 10 hours, $30, and our imagination to bring this idea to life. And while we didn’t have the digital ad spend or resources of many well-established businesses, we still approached it like any other global campaign push and believe it could pay dividends for similar brands, products, or services.
We worked around three core considerations:
- It had to be funny and focused on our target audience.
- It had to be omnichannel and scalable.
- It had to be easy to produce, execute, and drive results.
Fun First:
We went through 2–3 iterations and five hours of deep thought before we accidentally landed on "This Ad Sucks." We knew we wanted to include some humor, but we were trying way too hard at first. Then, I said it out loud: "This Ad Sucks. But Our Soccer Game Doesn't." It rolled off the tongue and felt right. After gathering a few outside opinions (a very important step), we leaned into it because it satisfied our three main objectives and stayed true to our brand.
The slogan had a hook, explained the "what," got people thinking about the "why," and drove them to our call to action or QR code. I ran to Staples, printed 50 copies, and got to work.
Start Local, Then Expand Out:
We wanted the branding, content, and copy to be simple and scalable across different physical locations and digital channels. The initial idea stemmed from putting flyers up in locations where we knew our audience would be—pubs, soccer stores, soccer fields, etc.—with the goal of driving traffic to our social media. We focused on physical touchpoints first, then zoomed out to consider the bigger picture.
This approach was key because it forced us to get outside, meet new people, talk about the brand, and find creative locations where soccer fans live and breathe. While we didn’t use any paid media for this campaign, we hope creative marketers out there see the potential.
Easy to Produce & Execute:
We posted flyers at soccer fields (where kids and parents hang out), porta-johns (where they take care of business), soccer stores (where soccer fans shop), and pubs (where they watch games). The beauty of this ad "sucking" was that we also put it in places that made no sense at all. This allowed us to capture fun content, not take ourselves too seriously, and enjoy the process.
As we zoomed out, we photoshopped "This Ad Sucks" onto billboards, taxis, subways, and bus stops to showcase its potential across different mediums. Some fans even commented that they thought the ads were real and went strolling around NYC looking for them—this definitely made us smile.
The campaign culminated at an in-person soccer event in NYC hosted by CLUBELEVEN. We set up a vendor booth, put out "This Ad Sucks" flyers, sold some packs, and connected with existing and new fans alike.
Results:
No marketing campaign, large or small, would be complete without some analysis or results. While small compared to larger brands, we achieved what we wanted with this $30 campaign, a handful of flyers, and some photoshopped assets. Here are the key outcomes:
- Instagram followers grew by 6.03%.
- Sales increased by 60% compared to last month.
- We made valuable connections with content creators and businesses for future collaborations.
Overall, it was a fun little test, and we hope to take it another step further in the future. "This Ad Sucks" will be back, bigger and better, next time.
