Before you write this guy off as another unfunny jackass with a Flip cam and too few billable hours, it's not necessarily the dancing that makes this awesome, it's the trolling. The pure, unexpected, delicious trolling.
In July, he went to a Centrelink office (which, in Australia, is sort of akin to one of us crashing the welfare office) to get career advice on making the transition from accountant to professional dancer. And then this happened:
And then there was the Madonna troll at the cosmetics counter:
He promises to upload a new dance weekly but let's face it, he's still an accountant and has shit to do. Follow him on YouTube so when he blows up, you can say you knew about him before he was cool.
After wondering aloud if the Big 4 was just going to spend the entire week at Davos chasing blondes and eating chocolate some of the more easily rankled of you pointed out that Tim Flynn was all business and had already given an interview with CNN. Plus, since we saw Dennis Nally this morning it would seem like there is work being done. God forbid the guys do anything fun while they’re over there.
Anyhoo, we finally got around to watching TF’s chat with Richard Quest at Davos and we thought he did a pretty bang-up job. One thing we would have done different — if we were T Fly that is — was ask DQ why we were excluded from the last CNN interview. “What about it CNN? I’m not good enough for APEC piece but you’re happy to include me on this little campout?” Or something to that effect. We imagine that he was asked to keep it cordial.
Back to business: The one thing that threw us off was the red light/green light of trust thing. Trust doesn’t really strike us a color, least of all green. Think about it: Green = money = Goldman Sachs. Plus, has T Fly seen those tea party people? They don’t trust anyone. See why we’re confused? If you get it, please explain, but watch first.
Advertising a professional service company is a challenge for ad agencies. First, the subject is not all that interesting, except maybe to the people who work there, their families, and their clients. And second, the differences from one company to another are minute. What you can say about one CPA or law firm is pretty much the same as another. You can’t advertise a firm as doing something better, the way Tide claims to clean better or Crest to whiten teeth better.
What can marketers do when they can’t make a claim that they are better? Why, write a jingle, like Coke or Pepsi of course. However, professional service companies have to maintain some gravitas. Schmaltz and accountants would be like wearing shorts and flip-flops to a client meeting.
We’re presenting some analysis of two current accounting firm ad campaigns, starting with BDO and tackling Grant Thornton this afternoon.
Analysis and videos, after the jump
The solution is to differentiate yourself not by what you say but through the tone of your advertising. And the tone of the BDO’s advertising is deadly, almost literally. It is dark, and cold, and depressing. And it doesn’t work because it takes itself too seriously. The conversations are artificial, and the situations forced.
In the following commercial, as two executives exit an unidentified intuitional-looking edifice, one person says to the other “Reilly hit the roof” about the need to restate. We never find out who “Reilly” is, but are reassured that “the partners are on it”, suggesting that BDO will not send in the juniors to fix the problem.
This second commercial deals with the switch from GAAP to IFRS. Why is BDO best suited to handling it? According to the commercial because of its global resources and because “it’s complicated.” Oh? Weak, pretty generic, arguments.
The best asset BDO has is it tagline, “People who know, know BDO”. That could have been the idea for a very nice commercial, maybe using real customers, but BDO did not capitalize on it.
Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.
