Where Bad Advertising Happens

I think that the NBA’s “where amazing happens” campaign has been very well done, the music, “Everyday” by Carly Comando, that quite and emotional piano background really makes for a dramatic event. It’s certainly generated plenty of one-liners in commentary and in the newspapers, “Joakim Noah: Where Discontent Happens”, and so on, but I think that the current long ads across the scoring table are a mess. They have a countdown of the numbers 16-1, with an NBA trophy at the end (also serving as the number one). As time has gone on in the playoffs, the numbers have been crossed out, theoretically corresponding with the number of teams remaining….

Except that’s not the case, watching Game 4 of the Celtics-Pistons series there’s seven numbers remaining on the ad. What is that? There were seven teams left in the playoffs in between May 13th when the Magic were eliminated and the 16th when the Jazz were knocked out. Meanwhile it’s May 26th and it stays like that. It’s just one of those annoying background things that I know people notice and perhaps just wonder about (sort of like every person I’ve been sitting next to when an ad for the new Incredible Hulk movie comes on “Didn’t this come out already?” referring to the movie from years ago… that movies in for a grade-a tanking. The NBA: Where clever concepts in advertising are ruined by lousy execution.