innovation: Had Bad Pizza? They’d Like To Meetz’Ya!

Don The Idea Guy

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DON the IDEA GUY
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May 29, 2006

Had Bad Pizza? They’d Like To Meetz’Ya!

I ran across an ad in the local arts paper that I thought was a gag. The headline said "Reckless pizza ordering is an offense. If you've been the victim of recklessly bad pizza ordering, contact us! Warwick-Law.com" I scoured the paper for notice of a fake-ad contest, but could find none. I tore out the page with the intent to visit the website next time I was online.

The website for Warwick-Seltz is intentionally poorly designed. It looks like it was made with a lame Microsoft Front Page template. You quickly meet Attorney Royce W. Warwick. Warwick is a David Letterman look-a-like, and member of PLIS (pizza-law institution of specialists), PLAA (pizza-law association of America) and serves on the board of NAPLL (the national association for pizza law litigation). After visiting his "free live consultation" using the now oh-so-familiar interface to interact with Warwick in a "live" consultation -- it's easy to spot as a "Subservient Chicken" knock-off.

Although the execution still qualifies as 'creat-IVE', I think they stopped 'creat-ING' too soon. Here are a few features I'd like to see the ad agency add to the campaign in order to improve upon the concept and increase the effective message reach through Word Of Mouth:
1. Blog Banners
Why no Warwick-Law ad banners that people could add to their own blogs and websites? That paid placement mock-ad the advertising agency used in Columbus Alive captured my attention enough to save it until I could get in front of a computer. Why not let the public get in on the joke and add make it easy to add a Warwick-Law banner to their personal webpages. By providing cut-and-paste code, the agency could offer additional tracking and stats to their client.

2. Join the Class Action Lawsuit
Inviting people to join the "Class Action Suit" against mediocre pizza by providing their email address (and rewarding them with a coupon from the client) would allow the client to build a marketing database and provide tangible results from the campaign. There IS a "milestone settlement offer" buried a couple links deep into the site, but it's not easy to find and the offer is for only a dollar-off the regular price of the pizza. Why not give away a free personal-sized pizza?

3. Warwick-Seltz Worked For Me
Although there is a link to watch tv ads for their lawfirm (excellent parodies of those horrible ambulance-chasing ads we've all seen on television), there is no obvious way (nor invitation) to post these ads on your own website.

With the huge influx of consumer-generated advertising and the availability of a website like YouTube.com -- why aren't the Warwick-Seltz ads ON YouTube.com?? And why no invite to have people submit their own "I suffered from someone neglectfully ordering mediocre pizza and Warwick-Seltz got me a settlement" style commercials that could also be posted (and spread virally) through YouTube.com? Encouraging these video submissions by providing folks with a free pizza or sub seems an extremely easy thing to do.

4. Report An Offender
Why no 'tell-a-friend' feature? It could have been built into the masquerade by allowing people to report offenders of the mediocre pizza laws, referring other litigants for the class action suit, etc. The agency has provided no obvious way to share the link with friends (other than me physically copying the address and emailing it myself.)

5. Tales of Suffering
We've all had crappy pizza. Why is there no place to collect these testimonials of pizza-pain and suffering? A simple message board to collect the comments and war stories from site visitors would have added an additional level of interaction.

6. Cease & Desist Letters
Royce Warwick himself (during my free consultation) sported a "cease and desist" fridge magnet he created for an Aunt guilty of ordering bad pizza. Why no auto-generated lawyer letter that can be emailed to a friend or coworker? Even McDonald's on their barely less-than-lame McMornings website allows the creation of a late-to-work excuse created by the "Excuse Generator 3000." Something similar could have added an interactive and viral component sorely missing from the Warwick-Law website.

My conclusion?
In an obvious effort to create an ad campaign that the agency hopes to spread virally, they have left off every obvious avenue to help people spread the word.

Perhaps Warwick-Seltz needs to bring on another partner to specialize in mediocre ad campaigns?

Posted by Don The Idea Guy on May 29, 2006 at 07:21 AM | Permalink

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