CardMarketing 2.0

Whichever 'creative' in whichever agency Maestro paid to create the billboard ad that's currently riveted to a filthy pigeon-infested wall above Boots in Victoria Station deserves to be taken out, stripped to the shreddies and publicy flogged. When I see most ads these days I feel contempt, but this one made me erupt with anger — in a quiet, non-violent kind of way. It was just so middle of the road, so predictable, so pathetic.

Imagine a shiny black billboard, maybe three metres deep and 10 across with the words 'Money Talks, Coins Just Make a Racket' in large white type. In the bottom right corner is the Maestro logo and (new campaign?) strap, 'The New Cash'.

What?

We all know about interruption marketing, but as consumers become ever more disdainful of empty and lamentable one-way media, it will soon evolve into eruption marketing — eruption into anger, that is. Now let's see what that does for a brand.

A little birdy tells me there are angry times ahead. Consumers have had it up to here (imagine me tapping my forehead with my right hand). It's not that people don't see these ads, because they do. It's how they react that matters. And increasingly they are reacting angrily, not indifferently, to this micro assault on their extremely precious time.