# 210 Blog, Wednesday, 1 April 2025.

Posted by Denny Hatch

Super Bowl TV Ads Cost $9 Million for Thirty Seconds.
This One Brought Into my Home Weird-o Creepy People.

Super Bowl ads can be drop-deadfascinating. To reach the audience of 126 million viewers on Sunday, 9 February 2025, the base price for advertisers was $8million for thirty seconds of air time — plus an estimated $1 million paid to the ad agencyfor existing, creating and producing the actual spot/commercial. Total tally: $9 million for 30 seconds.

The list of advertisers was announced a week before the game. I downloaded 42 advertisers andlinks to their actual ads which I alphabetized. Booking.com was first. I clicked on the link, watched a gaggle of ugly, noisy muppet puppets (includingMiss Piggy) and jotted down some notes. 

 The second ad was the above from Bosch USA. It was (and is) unbelievably gross — and the subject of this serious blog post.

 

Meet 56-year-old Aussie Adman David Droga. He started as
a fledgling copywriter at the giant FCB  (Foot, Cone & Belding) with 120 offices in 80 countries with 8,000 employees.

“In 1996, he moved to Singapore to become Executive CreativeDirector of Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore and Regional CreativeDirector of Saatchi Asia. Droga was promoted to Executive CreativeDirector of Saatchi & Saatchi London in 1999. In2002, Advertising Age awardedDroga the World's Top Creative Director.

      “Saatchi & Saatchi London won Global Agency of the Year at the CannesInternational Advertising and both Advertising Age and Adweek named SaatchiAgency of the Year. In 2000, Publicis Groupe acquired Saatchi and in 2004, Drogawas promoted to Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of the Publicis Network, whichtook him to New York City in 2005.

“Droga founded his own agency, Droga5 in 2006. Thename Droga5 comes from the number-coded laundry tag his mother sewed on hisclothes to help differentiate his clothes from his brothers at boardingschool." —Wikipedia

About Denny Hatch's Marketing Blog.

Asco-founder, co-publisher with my extraordinary wife, Peggy, and as editor ofthe newsletter, WHO'S MAILING WHAT! one of our earliest subscribers wasa true direct mail marketing wizard (and lovely guy) the late Malcolm Decker.He once said to me:

"There are two rules — two rules  only — in DirectMarketing:        
'Rule #1: Test Everything. Rule #2: See Rule #1.' "

It'sclear to me that David Droga is not — and never was — a classicallytrained marketer. With no reply mechanism, it is impossible for a viewer to contact the advertiser and order product or buy it retail. Ergo, no way to measure ROI — Return on Investment. With no ROI, ain't no way to measure the success or failure of an ad. These Super Bowl ads make tons of money for the networks and advertising agencies. Alas, the corporations and their stockholders ponying up cash for these seven-figure entertainment extravaganzas take huge monetary losses. They get their jollies off by amusing their friends, families, colleagues, competitors and media critics. In the caption of the cartoon where two giant railroad engines crash into each other at full speed: "Dat be one helluva way to run a railroad."  

Droga's CV

The Wikipedia entry (above) highlights  immediate acceptance into thesmarty-pants glitterati and creativity of Mad. Ave.'s Saatchi &Saatchi, Publicis Groupe, Cannes International Advertising Festival, AdvertisingAge, Adweek. In other words, fugedabout thedrudge work and arithmetic of testing — "allowablecost-per-order," "affordable CPM" and"cost-of-goods-sold." Leave the nuts-'n'-bolts and antiquated"rules" such as testing to the old-timer wonks — Max Sackheim, JohnCaples, Harry Scherman, Vic Schwab, John Stevenson, Fred Briesmeister,Bruce  Barton, Stan Rapp, Tom Collins, Lester Wunderman, Elsworth Howell,Bob Hacker, Axel Anderssen, Bill Bernbach, Maxwell Dane and David Ogilvy toname a few.

ABizarre Takeaway to Consider

Iwatched this thing over and over trying to get inside David Droga’s head. Whatthe hell was he thinking? Suddenly the final frames popped into my head.

I hadnever heard of Bosch. This $9 million dollar TV ad wasn’t selling anything. Ratherit was bent on making “Bosch” into a kind of weird homonym for “bash.” Peoplein the ad (and watching at home) were being bashed all over the place —physically and emotionally.

David Droga Came up with Word Play: Bosch as Bash!

I invite you to have a look at David Droga's weird Manifesto.

 

https://droga5.com

 

 

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 A Riveting Rave Review of Denny Hatch's Masterpiece.

By Oluchi Samuel
10 December 2024

An official OnlineBookClub.org review of Method Marketing by Denny Hatch.

               5 out of 5 Stars

Tomake a lot of profit, business owners need to understand and employ marketing. As the name implies, Method Marketing by Denny Hatch is a book that educates readers on method marketing. The author also shares the stories of some people who employed method marketing.

Marketingis the business of acquiring customers and continually thrilling them. Method marketing, on the other hand, is the ability to get inside the heads and under the skin of the people you are marketing your product to. Direct mail is the largest advertising medium, and it is the medium alot of method marketers build their businesses on. The author shared the stories of some marketers with huge businesses. These marketers wereFather Bruce Ritter, Martin Edelston, John Peterman, Bill Bonner, Bob Shnayerson, Curt Strohacker, David Oreck, and William Kennedy. They owned businesses like The Boardroom, J. Peterman Company, Agora Publishing, The Eastwood Company, The Oreck Corporation, and Western Monetary Consultants. He shared their stories, how they started their businesses, and he also dropped points for marketers to pick up from their experiences.

This is a wonderful book with lots of great lessons in marketing. I loved that the author shared some successful marketers' experiences. He used these stories to educate us. He discussed how they started their businesses and some of the mistakes they made along the way. These real-life stories made me understand his lessons quite well. I appreciated them. Readers who are planning on venturing into these businesses could learn a great deal from these stories. The author also exposed me to some businesses I hadn't heard ofbefore, like The Teaching Company, Agora Publishing, Quest/77, and The Oreck Company.

Copywriting is a business venture I have been meaning to start. Luckily for me, I got the opportunity to read this book. The author showed the significance of copywriting and also shared tips on how to write a great copy. It gave me insights and taught me howgood a copy should be written. The story of the First Bank of Troy was one of the stories I loved. The president of the bank, Frank O. Brock, operated a customer-friendly business. He paid personal attention to allhis customers. He would go over lists of customers and call or give personal notes to them at least once a month. As a novice in marketing, Iappreciated the appendix the author added at the end of the book. It saved me a lot of trips to the dictionary.

For all these reasons, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.It is an amazing book that all marketers should read. There was absolutely nothing to dislike. I found one error, showing that it was professionally edited. I recommend it to marketers and people planning on venturing into marketing, as it contains a lot of tips to flourish inmarketing. 

METHOD MARKETING
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
You can request a sample
And Read the First 31 Pages FREE.

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