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This is amusing. And tragic. And real.

For the third assignment in my "Future of Advertising" class at MCAD, I thought we'd expound on an opportunity over at Current.tv's VCAM (Viewer Created Advertising Messages) contests. First, I think the whole VCAM program is generally awesome and very well constructed. Second, I thought it'd be more realistic to today's ad industry to require a TV concept integrated with "some kind of digital program." And leave it at that. Just like most creative briefs, right?

The client:  Wachovia's "Way2Save" program. Here's a link to Current.tv's VCAM contest for Wachovia.

The briefing over at Current is pretty dull. Not really a true creative brief, but then, most of them never really are, are they? (Realism!) And I deliberately left it open with the digital side of the assignment.

Then one of my intrepid students sends me a link to this blog post about the Wachovia "Way2Save" program (bolding mine)...

"Clearly, very few customers will be able to get anywhere near the maximum bonus that is the major selling point of this program. That leads me to believe that way2save is nothing more than a gimmick, with Wachovia’s interests taking much higher priority than that of their customers."

And the author, Mike Smith, has done the math. "The major flaw with this program is that the amount of recurring transfers is limited to $100 a month. To get the full payout bonus of $300, you’d need a balance of $6,000 at the end of the first year, since $6,000 x 5% = $300. To get your balance up to $6,000 you’d have to make 4,800 debit card purchases or online payments over the course of the year!"

Let's contrast Mr. Smith's math with the assignment over on Current (italics mine): "Now with Wachovia’s new Way2SaveSM program, saving is almost effortless. Make an ad showing us something worth saving for and how the Way2SaveSM program can help you get there."

The irony is delicious, no? How many times have you dug into a creative brief to discover the program, product or service you're supposed to dramatize is really, well, honestly...worthless? And maybe even a little deceptive. C'est la vie in advertisingland.

Oh, there appears to be an agency-produced spot for Way2Save. Not sure who made it. But they seem to have decided that a "raining money" theme was appropriate.

I'm excited to see how my students will address all this. Stay tuned.