We’re always telling clients that everything you do contributes to your positioning.
A great example from a drop-down menu in a Royal Opera House web form:
That’s just a small sample. Check out the form. [Choose ‘Other’ under the Title field.]
Did the ROH construct this delightful list of titles to avoid annoying its Earls, Dukes, Barons, Sultans and Rabbis (they must HATE having to choose plain old “Mr”) or is this just a clever bit of subliminal positioning?
Thanks to Katherine Hill for pointing this one out.
Executive Creative Director
Doug is a displaced Yank who started his career at Ogilvy & Mather, New York.
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Comments
Emma Dunstone December 16th, 2008
This is hilarious but it is completely ‘on target’ so full credit to them.
My pet hate is the US or UK-based companies who target European prospects with nicely localised .de or .fr websites; translating all the key pages…but then leave ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ in the web form Title field!
Really destroys the acting-local perception that their marketers would have worked so hard for; and requires very little work to fix. Sadly, it’s often overlooked (or, more fundamentally, CRM solutions aren’t set up for multi-languages.)
Online PR Agency, C&M December 16th, 2008
brilliant! i’ll buy it as a genius piece of ‘subliminal positioning’. makes me want to buy tickets and dub my self an earl. (ooh – isn’t that what they do in public schools!?)
Rowan December 18th, 2008
The Brighton Festival website also has (or did have) the same sort of options. I’ve had tickets addressed to ‘Contessa Rowan Stanfield’ on many an occasion!