SAP just trying to play everyone for Saps through a stupid and manipulative ad

Marketing is often smart. It should be to work. But Thursday, the computer giant SAP has proved that any expertise that money can buy should not stop you from doing something really stupid.

But the mistakes that SAP made were so basic, so obvious, and so ubiquitous that you were hoping that some of the marketing professionals would have understood it well.

The first page of the ad, placed in the the Wall Street newspaper, was supposedly an open letter from Nick Vitale, a 36-year-old man from Milltown, New Jersey, who wanted to evacuate a lot of things that bother him. It's as if the companies were telling them all the time that they wanted her comments, but they never really wanted to hear them.

The good old Nick complained about the airlines that have to pay everything instead of asking for $ 10 more on the ticket and preparing a meal. Or any additional costs that cable companies incur. Cheese burgers with slices of tomatoes too thick that slip off the bread. Manufacturers of cell phones whose equipment suddenly begin to slow terribly when the new models come out.

And, at first, the page seemed to be doing its job. Social media echoed Nick and congratulated him for his willingness to spend so much money (a full page fare in the Journal costs $ 277,200) to inform the newspaper. together the industry's grievances.

It looked almost like a Spartacus moment:

One by one, consumers all over the world came forward to bravely proclaim their solidarity on Twitter with the man who had dared to stand up and complain about so many first-world problems that broke his heart, but not his spirit .

Hey, can someone report the orchestra?

Seriously, it could have been great if it had been real. But that was not it. Just another game. "On a second page was the message from SAP:" We hear you, thank you for the letter, we could not agree more. "

And so on, linking all the rant to not being heard and telling SAP how software helps companies hear and do something. Or not.

Maybe SAP should have spent more time enumerating or at least paying attention to some basics. Like Michael Tanenbaum in the Philly Voice "Nick" pointed out that too few service stations have hand sanitizers available at the pumps. But you can not pump your own essence to Jersey. According to the law in force, the people of a company having its American headquarters in Newtown Square, New Jersey, could know it.

Maybe that replaced a line that looked more like, "And I'm so tired that the driver does not have a hand cleaner sitting next to my crystal glbad."

I do not play in Central America, I guess.

So, many people like complaints and that will probably not do any good to SAP. Many companies are already using their software: businesses such as airlines, telecom companies and retailers. Kinds that do not seem to be able to listen.

With the amount of money that has been invested in this project, with the addition of the marketing agency and all the internal brain power that burned at night, during creative planning sessions they probably would have bought a house or two for some families heard of not having an economy that worked for them. Or interest-free loans financed by funds to government employees when they were on leave. Or something.

Maybe it comes in version 2.0.