Repeat When Necessary

Jeff Bercovici is on vacation. Guest blogger Sean Elder submits:

A story in yesterday's Ad Agedetailed the thinking behind the HeadOn ad campaign ("HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead"): What thinking?

"We're not trying to win award for best creative, that's obvious," Dan Charron of Miralus Healthcare, manufacturer of HeadOn, told the paper. "We're just trying to build a brand by getting people to remember it."

By giving TV viewers a headache with the oft-repeated, and mind-numbingly repetitive ads, HeadOn has earned a place in the advertising hall of shame. (NBC's Brian Williams went out of his way to editorialize about the campaign, calling it "the most annoying ad on television" - and if you've watched the Evening News with Brian Williams lately, you've got to figure he knows what he's talking about.) But with all that enmity comes growth, if not profitability: Ad Age reports sales rose 234% from 2005 to 2006.

"In a short period of time we've come pretty close to becoming a household name," said Charron.

Repetition doesn't always work. Political prankster and Nixon nemesis Dick Tuck ran for office in California in 1964 with road signs that read "Tuck Tuck," figuring most people would come away with some obscene variation in mind when they voted. He lost (though his other slogan, "The job needs Tuck and Tuck needs a job" is a classic).

But the GOP swayed countless viewers of their 2004 presidential convention by having speakers endlessly intone, "September 11th" (captured in this YouTube montage). One of those people holding up the dangling watch that week was, of course, Rudy Giuliani (who The Onion said was running for "president of 9.11"). Now we read that a supporter of the former mayor is hosting a fund-raiser in Palo Alto, CA and asking participants to pay $9.11 .