The Tease

It seems like more and more companies want to keep us guessing - whether it’s Apple’s on-again/off-again product releases or GoDaddy’s sexual innuendo-filled ads that force us to the website to “see more” of Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels (um…no thanks!).

Most recently, JC Penney has joined the party by running TV spots of shoppers screaming at sales they’ve missed and being bombarded by coupons and flyers (http://youtu.be/aj3PfcPuauM).  The commercial ends with the tagline, “Enough.Is.Enough.” and teases February 1, 2012 along with a link to JC Penney’s Facebook page.  So, can we assume the company is getting rid of all its couponing?  Is it just a ploy to get people to check out their Facebook page? 

After chatting with a colleague about the commercial (which admittedly is pretty funny), he told me about an article that said JC Penney is getting rid of all promotional sales in their stores. Overall, I think this campaign could be a win for the company – the tease is generating some buzz for both the campaign and the brand…all in anticipation of the “big announcement and full details!”

In the PR, marketing and media world, the “tease” can be both advantageous and disadvantageous to a company or news story.  Think of all the times a news anchor teases us to stay tuned after the commercial for the latest household cleaning product that can KILL US!  The anchor comes back and the news is so far out that we snicker to ourselves and become a little more jaded each time it happens.  As marketers and publicists put more “tease” into their copywriting and campaign elements, are we switching our audiences off by overusing this tactic?

With the Super Bowl (of advertising) less than a week away, let’s see how many brands turn to tease tactics.  I have a feeling that our information overloaded generation will be seeing a lot more of this across mediums (i.e. from TV to Twitter) as companies are doing everything they can to draw us in and keep us coming back.