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His first sortie into advertising’s biggest league of all was in 2007, where he was castigated for the mediocrity of his ads. But his was the only campaign that made money, driving 25,000 registrants to his Web site to take advantage of his offer of 100 free leads. If conversion was 50 percent and lifetime value was $500, his ROI was $6.25 million on a cost of roughly $3 million.
His 2008 Super Bowl efforts—conceived and written by Gupta himself—were truly tacky animations, two of which featured a sad-sack Indian salesman with an accent from India (Gupta’s home country) and a panda family with Chinese accents.
A number of people were offended, calling the cartoons racist. Gupta apologized to all who might have objected, but added, “The pandas are Chinese. They don’t speak German.”
The commercials brought 30,000 prospects to infoUSA’s Web site, generated 2,100 phone calls and were responsible for another 25,000 views on YouTube.
Whatever you do in business, think of a happily fried Frank Watts amid the pullulating crowd at a noisy Manhattan cocktail party waggling his finger and saying, “Profits!”
You’ll never go wrong.
Denny Hatch is a freelance direct marketing consultant and copywriter. Visit him at www.dennyhatch.com, or contact him via e-mail at dennyhatch@yahoo.com.
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