Those "BlueHippo" commercials are strokes of marketing genius

Being a devout follower of ESPN, there are two constants in my life: I've got to make a pilgrimmage to Bristol at least once in my lifetime, and I get exposed to a lot of odd, off-beat commercials during my viewing of the network's various programs. As a marketing guy, I can't help but applaud the genius behind BlueHippo Funding's spots that so often appear in SportsCenter breaks.

The commercial features the company's namesake, an computer animated hippopotamus, doing cute things like embarrasingly holding a sign upside-down, and smiling and interacting with a real-life child. So there's an iconography element of "Hey, this company might not be so bad!" that appeals to the kid in all of us. The hook goes deeper when the commercial states its core compotency: providing credit to be used towards consumer technology for those without it, or with a bad history of it. This also has youth appeal, probably forcing many a young person to ask Mom to call Blue Hippo for help securing that new plasma display. The kicker comes when the company offers a goodie bag of IT-related products - a printer/copier/scanner, a PC, and monitor.

How can anyone not think this is an effective ad? It's got the major psychographic tools nailed and it's running on one of TV's strongest brands. This isn't pulling the wool over anyone's eyes like so many infomercials or televangelism programs, this is a well-crafted marketing message. I'll reserve judgment on the company's survivability, but I'll bet my next paycheck on the effectiveness of its campaign.

Think about it: how many of us knew who Tom Emanski was prior to his video series running every seven minutes on ESPN?