Abject bravado is not good advertising

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The pictured ad keeps showing up in my local paper. Enough already.

Let me be clear: This critique is not of OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute. I hold the Institute and its work in high regard. I lost my wife to breast cancer 30 years ago. I have been treated for cancer at an OSHU facility. Their work matters.

No, my critique is of this information–deprived, bravado–laden advertisement. It offers not one word about what the good people at OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute are actually doing about cancer, how they’re doing it, or what kind of progress they’re making. Moreover, there is no call to action, no contact information, in fact, no useful information whatsoever.

As far as I can infer, the ad’s objective is pure bravado: to present the Institute as a valiant, anti–cancer martyr–crusader, possibly so Board members can puff their chests.

Now, I have always defined a “good” ad as an ad that meets its objective. If I have correctly inferred the objective, then in that regard this ad succeeds. My beef is with the objective. Abject bravado becomes no one.

At best, readers will mutter “Yeah, cancer sucks” and turn the page. Hardly a good use of the Institute’s advertising budget.