Gary North

March 9, 2010

Here is a video that State Farm Insurance funded. It is a memorable video of a Rube Goldberg device. Honda did something like it five years ago. I wrote about it at the time. I asked: Will the ad sell cars?

Now comes a far more spectacular video. Think of it: if just one thing failed to connect, this would not have worked. How many times did they rehearse it? Who designed it?

Watch for the closing notice on State Farm's sponsorship.

What message does the video convey? What benefit does it offer?

As of today, over six million people have seen it. But will it sell insurance?

In my department on Advertising, I lay out fundamental principles of cost-effective advertising. I focus on small businesses. They cannot afford to waste advertising money. Large firms do waste it.

Did State Farm waste it?

Send this link to friends. What do they think was State Farm's motivation? I cannot figure it out. I know one thing: this attempt by the company to explain it does not explain it.

There are millions of people whose career plans are not much more effective in advancing their careers than this video is for advancing State Farm's sales. If they were to sit down and outline their plans, a marketer would think, "Rube Goldberg." Mr, Goldberg was famous for contraptions that violated Ockham's razor. We describe such contraptions by his name.

Because of Wiki, we learn:

Reuben Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 -- December 7, 1970) was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways -- now known as Rube Goldberg machines. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award 1959.

Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and is the name sake of the Reuben Award which the organization awards to Cartoonist of the Year. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg contests, which challenge participants to make a complex machine to perform a simple task.

He received a college degree from Berkeley in mining. He worked for six months in the sewer department of San Francisco. Then he became a cartoonist. His college training was, in effect, a classic Rube Goldberg plan.

Think through your career plan. Is it a Rube Goldberg contraption? For help, click here.