Thanks to Andrea Learned’s posts on Artistic Tile’s ads this week, was one of those weeks where I wish I didn’t restrict myself to only updating this blog on Fridays.

Concerning Artistic Tile’s provocative ads, Carole Fuller (Director of Strategic Marketing for Smith College) decided to contact the tile company’s VP of Marketing. In her email, Carole stated this:

I communicate with about 50,000 smart, educated, well-to-do women who live around major cities, and I lived in northern New Jersey for 22 years. I would be appalled to market to the smart women I know with such sophomoric humor. It’s not funny; it’s just lame.

Sounds like a valid critique from an informed professional. Jan MacLatchie, VP of Marketing at Artistic Tile, included this in her response:

In fact, this campaign, strategically developed to differentiate our brand within the category, was produced by some of the top talents in advertising in the world, and was photographed by one of America’s leading fashion photographers. His work includes the current campaigns of many of the top fashion houses. The theatrical model makers who hand craft our tile costumes are the same people who are creating costumes and set designs for current Broadway plays, feature films and television, including the amazing angel wings you may have seen in HBO’s (Mike Nichols’) adaptation of Tony Kushner’s brilliant and moving “Angels in America”. The copywriter is the same brilliant talent that made Kenneth Cole a household name. While the copy (as well as the idea that anyone would actually wear tile) is certainly tongue-in-cheek, we feel it underscores our key message points of style, selection and service in a memorable, playful way.

Pretty impressive… if these were ads for an HBO original or a Broadway musical. They’re not. They are ads intended to market a high-end tile to a sophisticated audience. Instead of addressing the possibly misguided strategy of these ads, Ms. MacLatchie focuses on the execution. They are beautiful ads which will probably win a few awards for the ad agency. With a little target market feedback and some sharper copy, they probably could have helped Artistic Tile win lifelong customers as well. Alas, I feel as though Ms. Maclatchie is too emotionally invested in the credentials of her ad producers to adjust the campaign. Instead, she’ll likely continue to defend her decisions.