Megan McArdle has been discussing the seeming incongruity of a B2B company like Enron or Cisco developing a brand on mass-market advertising. The funny thing to me is that, at least in my case, they were spectacularly unsuccessful. Of course, there's a possibility that I'm weird.

You see, while I listen to a lot of TV, I hardly ever watch it. It's usually on FNC most of the day, while I work at home. So there are many ads that I've heard, but can go days or weeks without seeing. Enron was one of them. I heard the people singing "Why, why, why, why..." and wondered to myself ("why?") for a month or two before I knew that it was an Enron ad.

Another one like that is the one that's been running since 911 for the NYSE (or is it NASDAQ?--see, I don't even know which one--some brand ID). Auditorially, it consists only of a lush theme music. If you don't look at the screen, there's absolutely no way to know who is paying for the ad.

Another one is the ad with the obnoxious kid talking about how he wants to be a teacher, instead of a doctor, because without teachers there would be no doctors. Who did that one? B of A? I think so, but I'm not sure, because I'm sure I heard it twenty times for every time that I saw it, and there was no auditory clue as to the sponsor.

So, without addressing Megan's question of the value of such companies building a brand in the consumer mind, I wonder if the ad agencies (and companies who pay them) consider the potential number of people who hear, but don't see their ad, and therefore have no idea what it's about. If I were paying as much as these folks are paying for an ad, I'd want to make sure that blind people could get the message too.