Every few weeks I feel compelled to share an example of how big companies are taking the marketing and advertising fields to new lows. Today’s example comes from one of my field operatives, Jonathan Richman, who spotted the advertisement for Toto toilets in his room at the Marriott Renaissance in Washington, D.C. It’s sad, but true, and a good opportunity to step back and think about the economics of this new ad space.

Let’s start with an analysis of the advertising itself. Marriott is providing a platform for the Toto brand to advertise its innovative new toilet, including the chance to learn more at cleanishappy.com. The toilet seat is a piece of visual real-estate that has been previously untapped. And people who stay at pricey hotels are likely those a brand such as Toto would love to reach. But there are a few problems here. The biggest miss is the fact that Toto is advertising its product on a toilet that is NOT a Toto. This leaves a negative impression on both Toto and Marriott. Why tease the customer and remind him that this toilet will not clean him properly? It’s like going to a restaurant and getting an ad on your table for better food at another restaurant. The second issue is that people do not like to get engaged in toilets. We want to do our business and move on, and we want to focus on hitting the “target” rather than getting distracted by ad copy.

But let’s continue by looking at the numbers behind this new advertising medium to understand the size of the prize. Heck, maybe this is a huge moneymaker for Marriott and part of the next evolution of marketing. Here’s a few things that I calculated and assumed:

• Let’s assume that these ads were placed on every single Marriott hotel room around the world. That totals 560,000 rooms in 2008 (last numbers I could find).
• Marriott averages 73.5% occupancy in its rooms.
• Let’s say only 1 impression per guest per day “counts” in a toilet seat media buy.
• Let’s assume Marriott gets a high, targeted CPM of $50. That’s $50 in revenue for every 1,000 people who view these ads each day.
• If all of its ad space were sold, that would mean a grand total of $20,580 in toilet seat advertising revenue per year for Marriott.

So, at the end of the day, the opportunity for Marriott here is not even a rounding error on a rounding error when dropped into the company’s total annual revenue of $12.9 billion. You can stop there and wonder why the company would bother going along with this asinine idea. But let’s take it a step further: What if Marriott actually pisses people off with these advertisements and hurts its business? How many people would it take to stop choosing Marriott for their travel needs because they don’t appreciate the eyeball pollution and toilet tease. Here are some more numbers:

• The average revenue per room per day for Marriott is $121.34.
• It only takes 170 fewer stays (.03% of total stays) to offset the $20,580 ad revenue gain.

So if only a tiny handful of the many thousand people who see these ads are turned off, then the whole effort is worthless. Further, there’s the negative word of mouth that comes from road warriors who share this story. In Jonathan Richman’s case, this intrusive advertising reminded him of the $12.95 the hotel is charging him for Wi-Fi access (when even McDonald’s is giving it away for free). Also throw in the more than 15,000 people who have seen Jonathan’s photo when he posted it on Reddit in the past week. If “only” 15,000 people around the world get pissed off and stay one less day each, the company loses $1.8 million!

So, at minimum, Marriott really should have thought more about its overall business and more about making its guests enjoy a pleasant experience rather than slapping on some ads for a few extra bucks. And it could even turn this Toto partnership into an example of Marketing with Meaning. Why not actually install some of these whiz-bang new super-clean Toto toilets in its high-end Renaissance rooms? We’ve already seen Westin make a major brand impact by doing little things in its rooms such as the Heavenly Bed and Heavenly Shower. Why not innovate with the equivalent of a Heavenly Toilet? That would be a great trial opportunity for Toto as well as a way for Marriott to show that it is investing in a better stay experience.

Am I missing something here? Why would Marriott ever agree to this? What would it take for the company to put its toilet money where its mouth is? Does your brand preference for Marriott change in seeing this?