Who is the most important person your advertising must address?

It is that 1 person in 10 . . . 100 . . . 1,000 . . . or 1,000,000 most interested in your product category, if not your brand.

Who do you suppose is likely to be most interested in a household pesticide, for example?

The person who wants to buy a new smartphone?

The one who wants to buy a new car?

A new pair of sneakers?

A work of art?

Of course not.

Essentially, the only person interested in a household pesticide would be the one who wants or needs it.

And that's your Advertising Qualified Lead.

The AQL will be receptive to all advertising related to the product category and its substitutes.

So, your advertising has only one job:

Sell the AQL on buying your product . . . practically on the same day that they are exposed to your advertising.

If your advertising fails to . . .

1) flag the AQL (and only the AQL) verbally and/or visually,

2) provide a value proposition that taps into their internal frame of reference, and

3) address their product, brand, purchase & other objections

. . . it is likely—in the words of David Ogilvy—to 'pass like a ship in the night'.

And that would be a great disservice.

Not only to the AQL but also your brand and business.

If you are a marketing or an advertising professional smitten by the idea of creativity in advertising, you are not alone.

But . . . which school of advertising creativity do you swear by?

Do you believe—like Luke Sullivan—that ‘Creativity is like washing a pig. It’s messy. It has no rules. No clear beginning, middle or end. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is really clean or even why you were washing a pig in the first place’?

Or, do you believe—as David Ogilvy did—that ‘A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself’?

While Sullivan talks about a process, Ogilvy spotlights an outcome.

If you ask me, I believe advertising creativity isn’t so much a result as a particular process.

In my mind, that process—used by the legendary mail-order copywriter Eugene Schwartz—goes something like this:

Step 1: Make sure the prospect/consumer/buyer persona is the benchmark against which all advertising decisions will be judged (at the agency as well as at the client’s).

I'm assuming here that your brand has already been put through the positioning wringer.

If it hasn't, I highly recommend the Al Ries & Jack Trout classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.

You can also check out the Ries & Ries blog for more insights.

Let me mention an important point here.

Your prospect/consumer/buyer persona is that individual who is most interested in your product/service/cause or one like it.

So, why unnecessarily bother targeting anyone else or entertain assumptions and personal opinions about “short attention spans”, “nobody reads any more”, “lots of white space”, “the prospect wants to be entertained”, “making them laugh can make them buy”, “storytelling” (which is a technique, by the way), “hitch your brand to a cause”, and the like?

When in doubt, test.

Test again.

Test some more.

Step 2: Find out how close your prospect is to your brand.

Quick! Name a smartphone.

If you said 'iPhone' or even 'Samsung', it’s safe to say that the distance between you and the brand you named is probably negligible.

You need little to no convincing that the iPhone/Samsung is the brand for you.

One reason why?

The iPhone especially has become synonymous with a self-expressive brand which enjoys high social approval in general and among the demographics it targets in particular.

OK.

But . . . what if you are a smartphone brand nobody knows anything about?

What if you are an also-ran, a decent if not a great brand in terms of quality but one that’s just hanging in there?

Your advertising—not to mention your business and marketing in general—may have to work much harder to even register on the prospect's radar or gain word-of-mouth traction and social approval.

The options before you (besides overhauling R & D and other core business areas)?

Offline advertising hinging on a celebrity endorsement?

Blanket advertising to take advantage of the mere exposure effect?

Direct marketing?

Channel marketing?

Online advertising?

Mail-order advertising?

PR . . . ?

Look at all practicable options.

For example, don’t turn a blind eye to traditional media and methods just because everybody seems to be boarding the social media ark.

The flood may just be a rumour.

Instead, let your prospect and your idea or core message steer your choice.

If you want to be a ‘social-first brand’, please remember that social media is essentially a one-to-one marketing channel.

You are unlikely to make much progress in the social media world if you haven’t made your brand presence felt in the real world.

In other words, much of the marketing grunt work needs to be done offline.

Only then can you expect to cash in online and via social media.

What if you are a legacy brand?

Consider the consequences of alienating your traditional demographic.

Will going after, say, millennials be worth it in the long run?

Will bending over backwards to appeal to virtually everyone consolidate or undermine your brand equity?

Speaking of legacy brands, I would love to see many of them targeting prospects who are already familiar with the brand (as customers or family members of customers) a few months or decades from now, depending on the kind of product/service you market.

Otherwise, you could be leaving a lot of moolah on the table for your competition to grab.

Now, let’s talk about the final step.

Step 3: Go through your own advertising (if available) and that of your competitors with a fine-tooth comb.

What have the top brands (and maybe even you) been telling your prospect all this while?

The idea is to ultimately not tell the prospect the same thing as the competition, be it visually, verbally or in terms of the core advertising message, if any.

Because . . . what’s the point if your advertising reminds your prospect of your competition’s brand or even their advertising?

Surprisingly, your advertising need not be better than the competition’s.

According to advertising veteran Dave Trott, your advertising may simply have to be different in order to stand out in the crowd.

But before you let your imagination run riot, please remember:

"Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process."—David Ogilvy

• • •

Quotes source: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/inspirational-advertising-quotes-39194

​Catching bullets fired at him made Chung Ling Soo famous.

On the night of March 23, 1918, a bullet penetrated his lung.

He died the next day.

Like his apparently superhuman ability, Chung himself was an illusion.

He was not—as he claimed to be—the orphaned, American-born son of a Scottish missionary and a Cantonese woman.

Chung was born William Ellsworth Robinson to Scottish parents in the State of New York.

An analogy can be drawn between Chung/Robinson’s world and that of advertising.

Both professions rely on skill and showmanship.

A lack of either can be a glaring shortcoming, which is rarely obvious to and/or acknowledged by the average practitioner.

But skill and showmanship are not enough by themselves.

Above all, you must understand human nature.

The audience was, is, and always will be 'selfish'.

No magician, marketer or advertising professional can afford to ignore this fact and hope or expect to bring down the house.

Trickery is a poor substitute for skill.

And grandstanding is not showmanship.

Fame is fleeting.

And pursuing it can precipitate a brand’s descent into obscurity, if not its death.

Critical thinking was Socrates’s superpower.

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.

Put differently, it is the process we use to reflect on, access and judge the assumptions underlying our own and others’ ideas and actions.

In the context of the Socratic Method, critical thinking involves asking six types of questions to get to the bottom of an issue.

For the purpose of this post the issue will be the crisis of credibility facing the advertising industry today.

According to Dr. Richard Paul, the six types of questions are:

I. Questions that serve to clarify the issue

• ‘Why does the advertising industry find itself in the dock today?’

 

• ‘What are the charges that have been brought against it?’

 

• ‘What has prompted the charges?’

 

• ‘How credible are the sources of the charges?’

 

• ‘How have the industry’s own behaviours and attitudes contributed to the crisis, if any?

II. Questions that challenge our assumptions about it

• ‘Why do we believe the advertising industry is in the grips of a credibility crisis?’

 

• ‘Is the crisis a general phenomenon or has it been blown out of proportion in our market, industry, circle, product/service category . . . ?’

 

• ‘How have fellow marketers or marcom agencies responded (or reacted) to the crisis? Why have they done so in the way they have? How alike or dissimilar has our own response been? Why have we responded in the way we have?’

 

• ‘How have we contributed to the crisis? What have we done to mitigate the impact of our advertising decisions and practices? What are we doing now and what should we be doing in the days to come?’

 

• ‘Is the crisis an existential one, a wakeup call or an opportunity in disguise?’

III. Questions that probe our reasoning and the evidence

• ‘If advertising is an important facet of the promotion part of the marketing mix, why are questions being raised about its credibility?’

 

• ‘What is the root of the general opinion regarding the crisis?’

 

• ‘On what evidence and authority have we based our own conclusion?’

 

• ‘Has anything of this magnitude happened in the past? What triggered that crisis and how did the industry deal with it? What lessons were learned from it? Was the industry better or worse off because of it?’

 

• ‘Besides the numbers, data, news, word of mouth and industry bodies, what do the sales & customer service people and the consumers themselves think/believe?’

​
IV. Questions that uncover viewpoints and perspectives

• ‘If the crisis is real, what’s likely to happen by Q3 or Q4, next year or the years after?’

 

• ‘What must marketers and agencies do posthaste to stem the tide?’

 

• ‘How can technology help us to at least arrest the haemorrhaging?’

 

• ‘Is our unfettered over-reliance on technology to blame for the crisis in any way?’

 

• ‘Is the crisis partly the result of misconceptions that have historically plagued the advertising profession?’

V. Questions that throw light on the implications and consequences

• ‘What precisely does the crisis translate into for a marketer or an advertising agency like us?’

 

• ‘What are the consequences of assuming that the crisis is real, not real, temporary, or cyclical?’

 

• ‘Have we been looking at the business & discipline of advertising from the wrong end of the telescope?’

 

• ‘What is the most objective & cost-effective way we can deal with the crisis and/or its most pressing symptom?’

 

• ‘Are we too big to fail or too myopic to see the rot that’s already set in?’

VI. Questions that question the question itself or its gist

Question: ‘If advertising is an important facet of the promotion part of the marketing mix, why are questions being raised about its credibility?’

Counter: ‘In our own or a client’s case, how important is advertising when compared with the other promotional elements (public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing and/or personal selling)?’

In parting, I yield to the philosopher par excellence:

​Like dating.

Like your device.

Like social media.

Like the sciences.

Like virtually all other facets of human civilisation and development.

Advertising is a shortcut.

It’s a shortcut to reaching more prospects.

Changing behaviours.

Moulding perceptions.

In the most memorable way.

In the least expensive way.

But when advertising pretends to be or do anything more, it becomes an eyesore.

A noise.

A barrier.

An unwelcome interruption.

A mere pandering.

A waste of money.

Time.

Space.

Pixels.

Creativity.

And human potential.

When advertising pretends to be or do anything more, it becomes a needless test of patience.

A lost opportunity.

A bully.

A blight on common sense.

And society.

Advertising is a shortcut.

It does not have all the answers.

But it can be made better by the right questions.

It is a business.

It is a calling.

It has to be both.

Advertising is a shortcut.

To being more responsible.

As marketers.

As advertising professionals.

Towards consumers.

Society.

The wider world.

And ourselves.

Advertising is not dead.

Or dying.

Advertising is just a shortcut.

If it can get you where you’d rather be, you should take it.

If it can’t, the world is not short of other shortcuts.

A lot of the advertising today is like the vain monarch in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Not surprisingly, many a marketer’s opinion about advertising is likely to echo that of John Wanamaker’s:

​​At the heart of the problem is . . .

1. the poverty of intellectual honesty, and
2. the temporary or terminal lack of advertising literacy . . .

​. . . on the marketer’s and/or agency’s side(s) of the table.

Yet, every advertising opportunity contains within it the seeds of a renaissance.

One that starts with the consumer.

Word of mouth. Books. Newspapers. Magazines. Radio. TV. Internet.

Content is the common denominator among all media.

It was, is, and always will be king.

Until recently, it was a "seller's market" as far as the content was concerned.

Thanks to the Web, the power has now swung to the consumer.

The invention continues to:

• disrupt the world of marketing in ways unimaginable in the not-too-distant past, and
• chip away at the mass-market monolith, the mainstay of the so-called Old Economy.

​ This has resulted in the:

• ongoing distribution of consumers into niche markets, and
• growing exodus of consumers to e-commerce and—increasingly—m-commerce.

​
It has forced marketers to rethink the way they do business and their decisions regarding media and media platforms.

How marketers communicate with consumers is also undergoing a transformation.

The Web is as powerful as it is because it incorporates all the media that have come before it (Web Copywriting 2.0, Nick Usborne).

On the Web, you can not only consume content by reading it, watching it and listening to it you can even participate in its creation.

Marketing using content is all the rage today.

But like all marketing tactics, it can never be any better than the strategy powering it.

If content is king, it's only because strategy is the kingmaker.

But . . .

. . . there’s something even more important than your content marketing strategy.

Documenting it.

This ensures:

• everyone’s on the same page,
• campaign decisions hinge on a cost-benefit analysis, and
• a paper trail, which can be used to inform future campaigns.

​
One popular way to bring your content marketing strategy to life is by using the S.M.A.R.T. method:

Make sure your content marketing goals are:

Specific

“Who are we talking to? Why should they bother listening to us? What do we want our content marketing campaign to achieve?”

Measurable

“How will we know if our content marketing campaign is doing what we expect it to do? What are the criteria that we will be using to measure campaign success? What sort of testing will we be using and how often?”

Attainable

“Can our content marketing campaign actually help us achieve our Web marketing goals? Have we set an impossible or unreasonable task for ourselves?”

Relevant

“Does our content marketing campaign make sense from a business point of view? Are we merely reacting when we should be responding? In the first place, will our campaign add value to the life of our prospect?”

Timely

“Is everyone clear about the campaign’s timeline? Have we established a reasonable end date for the campaign?”

Although content marketing democratises the ability of marketers to influence buying decisions, marketing fundamentals will always matter.

Like positioning your product/service for success, and understanding your consumers and the business you are actually in.

​Brazilians speak Portuguese.

This was the conundrum DM9, Sao Paulo—now a part of the DDB network—faced in 1993.

Diet Guarana, a popular soft drink in neighbouring, Spanish-speaking markets was eyeing the millions of parched throats in Latin America's biggest nation.

Using the Spanish-language advertising that had worked elsewhere outright was out of the question. On the other hand, adapting it would be a risky proposition, given the cultural differences.

At that time, print advertising in Brazil hinged—as was the case virtually everywhere else—on words.

But to grab attention, the advertising also needed to be transparent. Brazilians were (and are) advertising-savvy consumers. Blatantly drawing attention to the advertising itself or the brand wouldn't work.

Instinctively, DM9's art director, Marcello Serpa, knew that indifference was the biggest obstacle the brand had to overcome.

After all, a soft drink is a soft drink in the grand scheme of things.

In a stroke of genius, the answer presented itself to Serpa.

Brazilians have a thing for beautiful bodies.

Why not use this norm as an easily relatable context?

The concept of reduction—expressing an idea in the simplest possible terms—which Serpa had picked up from his time in Germany, served as the crucible. 

The result?

​Despite the complete absence of copy, Serpa's campaign succeeded in grabbing the eyeballs of both consumers and the Cannes jury, who recognised his brilliance by awarding the campaign Brazil's first Grand Prix Lion.

And soon, imitations began to mushroom around the world.

'Aha! Less is more. Viva la creativity! Off with the copy!,' was the battlecry of their creators.

And thus began the castration of the copy department, and—according to the legendary Neil French—the death of long-copy advertising.

A quarter-century later, misconceptions about advertising creativity are—in all probability—a key factor behind:

• the continuing decline of the credibility of the mainstream advertising industry,
• highly publicised budget cuts made by influential marketers,
• the rise of consultancies,
• lacklustre revenue growth at marcom holding companies,
• the increasing calls for spending accountability, and
• the growing renouncement of advertising as an effective marcom tool.

So what exactly is creativity?

David Galenson studies human creativity, and is Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

Galenson believes that creativity is of two types:

1. Conceptual creativity—'sudden and dramatic discoveries through highly deductive leaps'
2. Experimental creativity—'long and painstaking accumulation of evidence, and extended development of techniques. . . . the result of patient trial-and-error processes'

The type of creativity the advertising industry elects to promote and practice going forward may very well change the marcom landscape and seal the industry's fate.

​References

1. O'Barr, William (2008). Advertising in Brazil, Advertising & Society Review, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2008. Retrieved December 1, 2017, from Project MUSE database.

2. Design Indaba, Marcello Serpa on the art of reduction. Retrieved December 3, 2017, via YouTube.

3. Galenson, David (2014). Creativity: Myths and Misconceptions, April 24, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2017, from HuffPost (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/creativity-myths-and-misc_b_4836263.html).

4. David Galenson. Bio. Retrieved December 4, 2017, from http://www.davidgalenson.com/bio.html.

5. Neff, J. and Schultz, E. (2017). Does Cannes matter?: Agencies debate spendy festival in lean times. Retrieved December 5, 2017, from AdAge (http://adage.com/article/print-edition/cannes-festival-creativity-matter/309354/).

6. Schultz, E. (2017). The race is on: How IBM, Accenture, PwC and Deloitte are shaking up the marketing industry. Retrieved December 5, 2017, from AdAge (http://adage.com/article/news/consultancies-rising/308845/).

In My First 65 Years in Advertising (TAB Books, 1975), Maxwell Sackheim calls indifference and inertia the enemies of advertising.

'Indifference is normal,' says Sackheim.

'We go through life generally with our minds only half turned on, except when we are promised an adequate reward for our full attention. Ordinarily, our attitude towards nearly everything we see, read, hear and experience is "so what?"

'Indifference is the number one [obstacle] we have to overcome—and when you begin to realize how terrific the competition is for your prospect's time and attention, you begin to appreciate what [an obstacle] indifference is.'

Sackheim describes inertia as the 'law of physics which decrees that a body in motion, or at rest, resists change'.

'People hate to bother changing their minds, their habits, their routines.

'It takes tons of persuasion to make people do even the things they want to do!'

So, how does one tackle indifference and inertia?

Sackheim suggests three ways:

1. Service

Offer the consumer a benefit, a solution, an answer. "What's in it for me?" asks the consumer. Tell them. Quickly. Prominently. Ideally, in the headline.

2. News

Change what the consumer believes they know about your product/service, in relation to the competition or the brand category itself.

If you can, overhaul your physical or functional product/service (keeping your consumer and the competition in mind while doing so) and then communicate the brand-new you in a way that spotlights the advantage.

Consider positioning or repositioning your brand, or even infusing it with a unique selling proposition.

3. Make them an offer

A free gift, prize contest, recipe booklet, special price, and the like.

Although Sackheim was speaking from a mail-order perspective, virtually all other forms of advertising can make use of these indifference- & inertia-busting methods.

But, where does branding fit into the picture?

Branding and the methods Sackheim recommends are not mutually exclusive.

Sure, branding has its advantages, not the least of which is it can help create & reinforce a unique brand persona—this is especially true if ATL and/or digital advertising is your primary marcom.

But there's a limit to the amount of branding a consumer will put up with or relate to, and there's only so much that branding itself can do for a marketer.

Moreover, misinformed branding can easily make your brand and the product/service too abstract for the consumer's liking.

Let's not forget that branding is also expensive. If you can afford it, ask yourself if you, in fact, should.

By the way, if most marketers in a category are preoccupied with branding, an opportunity may exist for the right trailing or new brand to quickly make inroads into the market on the back of a "street-smart" marketing & advertising campaign.

The branding (a.k.a. marketing communication) strategy stems from the business or marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy that ignores what is already inside the head of the consumer—and other market realities—only makes things difficult for everything that follows.

After all, not all consumers are in the same boat.

New prospects or customers of competing brands may find your branding appealing enough to consider giving your product/service a shot.

Why not make the most of the opportunity and encourage them to become a buyer sooner rather than later by incorporating a mail-order/direct-response technique or two in your marcom?

Because in the end, what must matter to a marketer is the same as that which matters to the consumer:

The value one gets out of the advertising space, time, or pixels.

According to a MarketingSherpa-MECLABS survey, consumers hate it when brands (and their marketing):

• Put their own needs and wants above those of the consumers,
• Don't communicate in a way that builds relationships, and
• Try to sell them instead of providing value.

Marketing is essentially about either changing or reinforcing attitudes and/or behaviour.

Marketing communication is much more so.

A lot has to happen (or has happened) to move the consumer to the brand awareness stage.

And a lot more has to happen to convince them to make that transition from a prospect to a customer (or even a repeat one).

If alienated from marketing & business objectives, marcom can be nothing more than an expense—a tax write-off. It can be allowed to exist for its own sake, and even treated like a necessary evil.

Marcom of this variety festers as a knee-jerk reaction to market forces, such as the competition, a product/service category disruption, and the like.

Or, it merely serves as a vassal of the marketing manager's ego, whim, and/or opinion.

The result?

It tries to draw the consumer's attention to what can only be described as a nebulous product/service by drawing attention to itself (usually via no-brain "creativity"), and neglects to put the consumer first.

It communicates nothing of value to the consumer.

And it fails to offer service (Claude Hopkins) in the form of information the consumer needs/wants.

Not surprisingly, businesses don't think twice about pulling the plug on marcom budgets during internal, sectorial & economic downturns. Some businesses even look to marcom to solve a PR, business or some other non-marcom problem.

Marcom was, is and always will be about mass salesmanship—a means to an end. And like a good salesperson, only the most empathetic & resolute marcom is worth its salt.