There’s
an ad campaign going around in London, of various images sent in by people with
the tagline “#beframeus”. Every time I read it I read “be fram-e-us”. And it
annoys me. When I get home I’m going to try to find out what this campaign is
all about. Because that is all the information given.
And
that’s the problem. Sure, I’m going to make the effort (hopefully, unless I
forget because I might have better, more interesting things to do), but I don’t
really want to. And most other people I imagine don’t want to either.
“You
cannot bore people into buying your product.”
Too
many advertisers try to be overly clever with their campaigns, to make it a
puzzle, to make it a mysterious pathway of content to carry the audience
forward.
That
would be nice if the audience were watching every ad in a row like a movie. But
we don’t. We watch piecemeal – we watch at random. You can’t assume anything
about how much the audience has seen. Of course you don’t want to patronise the
audience. But don’t force them to do research to understand what you’re doing.
Too
often this byzantine form of advertising is done because we’re afraid that our
audience hate advertising, and want to have some kind of organic content
experience. I’m not quite sure what that even means. But here’s the point.
You
can’t be afraid of selling the product. Don’t hide behind clever lines and “guerrilla”
advertising that is so guerrilla that it lives in a part of a jungle that no
one has ever visited.
If
you have a point to make, make it.
I
don’t give a shit about #beframeus. Tell me what you want me to buy.
(Having looked it up it seems to be JCDecaux' new editorial content feature. So I guess in the end it doesn't matter that no one knows or cares about it, since the target is so small anyway.)
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