There is Nothing Wrong with Selling

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.)

Strongbow is Selling Itself on the Basis of Quality and I am Confused

You may well have seen the spot by now. It’s no longer particularly new. A TV ad highlighting the seasonal nature of cider apple growing, and the care and attention that goes into making Strongbow cider.

And I’m confused. Because Strongbow isn’t known for quality. It’s known for being cheap, plentiful, and not particularly nice. There’s a reason people mix it with squash. And that it’s one of the main ingredients of snakebite. I have no beef with Strongbow. But it isn’t known for quality.

(Although interestingly in Australia Strongbow is branded as an English heritage product. Cutesy images of trees and apples and everything.)

The point is, there are other ciders, even mass market ones like Magners, which place their quality and care as a key selling point – and it’s believable because they are actually quite nice.

So why is Strongbow going down this route for its advertising? We can only assume that they feel a need to aim for a more mature audience.

After all, Strongbow ads have traditionally been very strong, playing on humour and funny scenarios – exactly the kind of thing to appeal to a younger class of drinker, who wants something cheap but also wants a brand that seems to understand and care about their sense of humour. But perhaps that market is under threat by own brand supermarket offerings, which are much cheaper and taste about the same. Advertising can only trump cost to a point.

That there is one of the most interesting market developments of the last few years. Many value range branded goods are suffering from the competition of cheaper supermarket-made alternatives.

(It’s probably worth an article of its own. I’ll have a think.)

But here’s the main point: if you see an advert that looks odd, seems unusual or out of tone for a brand, start thinking. Why is it there?

Quite often, the answers are more easy to reason out than you think.

Social Media is Different

This is more of a memo to those on the client side.

I get it. We get it. Social media is scary. It’s fast-paced, risky and unpredictable. You just want to have nice organised initiatives with clear goals, and obvious start and end points.

But social media doesn’t fit those rules. And we all have to learn that. Because effective social media is never going to fit into neat calendars with pointed dates and transitional movements from campaign to campaign. Because it’s social. And it doesn’t need your content. You have to prove to people why they should like, comment, share and subscribe.

There’s a well-known joke that using social media for free means that the people using it are the product for sale. There’s a lot of truth to that. But we’re a living product and we do determine our behaviour.

And social media is, well, social. Brands which post at particular times and respond in particular ways don’t tend to be that popular. Because good social media doesn’t just mean knowing your audience, it means understanding them and empathising with them. Having a genuine conversation with them.

So enough with the Turing test, brand approved, signed-off, squared-off model. Social media is about the genuine – so let it be a real conversation.

You might find that people like you more as people than as a company.

Being Bright is Not Enough

A lot of my compatriots (read: competitors) trying to come up the rungs – or just get on the ladder – in advertising have a flaw. I know because I also have it. A belief that you are smarter than everyone else. That you don’t have to work as hard. That it can all be effortless for you.

That thought is your single biggest enemy.

It makes you lazy, it makes you superficial. And it makes you lose.

Contrary to popular opinion – and as I’ve said before – good ideas are not that rare in the world of advertising. And smart people are not some rare commodity.

Being smart is not enough.

Even if you truly are an exceptional brain, you have to work to get ahead. No one wants to pay for how gifted you are inside your head if you can’t translate that into results in the real world.

So what’s the real answer?

Being thorough. Being really thorough. Being so thorough it’s boring.

Being thorough is not sexy. But it’s the only way to do well consistently. I had a great teacher at a past agency who drilled into me the difference between good work and great work – not raw cleverness and sneaky ideas, but being thorough.

It might be the single most important quality to learn for any junior member of an agency.

Why? Because it’s the ability to anticipate and fix problems before they become problems. It’s recognition of the need to be humble, to go the extra mile, to support the team. It means always being prepared; to be an expert in any subject on demand, not just willing to do extra research but actively pursuing that knowledge.

From my own experience, I can say how important this is. I used to be nervous about speaking in front of people.

(I mean I still am, but I used to be too.)

I found a way to get past that fear though, and actually present with very little nervousness. How? The 11 Ways of Being a More Effective Speaker Through Yoga? No. Being prepared. Why would you be afraid of speaking, of questions, of making mistakes, when you know the answers? When you’re completely prepared it really limits your ability to mess up.

You might think you’re a good speaker – and that you can freewheel enough to get away with any lapses. You can’t. You will get found out. And there are far fewer second chances in business.

Here’s a strange – but fitting – analogy. Thoroughness is like the difference between flowers in a vase and a flowerpot. Both look good, but only one has lasting power. You need a strong base of hard work and dependability in order to do the exceptional.

It’s nice to be brilliant. If you can combine that with consistency you’ll be on to a winner.

Urgent Appeal for Two BMWs

I’m writing this on the train. Right in front of me are two advertising posters. Both of them are by cancer charities. Both are trying to raise money.

The headline on the first reads: “Urgent Appeal for Macmillan Nurses”.

The headline on the second reads: “Win £40,000 or two BMWs”.

The picture on the first is of a nurse in uniform.

The picture on the second is of the aforementioned cars, some cash, and a photo of a beach holiday.

It’s genuinely difficult to know what to think about these two posters.

It’s certainly rare that you come across an advert that is so crass and poorly done as the second of the two. I’d be interested to find out which was more successful at raising money. I mean supporting nurses is nice but two BMWs are hard to resist.

It’s just such a strange study in contrasts. One is a thoughtful, targeted appeal to help a charity support patients. The other, as far as you can tell from the ad, is essentially a raffle which happens to be going to a cancer charity. Except the ad is clearly from the charity itself.

The cynics might suggest this is pure advertising – that this is what you get when you trust advertisers with a sensitive subject like cancer. Crass, self-interested, superficial.

I disagree.

The first poster is the one which is a product of good advertising. An agency probably had a hand in it. There is a thought process involved. The second is the product of people who have no idea about what advertising is about.

If you couldn’t tell that from their respective production values (and you can), you can certainly tell it from their differing outlooks.

The second poster treats its audience as though it thinks they are selfish – that you can only be persuaded to help the sick through the chance for personal gain. That the passengers on this train are all vain robots, with nary a shred of interest to be had unless you dangle a picture of the Bahamas in front of them.

Sure, in my case that’s true, but I’d like to think that I’m the exception.

Joking aside, that second poster does seem like an aberration, a strange outlier of advertising. And it is the point I made before that I think is significant. Both of these ads are for a noble cause: raising money for people suffering from cancer. And yet that isn’t enough by itself to make their case. One side clearly determined that they needed to make a call to people’s emotions. The other, that it was all about money. I think most of us would agree which is the more appropriate, and the most effective.

But it is the work of advertising to make these things happen. If you think you can market your ideas on your own, you are welcome to do so. But the odds are that you aren’t a natural advertiser. Get help from the experts.

Because even the best of causes needs to be communicated properly.

Be Enthusiastic About Vitamin Supplements, Improved Wifi, and Enamel Flooring

This is another post about good qualities for an ad person. In this case though this is a quality that is not just for juniors but applies throughout your career (as far as I can tell).

Be enthusiastic about everything you work on. Even if its objectively boring. As with a lot of these articles the point sounds strange but is also very obvious. You need to be able to find enthusiasm in everything, be it a pan with a new innovative handle, or a slightly improved formula for cake mix.

Now this might sound like I’m just advocating for a glassy smile to make the client happy – I’m not. Being respectful and saying the right things to the client is something you should already know. I mean, come on reader. Get your head in the game.

What I’m saying is you have to find some genuine enthusiasm. Not for the client’s benefit directly. But for the benefit of you, and your work. We all know that we do our best work when we’re enthusiastic about the work we’re doing. But why limit your enthusiasm to the times when you get to work on a beer account or an exciting jewellery brand? Sure, those are a little more obviously interesting. But someone who can only summon up their best work when they get what they want is never going to be more than a mediocre account handler. And you don’t get the great accounts by showing yourself to be unequal to the task when it comes to the more mundane ones.

Let me give an example. This is actually from the creative side. I had a creative director at one of my past agencies who could be enthused by anything. He got excited describing the qualities of a new corporate wifi outlet that one of our clients was releasing. In most other industries having his level of enthusiasm for marginally better wifi would be considered a mild form of delirium. But this is one of the most respected creative directors in the UK. You don’t get to the top through disinterest.

So what does this translate to in the day to day? Simply, it means having a genuine curiosity about life, and about what is going on around you. I hope you do have that (you probably shouldn’t have chosen advertising as a career if that isn’t the case). You have to be able to find a reason to work harder, care more, and take an interest in everything that goes on around your account.

David Ogilvy talked about this, that if your client is a petrol supplier you should spend your weekends at petrol stations talking to drivers. You can’t advance without having the will to learn more.

"Most of the young [people] in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial."

Frankly, it’s a lot easier to do that kind of research and active listening now than it was in his day. Even just searching Google for news once in a while is enough to make a big difference. But you have to be willing to make that effort. And curious enough to keep making the effort even when it eats into your ‘free’ time.

Advertising is the art of driving people to care about goods which often have very little natural emotion pull. How can you possibly succeed in that if you can’t even drive yourself to care about them?

Do Ads Have to Sell?

There’s an ad running in the UK right now for Freederm (a skincare, anti-zit brand). It’s all about a bird who gets sick of flying in formation and wants to be free. He flies off and gets up to hijinks around the world. The end tagline is “There’s nothing like being free” – and then it says Freederm. I love this ad.

I also really can’t think that it’s good advertising.

That might sound strange. But entertainment doesn’t equal advertising. And there’s the problem. That Freederm spot is fantastic, beautiful, playful – and it barely mentions the brand or the product.

Now at this point branding gurus may pop out of the woodwork to say that this is all about positioning, about creating good feelings about the brand. There’s a logic to that idea. Quite often brands do feel the need to bolster their popularity and their positivity.

But here’s the question. Has Freederm earned the right to make a spot that is just about branding – with nothing about its actual products? I don’t mean a moral right. They can advertise how they please. 

But broadcasting a branding position without having clear defined products is a risky business. McDonalds runs branding advertising because it also runs advertising about its products. I would argue McDonalds barely has to run product advertising anymore, its products are so well established that all that really needs to be said is the branding.

But can the same be said for Freederm?

That’s a difficult question. When I first saw the spot I would have said absolutely not. But with repetition I think a part of me is growing to accept it. Maybe it’s just that good. 

What is Wrong With Andrex?

Andrex wants to have a national discussion about shitting.

I shit you not.

It’s possibly the single-most bizarre marketing decision that any brand has made in years. Why would they choose to change their entire brand proposition from cute puppies and oblique references to talking about shit and how your ass feels after?

There was a great article about the move by Andrex shortly after the initial campaign began last year (the already infamous “Scrunch or Fold?”), written on Marketing Magazine. In it Helen Edwards argued that the whole point of toilet paper advertising is that we only accept it and allow it into our national discourse and advertising world because it is subtle and cutesy and doesn’t really talk about the subject matter (other than cushiony softness and the like). Andrex seems to be betting that they can change that.

But the real question about this is why Andrex? Andrex is dominant in the market, at least in its branding. If you ask anyone if they know a brand of loo roll I guarantee you, the first name that will come from their lips will be Andrex. They really didn’t need the shake-up – you’d expect this from some newcomer with a new proposition (though what that new offering could be in the world of pieces of paper with which to clean yourself is, I confess, beyond me).

So we’re left with this question. What will this do to Andrex? Ultimately the answer may simply be nothing, at least for the time being. Andrex has that brand dominance, and it won’t give it up anytime soon. But it’s still a strange, strange decision.

There’s a further point to all this. Andrex took a radical new campaign on, a huge turnaround from its traditional marketing. Why? Was there some evidence that the brand needed to change? That there could be a huge market gap in targeting people who like to talk about bowel movements?

It’s hard to imagine. But perhaps they simply fell victim to the allure of novelty. Perhaps they simply wanted to make something different, to shake things up for the sake of shaking things up. That’s bad marketing though, and it’s worth remembering this fact. Never drop a campaign that works just because you’re bored with it.

(If nothing else, remember that you probably get bored with it a lot faster than the public will.)