Now that the dust has settled from a mediocre game with very mediocre advertising, and we’ve been inundated with analysis of both, maybe we can see things for what they are.
Simply put: the Go Daddy spot and the analysis that followed, given by ‘advertising and marketing experts,’ together highlight the absurdity of advertising and agencies. Advertising is meant to be part art and part science... isn’t that what we tell ourselves and our clients? These past few days we’ve seen the man behind the curtain and he ain’t pretty or smart.
A few very clear observations we all should have made:
1. The Go Daddy kissing spot was weak by any measure: not very creative, not well done, average at best. Here’s one way you know this -- all the hype the agency put out about the ad prior to the game tells you that they knew it was ho-hum. They built up the ‘45 minutes of kissing’ with a supermodel in hopes of getting the audience to ‘understand’ the coolness of the concept.
Even more telling, a spokesperson for Go Daddy reported the highest level of phone calls ever during the 24-hours after the ad ran. But s/he wouldn't release any numbers (telling those of us in the industry that this is a little white PR lie).
2. The audacity of some ‘experts’ to claim that, “since we’re still talking about the ad it was successful” is damn nonsense. This is the excuse that advertising losers use to keep their jobs and validate their salaries. If, as an industry, we can’t universally ‘condemn’ the ad for being boring, trite and unimaginative (or better yet, a waste of money) -- then we have no standards by which to judge our work. Rather, we are shysters hiding behind a concept of ‘creativity’ that’s as simplistic as saying, “anything that stands out is good.” If that’s the case, then any 10-year-old can be an ad executive or run an agency.
3. Look, it’s essential to stand out, but that alone is nothing more than being a carnival barker. And for any agency to claim success based on this lowest common denominator is ludicrous. You know, you can ‘stand out’ for being exceptionally stupid or exceptionally crass or exceptionally uninformed. In claiming the lowest ground you are as special as another well-endowed pole dancer in Las Vegas.
4. We either have standards or we’re hacks. Either Picasso is a great artist or his work is no better than any first grader. Either “The Sun Also Rises” is great literature or Barbara Cartland and Ernest Hemingway are just two more pulp fiction writers.
5. Anyone who plays devil’s advocate and claims that “the ad might not have been to your taste but it was successful because we’re still talking about it,” is a fool.
C’mon -- successful executives will tell you that in any meeting you should do something to make your presence known. You don’t want to be anonymous in a room. How, then, to accomplish this? Well, one way would be to prepare for the meeting and ask an intelligent question. Fine. You’ve been remembered. Or you could stand on the table and pull down your pants. That would be very unforgettable. And you’d be a Go Daddy advertising jackass or a partner in Deutsch New York. (The agency is still tap dancing about the ad... rule #1 of PR, never admit you might be wrong.)
NOTE: On one agency site (PPBH) I found this sentence about the Go Daddy ad: “This is the commercial that we all love to hate, but of course can’t help but talk about.” On another site, one ad executive asked if the ad was meant to be 'purposely bad,' and a paradigm of a new style of advertising with built in errors to engage the public.
Do you see what's wrong with agencies?
“Consumers want a new story... authenticity, not spin... participation, not propaganda.”
Showing posts with label marketing research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing research. Show all posts
There's Research, Then There's RESEARCH
In a former life I made a living doing research… at the library and with
a 2400-baud modem, pre-Internet. (I've written this bit before.)
All these years later and somewhat
ironically, I am not a big believer in research when it comes to
marketing and advertising (particularly things like consumer focus groups, surveys and the like).
OK, so now I’ve made myself a pariah to a lot of agencies that love to do consumer research on their clients' behalf for the money it brings in and the time it takes, which allows agencies to talk and meet and talk some more about potential strategies without ever implementing a plan.
Why the wait? Once implemented, there’s a chance of failure: the longer you can stall before you place your bet, the longer you can sit at the table and pretend to be a player.
I'm from a direct response background... there's no pretending... trust your instincts, take a stand, move forward, adjust to circumstances... and leave most research to the posers!
BUT THEN AGAIN...
There is a lot of very clever research going on, particularly among big box stores where there's fierce competition between Wal-Mart and Target and Costco and Sam's Club and... well, the list goes on and on.
You'll love this bit or research -- I did. Listening to the radio (NPR) and an interview with the author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business a guy by the name of Charles Duhigg.
OK, so now I’ve made myself a pariah to a lot of agencies that love to do consumer research on their clients' behalf for the money it brings in and the time it takes, which allows agencies to talk and meet and talk some more about potential strategies without ever implementing a plan.
Why the wait? Once implemented, there’s a chance of failure: the longer you can stall before you place your bet, the longer you can sit at the table and pretend to be a player.
I'm from a direct response background... there's no pretending... trust your instincts, take a stand, move forward, adjust to circumstances... and leave most research to the posers!
BUT THEN AGAIN...
There is a lot of very clever research going on, particularly among big box stores where there's fierce competition between Wal-Mart and Target and Costco and Sam's Club and... well, the list goes on and on.
You'll love this bit or research -- I did. Listening to the radio (NPR) and an interview with the author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business a guy by the name of Charles Duhigg.
The interview was excellent and makes me want to buy the book. For example, did you know that Febreeze was a failure until P&G made one change. Get the book to find out what that was -- it has to do with people's habits (of course). And the point was that had P&G actually asked consumers, they would not have told the 'truth' because they don't recognize their own habits.
But here's the research bit. It seems that Target can accurately predict not only if a woman is pregnant but also her due date within two weeks! And they can do this oftentimes before the woman herself knows she's with child.
What? How?
It seems that some smart cookie at Target noticed how a woman's buying habits change when she's pregnant, before the woman knows she's with child. The giveaway? When a woman of child-bearing years (of course) begins to buy unscented body lotions and creams, there's a good chance she's pregnant! Then, when she starts buying Q-tips and cotton balls, Target knows roughly how far along she is and voila they have a due date. Then the coupons start rolling in, appropriate to the trimester.
That's either brilliant or they're all going to one of Dante's special levels of hell.
It seems there's research... then there's RESEARCH! You gotta love it.
Blacksmiths, Marketers, Wall Street Hucksters, Horse Racing and Zimmerman
In the midst of social, economic or personal turmoil, it’s human nature, I guess, to expect that things will eventually return to normal. The usual advice runs from ‘stay positive’ to ‘think long term,’ to ‘just ride it out, don’t panic’. All platitudes, all nonsense, non-thinking, knee-jerk, self-serving answers that sound like information but are really hollow, empty bits of noise.
Stock market pundits and Wall Street hucksters are the worst. Some poor schmuck has just lost 50% of his life savings and their response is ‘keep in there for the long term’. What jackasses… and that’s not the term I’m really thinking of… it begins with mother.
They nearly bankrupt the country, do bankrupt millions of Americans, take money from the government to bail themselves out, then say “all is well with Wall Street, this is just a temporary correction, invest again.” Bull – you know it, I know it.
Things will never be the same for Wall Street – never, which is why large corporations and mom and pops are holding onto cash. “But there’s opportunity,” some TV stock market shill will say.
I’ll repeat what my rich (for my family) uncle told me many years ago. He was a professional gambler and bookmaker… I asked him why he didn’t invest in stocks (I was a 16-year-old know-it-all at the time). “There are thousands of stocks out there and you expect me to pick a winner, when I can go to the track and all I have to do is pick a winner from nine horses.” “But uncle,” I stupidly said, “the races are fixed!” He looked at me as if he was ashamed of our shared heritage. “I still have a one in nine chance to win a fixed race.” His loving disgust was at my assumption that stocks weren’t fixed.
Let’s move to marketing… things have changed and will never, listen to me, NEVER be the same, in part because our economy and our attitudes about money and buying things and consumption of goods have changed. All the old tried and true tricks of the trade are dead and the only ones who don’t see it are the agency types who once made a good living from old school marketing. They have nothing new to sell clients, so they continue to run their mouths about how ‘nothing has really changed,’ ‘just hang in there,’ etc. These jackasses (again, not the word I prefer to use) are protecting their own skin and don’t give a rat’s about their clients. Sorry, that’s the truth. They are too scared, too lazy or too stupid to see the marketing landscape and the economic reality for what it is.
My pitiful analogy. Around 1908, blacksmiths see the first Model-T and watch their businesses tank. There are three possible reactions:
1. The world can’t do without horses, we’ll always be in demand, just let the fad pass (most people);
2. What we need is a better horse shoe, that’s all… maybe one that glows in the dark (so-called entrepreneurs, the guys who always seem to have a ‘great’ idea based on yesterday’s information);
3. Screw horseshoes, I’m going to learn how to make metal rims for the Model-T (the few, the smart, the successful).
There aren’t many marketers or marketing managers in category #3.
I hate to quote Zimmerman (as Lennon called him) because it’s a dead giveaway of my age, but his 1960’s lyrics are perhaps more appropriate today… replace ‘senators and congressmen’ with marketers and agency execs.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Stock market pundits and Wall Street hucksters are the worst. Some poor schmuck has just lost 50% of his life savings and their response is ‘keep in there for the long term’. What jackasses… and that’s not the term I’m really thinking of… it begins with mother.
They nearly bankrupt the country, do bankrupt millions of Americans, take money from the government to bail themselves out, then say “all is well with Wall Street, this is just a temporary correction, invest again.” Bull – you know it, I know it.
Things will never be the same for Wall Street – never, which is why large corporations and mom and pops are holding onto cash. “But there’s opportunity,” some TV stock market shill will say.
I’ll repeat what my rich (for my family) uncle told me many years ago. He was a professional gambler and bookmaker… I asked him why he didn’t invest in stocks (I was a 16-year-old know-it-all at the time). “There are thousands of stocks out there and you expect me to pick a winner, when I can go to the track and all I have to do is pick a winner from nine horses.” “But uncle,” I stupidly said, “the races are fixed!” He looked at me as if he was ashamed of our shared heritage. “I still have a one in nine chance to win a fixed race.” His loving disgust was at my assumption that stocks weren’t fixed.
Let’s move to marketing… things have changed and will never, listen to me, NEVER be the same, in part because our economy and our attitudes about money and buying things and consumption of goods have changed. All the old tried and true tricks of the trade are dead and the only ones who don’t see it are the agency types who once made a good living from old school marketing. They have nothing new to sell clients, so they continue to run their mouths about how ‘nothing has really changed,’ ‘just hang in there,’ etc. These jackasses (again, not the word I prefer to use) are protecting their own skin and don’t give a rat’s about their clients. Sorry, that’s the truth. They are too scared, too lazy or too stupid to see the marketing landscape and the economic reality for what it is.
My pitiful analogy. Around 1908, blacksmiths see the first Model-T and watch their businesses tank. There are three possible reactions:
1. The world can’t do without horses, we’ll always be in demand, just let the fad pass (most people);
2. What we need is a better horse shoe, that’s all… maybe one that glows in the dark (so-called entrepreneurs, the guys who always seem to have a ‘great’ idea based on yesterday’s information);
3. Screw horseshoes, I’m going to learn how to make metal rims for the Model-T (the few, the smart, the successful).
There aren’t many marketers or marketing managers in category #3.
I hate to quote Zimmerman (as Lennon called him) because it’s a dead giveaway of my age, but his 1960’s lyrics are perhaps more appropriate today… replace ‘senators and congressmen’ with marketers and agency execs.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
"We Need Better Stories..."
... explained a Hollywood studio exec when asked why so many technically stunning movies are box office flops.”
The same is true for advertising. Memorable, successful campaigns begin with an insightful story and original content. Yet so many ‘marketers’ are reluctant to expend the time, creative thought and effort needed to tell moving, mythic stories... preferring to spend their money on style, not substance.
Wrong from the start.
Story comes first. Without it you have nothing new to offer... nothing to advertise. Consumers will ignore you. “I have facts,” you say. “My product is the best.” Neither really matters if your story is old, dull, boring, unbelievable or non-existent.
When you tell an authentic, evocative story you’ve captured the essence of intelligent marketing. You entertain, intrigue and remake the relationship between the product and the consumer. Then take advantage of digital technologies, social media platforms, to get your original content into unexpected places, make the idea contagious (an ‘idea virus’ as Seth Godin calls it) and you’re light years ahead of the ‘me-too’ crowd.
Of course, strong images and a good design are vitally important... but you can’t really sell with images alone (there are exceptions); conversely, a good writer can sell a product with just a few paragraphs on a blank sheet of paper.
If you don’t understand this self-evident fact, you have my sympathies (and fast-talking agencies will have spent your money on a beautifully ineffective piece of creative).
Here’s the reality: the days of dictating to consumers are over. The rise of social media, the decline of traditional media’s ROI and an increasingly cynical public (with less money to spend) have radically altered how and why an idea gains traction.
What doesn’t change? The need to stand out... the need to create a new category and dominate it... the need to start with an honest narrative. If you understand the difference between a captivating story and just another silly, intrusive ad... you're chances of success will grow exponentially.
The same is true for advertising. Memorable, successful campaigns begin with an insightful story and original content. Yet so many ‘marketers’ are reluctant to expend the time, creative thought and effort needed to tell moving, mythic stories... preferring to spend their money on style, not substance.
Wrong from the start.
Story comes first. Without it you have nothing new to offer... nothing to advertise. Consumers will ignore you. “I have facts,” you say. “My product is the best.” Neither really matters if your story is old, dull, boring, unbelievable or non-existent.
When you tell an authentic, evocative story you’ve captured the essence of intelligent marketing. You entertain, intrigue and remake the relationship between the product and the consumer. Then take advantage of digital technologies, social media platforms, to get your original content into unexpected places, make the idea contagious (an ‘idea virus’ as Seth Godin calls it) and you’re light years ahead of the ‘me-too’ crowd.
Of course, strong images and a good design are vitally important... but you can’t really sell with images alone (there are exceptions); conversely, a good writer can sell a product with just a few paragraphs on a blank sheet of paper.
If you don’t understand this self-evident fact, you have my sympathies (and fast-talking agencies will have spent your money on a beautifully ineffective piece of creative).
Here’s the reality: the days of dictating to consumers are over. The rise of social media, the decline of traditional media’s ROI and an increasingly cynical public (with less money to spend) have radically altered how and why an idea gains traction.
What doesn’t change? The need to stand out... the need to create a new category and dominate it... the need to start with an honest narrative. If you understand the difference between a captivating story and just another silly, intrusive ad... you're chances of success will grow exponentially.
A Success Story and the Need to Be 'Everyman'
The best marketers I know start with an idea, do a minimum of research, trust their instincts and then move ahead… quickly, making necessary changes on the fly.
The idea part is driven by a simple belief that you, the marketer, are just like everyone else. If something appeals to you, it probably appeals to others like you, and that means millions of people. I don’t need to be a woman to understand the desire to look young… so even though I may not use wrinkle cream or would ever try Botox, I came up with the headline “Better than Botox?” for a face cream. We told a simple, believable story about how it worked (we weren’t sure and we said so) and how it was discovered (dumb luck).
Half a billion dollars or more later, the product is still selling. No testing of the ad concept, just a few anecdotal bits of research about the look and feel of the final product. The ad remained essentially the same for six years, and ran unchanged in dozens of countries, even though ‘experts’ in each country would insist that we had to change the ad to fit the market. We refused… and became the #1 skin care cream in France using a literal translation and the exact design of the original ad. (Still, the marketing ‘experts’ at the company that sold the product and made a ton of money won’t admit they were wrong about the need to make the ad ‘French’. I guarantee that if you send them an American-style ad today, they will DEMAND that it has to change to meet the French market. Old, stupid habits die hard!)
Women are women… looking younger is a good thing… the product was the first to hit the market with a then uncommon, but now very common, ingredient. Had we waited to test, we would have risked losing most of the $500 million-plus. And what information could we have gathered that would have changed the ad?
The idea part is driven by a simple belief that you, the marketer, are just like everyone else. If something appeals to you, it probably appeals to others like you, and that means millions of people. I don’t need to be a woman to understand the desire to look young… so even though I may not use wrinkle cream or would ever try Botox, I came up with the headline “Better than Botox?” for a face cream. We told a simple, believable story about how it worked (we weren’t sure and we said so) and how it was discovered (dumb luck).
Half a billion dollars or more later, the product is still selling. No testing of the ad concept, just a few anecdotal bits of research about the look and feel of the final product. The ad remained essentially the same for six years, and ran unchanged in dozens of countries, even though ‘experts’ in each country would insist that we had to change the ad to fit the market. We refused… and became the #1 skin care cream in France using a literal translation and the exact design of the original ad. (Still, the marketing ‘experts’ at the company that sold the product and made a ton of money won’t admit they were wrong about the need to make the ad ‘French’. I guarantee that if you send them an American-style ad today, they will DEMAND that it has to change to meet the French market. Old, stupid habits die hard!)
Women are women… looking younger is a good thing… the product was the first to hit the market with a then uncommon, but now very common, ingredient. Had we waited to test, we would have risked losing most of the $500 million-plus. And what information could we have gathered that would have changed the ad?
The False Promise of Research
In a former life I made a living doing research… at the library and with a 2400-baud modem, pre-Internet. All these years later and somewhat ironically, I am not a big believer in ‘big’ research when it comes to marketing and advertising.
OK, so now I’ve made myself a pariah to a lot of agencies that love consumer research for the money it brings in and the time it takes, which allows agencies to talk and meet about potential strategies without ever implementing a plan.
Once implemented, there’s a chance of failure: the longer you can wait before you place your bet, the longer you can sit at the table and pretend to be a player.
I'm from a direct response background... there's no pretending... trust your instincts, take a stand, move forward, adjust to circumstances... and leave most research to the posers!
OK, so now I’ve made myself a pariah to a lot of agencies that love consumer research for the money it brings in and the time it takes, which allows agencies to talk and meet about potential strategies without ever implementing a plan.
Once implemented, there’s a chance of failure: the longer you can wait before you place your bet, the longer you can sit at the table and pretend to be a player.
I'm from a direct response background... there's no pretending... trust your instincts, take a stand, move forward, adjust to circumstances... and leave most research to the posers!
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