The Justification Business

Advertising today consists of two very different disciplines: Making ads, and making the justification for ads.

The way ad agencies work (especially the big ones) is that most of the effort is spent making the justification for the ads -- research, planning, brand analysis, meetings, presentations, strategy sessions, briefs, conference calls, downloads, uploads, deep dives, off sites and insights followed by revised research, planning, brand analysis, meetings, presentations, strategy sessions, briefs, conference calls, downloads, uploads, deep dives, off sites and insights.

After months of this stuff, when all the knuckleheads are satisfied that justification has been achieved, as an offshoot of all this activity, sometimes an ad appears somewhere.

Justification has become the business. Ads have become the by-product.

Saving the Earth, One Pair of Pants at a Time

Great news!

Got an email yesterday telling me that "Encompass Outdoor Media provides an earth-friendly alternative within its successful dry cleaning advertising network." Yes, now your ad can appear on biodegradable dry cleaning bags!

Drinks are on me.

(For more on this, see yesterday's post)

Let's Buy Seth A Television

From Seth Godin's blog on Monday:
"...there's plenty of bad economic news floating around. From the price of oil to Wall Street to bailouts to the death of traditional advertising."

The death of traditional advertising? I'm trying to watch a basketball game here and all I'm seeing is 1.9% APR on Ford half-tons.

Would someone please buy Seth a television? Or a radio? Or glasses, so he can see that every square inch of America is covered in advertising? Every dry cleaning bag, every urinal, every bus, and every t-shirt.

Seth's been telling us for years that advertising is dead. And the longer it is not dead the more sure he seems to be that it is.

The problem is not that advertising is dead, the problem is that it's way too alive.

(For more on this this see The End of The World)

Pepsi Drinking The Kool-Aid

Pepsi is going all unconventional and artsy on us.

They're introducing a new beverage called Tava with websites, music downloads, "brand experiences", blah, blah, blah. In other words, the the full pantheon of over-priced, under-performing, traditional "non-traditional" marketing gimmicks.

They'll be giving free samples to employees of Apple, Google and MTV. Dude, how cool is that? But wait, there's more. They'll also be giving it away at the -- are you ready -- Sundance Film Festival! Oh my God! Mega-double-extra-wicked cool!

Pepsi's agencies are making marketing mistake number one. They're marketing to themselves.

Tava will either fail or be on tv next year. You heard it here first.

The Consumer Knows Nothing

There was a time when advertisers weren't afraid to make decisions. They would trust their judgment. They wouldn't be too timid to have an opinion.

Unfortunately, those days are gone. Now, every creative decision is made by "the consumer"-- i.e., research.

This would be fine if there was a reliable research methodology to determine advertising effectiveness. But there isn't. I've been involved in about a million creative decisions made by "the consumer" and you might as well have had my cat make the decision.

I've never worked on the Apple account, but I'll bet you Steve Jobs doesn't let "the consumer" make advertising decisions for him.

As a former science teacher, I have a healthy regard for the difference between facts and bullshit. Consumer research has its value for certain kinds of marketing and strategic issues. When it comes to creative decisions, however, the consumer knows nothing.

Scots On The Rocks

Not long ago, when you arrived at an airport in Scotland, you were greeted by signs and posters announcing that you were visiting “The Best Small Country In The World.”

According to the Times of London "...this was the slogan of Jack McConnell, the previous First Minister, and it was derided by Alex Salmond when he was elected First Minister in May. In the new era of nationalism, the time seemed ripe for inspiring words that might evoke romance and expectation as much as they promised modernity and brisk efficiency."

After spending $250,000 and six months, the new administration recently rolled out its exciting new slogan:

“Welcome to Scotland”

The 5 Eternal, Immutable Laws of Advertising

1. Whoever controls the research wins.
2. When we say it’s an art, they say it’s a business. When we say it’s a business, they say it’s an art.
3. The smaller the account, the larger the committee.
4. The acquirer is always dumber than the acquiree.
5. The worst account person in your agency will someday be your client.

Big, Dumb, Expensive Super Bowl Ads

As advertisers get conned by agency and media hype into believing that their Super Bowl buys are just a promotional platform, they are forgetting something -- if the spots are no good, the rest is irrelevant.

Continuing a dreadful trend, Super Bowl commercials got bigger, more expensive and stupider than ever this year. Production once again trumped concept.

The majority were witless and unoriginal. The tired formulas of talking animals, talking babies, irrelevant celebrities, and frat house tit jokes were trotted out for the LXIInd time. The bad old days of dot-com style advertising seem to be creeping back -- 28 seconds of something incomprehensible followed by a 2 second logo.

A few mentions:

~ GoDaddy, as usual, led the way in idiocy.
~ CareerBuilder got the crap it deserved after firing the agency that made them famous.
~ Bud Light "fire breathing" was funny. "Flying" was not.
~ My favorite spot was for Tide (the talking shirt.) Not only was it funny, it actually made a point.
~ Biggest and dumbest award to Under Armour.

As I write this I realize how few of the spots I just watched I can recall.

Super Bowl Vigilantes

Super Bowl Sunday is a great day for sports, a huge day for advertising, and a lousy day for the First Amendment.

It's the one day of the year that every interest group and every advocacy group has its thought police on duty (see this from USA Today) looking for any ad that might be "offensive" to them. It's the day that advertisers and agencies fold like single-ply toilet paper when some spokesman for some cause issues a press release about their "offensive" spot.

Am I in favor of offending people? No.

But I am in favor of free speech. And the whole idea of the First Amendment is to protect your right and mine to offend whomever the hell we want whenever the hell we want to.

It's a right that is quickly disappearing.

Smelly Volvo Families, Part 2

On September 17, 2007, in Smelly Volvo Families, TAC predicted,

"Volvo is making a classic marketing mistake. They are trying to be someone else.

Instead of positioning themselves as a new, safer, more stylish Volvo they are aiming to be the second best BMW. I'm sure there's some marketing genius/account planner telling them that safety isn't enough and they have to make an "emotional bond" with consumers. In fact, safety is an emotional bond to their customer base and TAC predicts that they will learn this the hard way. They have relinquished their unique reason for being."

On December 24th, Autoblog reported

"Things at Volvo haven't been going well... Anne Belec, CEO of Volvo's North American sales operations, expects another serious decline...The first move will be to pair down Volvo's Stateside dealer network in an effort to match demand with the sales infrastructure.

"...the one thing that seems to be plaguing Volvo is a lack of brand identity. The Automotive News interview with Belec categorizes Volvo as a "luxury brand," something that Ford has been trying to hype in recent years. "Luxury" is a far cry from Volvo's original identity of manufacturing the world's safest vehicles, and with far more competitive offerings coming from Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz, it's no wonder the Volvo is floundering considering its lack of focus on what it does best."

On January 9th, 2008, Autoblog reported

"Volvo has been trying its darnedest to reinvent itself, but the Swedish automaker is finding it can't escape its own image."

Whodathunkit?

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Ads About Ads

One of the dumbest trends of the past year has been ads for ads. You run a "blind" ad (it gives no information about your product or brand) in the hope it will lead people to a website where you will deliver the message.

In other words, you use your ad budget hoping someone will get the message somewhere else. Here's why it's such a stupid idea:

1. First of all, while you have their attention why not deliver the message? Why ask them to take a second step?

2. How many of the people that you reach with your ad are going to go to the website? If you're lucky, 1%. So you're wasting 99% of your money by not delivering a message while you can.

3. Finally, most ads are more powerful than websites. Websites are typically lame, boring, and confusing. By sending them to a website, you're trading down.

Using a blind tv campaign to direct people to your website is like trading dollars for pennies.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Murder Most Productive

In Death by Branding TAC asserted that Southwest Airlines was on the way to ruining their brand with "branding."

What makes their campaign so awful is that they're trying to convince business travelers that flying Southwest will make us more productive. Right. That's the big airline issue for me. Not price. Not schedule. Not comfort. Not reliability.

"Bob, what airline you wanna take?"
"I don't know. Which one makes me more productive?"

It's such a moronic strategy, it can only have come from an account planner.

As a service to the marketing department at SWA, thought I'd give them one traveler's list of the top 10 things I consider when choosing an airline:

1. Hope I don't die.
2. Hope I get an upgrade.
3. Hope the toilet ain't too stinky.
4. Hope I don't sit next to a talker.
5. Hope it leaves on time.
6. Hope I don't sit next to a laptop maniac.
7. Hope I don't sit next to a smelly fatty.
8. Hope I don't sit next to a smelly fatty laptop maniac talker.
9. Hope I don't die.
10. Hope I don't die.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Death By Branding

Southwest Airlines better be careful. They have been a great example of how the best way to build a brand is with product advertising. They are now on the road to proving how the best way to kill a brand is with "branding."

Here we have an airline that offers the worst flying experience in the nation. But they haven't wasted their money trying to make us love them. Instead, they have wisely spent their money getting us to fly them.

They have given us specific, concrete reasons to fly with them: lower fares, more flights, more convenient destinations. As a result, they have actually built a meaningful brand—a brand that stands for something concrete and discernible—while United and American, et al, with all their "brand" advertising, stand for nothing.

But lately Southwest's advertising has the smell of "branding" all over it. They are trying to change our attitudes about them. Good luck. Here's a tip for the head marketing honcho: No one gives a shit which airline they fly. They fly the one with the best price at the best time. End of story.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Customer Service? Don't Mention It

When have you ever seen a Nordstrom ad that mentioned customer service? How about Tiffany? The answer is never.

You never hear great service companies flogging their service in advertising. It's only the terrible service companies -- the electronics stores, the banks, the software makers -- who talk about their wonderful customer service.

Companies whose advertising strategy centers on "great customer service" are wasting their money. Consumers already know who has good service and who doesn't. Their experience is far more powerful than any ad.

Exceptional customer service is a great business strategy -- and a terrible ad strategy. If you have to talk about it, we assume you can't deliver it.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

End of the World, Revisited

On August 1 of last year we wrote a post called "The End of the World." The subject was media hysteria, particularly as it relates to the advertising business, but also as it relates to the reporting of other trends, such as disease and climate

For a nice follow-up, I recommend reading "In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm" from The New York Times yesterday.

Oh, and Happy New Year

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

It's Still Simplicity, Stupid

Have you tried to set the alarm clock in a hotel room lately? Have you tried to read a cell phone operating manual? Have you attempted to use the GPS navigation system on a rental car? Well, the same exasperating complexity that has infecting technology is creeping into marketing.

More than ever, the key to advertising success is a simple message.

Marketers have way too many messages and way too many options for delivering them. They are spreading their media dollars too thin and are not delivering consistent simple messages.

Thankfully, the people who understand that messages need to be simple also understand that technology needs to be simple. I no longer bother trying to set a hotel alarm clock. I set the alarm on my iPhone.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Ritz Bits

People over 50 control 77% of the financial assets of this country and are the target for 10% of all advertising. The prejudice against older customers is so strong and so pervasive that even smart companies can't see beyond it (see Aiming Low.)

A few years ago, Saks Fifth Avenue decided their customers were too old. They embarked on a plan to attract younger, hipper customers. After two disastrous years, they came to their senses, fired their ceo, and got back to business.

Now Ritz-Carlton is taking the first steps toward the same dumb strategy. According to The Wall Street Journal, they are producing three long-form films that are aimed at repositioning them as "young and hip".

Here's what's wrong with this strategy:

1. Ritz is not young and hip. Why do they want to pretend to be something they are not?

2. There are plenty of young and hip hotels in every major city in America. Another y&h hotel is exactly what high end travelers don't need.

3. Remaining contemporary is important. It should be done with re-designs, re-furnishings, and new services. Ritz should take a look at some of the newer Four Seasons and Peninsula Hotels. They can get rid of the "fox and hounds" look without making a big "repositioning" fuss.

You can bet Ritz is doing this because they did some research that showed younger customers think they're stuffy. So what? I can tell you that as a heavy user of Ritz hotels, I stay with them precisely because I don't have to sit at the bar next to the leather pants, hat-on-backwards crowd.

You can also bet there a lot of 30-somethings at their agency telling them they need to get younger. It's impossible for these people to understand that they are not the world's only target audience.

The good news for Ritz? It sounds like these movies are only going to be accessible on their website, so no one will see them anyway.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Readers Ignore Banners

TAC has been saying for some time that banner ads are a very weak form of advertising -- far weaker than most traditional advertising.

If you're a typical web user, you've probably been exposed to dozens of banner ads today. Can you remember noticing even one? We all trained ourselves years ago to ignore banner ads on websites.

There are statistics that show that click through rates on banners are remarkably low (see Legends of Interactivity, Part 2.) Now there is apparently research showing that viewing of banners is tiny.

From virtualhosting.com comes this: "Ads may be the bread and butter of your site, but studies have shown that readers largely ignore banner ads..."

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

More Marketing Morons

According to Ad Age, Pontiac is shifting its advertising efforts toward media that appeal to younger audiences such as video game tie-ins, Web ads and spots on sports channels and late-night shows.

The logic of this is perfectly idiotic and, as such, perfectly in line with the brainless reflexes of so many marketers. (See Aiming Low) A few facts:

1. The average Pontiac buyer is over 50.
2. Baby Boomers and older comprise as much as 80% of the market for new cars.
3. Of the 13 cars the average American will buy in a lifetime, 8 will be bought after they're 50 years old.
4. Even if they want a Pontiac (which they don't and never will) young people can't afford new cars, and no lender in their right mind will finance them.

By the way, Pontiac sales are down over 14% this year. Hard to figure, isn't it?

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Not Dead Yet

From the usually sensible Bob Garfield speculating in Advertising Age, March 26, 2007, about the future of advertising: “It's a world ... in which ad agencies are marginalized ... in which marketing -- and even branding -- are conducted without much reliance on the 30-second spot ... Because nobody is much interested in seeing them, and because soon they will be largely unnecessary.” Yeah, right.

Meantime according to The Wall Street Journal this year there is more demand for Super Bowl spots than anytime since 1999, the height of dotcom insanity.

All this hyperventilating over digital media really needs to calm down. People still spend half their media time with good old television and the click through rate on banner ads is still under .002 -- in other words, zilch.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN