It's all about You

I was writing a headline for a lawn care company a few years ago. It wasn’t exactly award winning but it got straight to the point. As I wrote “XXX repairs your damaged lawn”, I wondered if how long the ‘your’ would last. Sure enough the client came back with “XXX repairs damaged lawns”

In sweep of the red pen we had moved from a conversation between XXX and a person with lawn problems, to an announcement by the mighty XXX corporation about lawns in general, directed to the entire universe. I’m sure the line made the executives at XXX feel more important but I’m equally sure it sold fewer bags of XXX Lawn Repair.

Consumers are people. And people are pretty self-absorbed. People don’t care about ‘lawns’ they care about ‘their lawn’. Sure, they can make the mental jump from a marketers demographic to themselves, but why make them jump at all?

I’ve never met a demographic. I hope I never do. They sound large, crowded and homogeneous. But I’ve met a lot of people. People are interested in their roof, their kids education, their overflowing toilet ....

Even Qantas uses the line ‘It’s all about you.’ It’s perfect for business class travel, which should be all about the customer. Earlier Qantas advertising was much more from the ‘We’ve bought 5 new planes’ school of communication. To which most business class passengers would rightly reply, ‘Who cares?’

Being ‘All about you’ shouldn’t stop at prestige brands or luxury services. I can’t think of any product or service that can’t be better sold by honing in on the individual and solving his or her problem.

Dale Carnegie in his book ‘How to win friends and influence people’, said the sound of a persons name is the sweetest sound of all to them. Advertising can’t refer to people by name, but it can say ‘you’ or ‘your’ and get much closer to people’s hearts. And best of all, most of your competitors (see, I’m doing it now) either don’t know or don’t care that they are speaking to a demographic rather than a person.

What a simple way to make your customers feel better about your brand.

If you have a creative advertising problem call Tony Richardson on (02) 9929 0588 or visit Tony Richardson Advertising or TacticalTV.com.au

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iSnack 2.0 - Fiasco or clever marketing ploy?

Does 'iSnack 2.0' ring a warning bell for marketers, about the pitfalls of consumer engagement?

I think it does, so I wrote a piece exclusively for Crikey.

Pop over there for the full catastrophe.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/10/05/is-isnack-2-0-a-marketing-success/

Not more ideas!

- I recently discovered a firm that will, if supplied with a brief, provide a client with 100 ideas … overnight! They use Twitter to contact hundreds of ‘ideas people’ internationally.

- Creative agencies now provide media ideas as well as creative ideas. Media agencies now provide creative ideas as well as media ideas.

- Large supermarket retailers have in-house creative departments that can provide ideas and advertising for their supplier’s brands, rather than the other way around.

Marketers have more access to ideas than ever before. Everyone now seems to be providing ideas. As a creative person I’ve been raised to believe that the more ideas on the table the better.

But now I’m beginning to wonder.

Take Nandos Chicken. They’ve tried every bizarre idea you can think of. They had a stripping Mother wearing a Nandos Nicotine patch on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxsjhREHH3M&feature=related

They’ve created a radio ‘satire’ of Clare Werbeloff, the Chk Chk Boom girl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ-pt95BNZU&feature=related

They’ve even got into the latest craze of creating a disruptive PR stunt, that disrupted the king of disruptive PR stunts: Sacha Baron Cohen’s, Bruno.

(The raw footage has been removed from YouTube but you can see some of the news coverage at the following link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIUlpkPKGvA

Some are funnier than others - I quite like the stripping Mum spot for some reason. But what story do they tell? What problem do they solve? What brand image do they build? What, as a consumer, am I supposed to think of the brand?

I honestly can’t tell. In Nandos I see dozens of random ideas and not a single brand message.

Possible taglines like, “We’re a little bit different”, “Unexpectedly delicious chicken” or even “We’re not for everyone” would tie the zaniness together. But we don’t get any help at all.

A visit to the website makes you think your dealing with a different brand altogether. It shows a low tech, hand drawn, food focussed, ethnic style brand. Nothing like the TV, radio and PR communication. I’m even more confused now!

http://www.nandos.com.au/

Many other brands are excitedly experimenting with channels, executions and ideas. Which is fantastic … as long as each piece of communication supports and builds on a consistent brand message. The beer people are particularly good at experimentation without losing sight of the message and target consumer.

When consumers are forced to re-evaluate a brand every time they see a new piece of communication, they just don’t bother.

Potential consumers of Nandos know the brand exists, and sells chicken. But they have no idea what it stands for and therefore why they should consider it.

When it comes to brand communication, dozens of random ideas won’t help you, one correct one will.

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Bad Ginger

I once worked with an account exec. Let’s call her Sam (that’s her name after all). On most days Sam would write a long email listing every detail that happened or was going to happen on a particular job. THEN she would add her email to a long chain of long emails she had written earlier. She created a sort of parliamentary hansard. All the information was there.

Sam thought she was doing a fantastic job. She wasn’t. She was transferring information not meaning. She was carpet bombing her audience (me) with words, in the belief that the useful content would stick.

Whenever I received the latest update, I’d phone Sam and ask her to just tell me what she needed. She couldn’t understand why I needed telling. Hadn’t she put it all in the email?

Matt Shervington used to be a runner with Olympic potential. He is most famous for running without wearing underpants … it was very obvious. During the rugby world cup Matt starred in a flat screen TV commercial. I can’t remember the brand name.

I watched quite a few of the games so I saw Matt quite a few times. It wasn’t until about the 10th viewing that I realised Matt was telling me this TV was especially good to watch at night. He’d told me 10 times before but I hadn’t heard him. Well I’d heard him but it didn’t register. Why not? Because he had just said it. It was not illustrated or brought to life in any way. And I still can’t remember the brand name!

Garry Larsen’s ‘Bad Ginger’ cartoon speaks for itself. One of his best!

Sam, Matt and Ginger’s owner committed the error we all make occasionally. They thought that saying something was the same as communicating it. It is not.

How many ads tell us the facts rather than bring them to life? How many ads use the dreaded power point/bullet point method of information dump? Who knows. We probably miss hundreds every day.

Communications must be presented in a way the consumer will absorb, often by using surprising words, visuals or music. OR sometimes by going the other way. Clichés are clichés because they mean the same thing to everyone. The insurance industry uses umbrellas an awful lot because they immediately say ‘protection’. The umbrella is a cliché but it works.

In advertising don’t ask, “ Can it be understood?’ Ask, “Can it NOT be MIS-understood?’

(If I haven’t made any sense, please call and I’ll explain over the phone.)