Sometimes I forget UKIP is a real life political party filled and backed by real life humans (for a while I thought they must have been some improv. satire group).
But they're actually fucking real. Real real.
Rather than despair, laugh at the bunch mouth-breathers with this clip of Stewart Lee.
Advertising With A Point
I'm writing about another campaign out there that I like today. Two in row, this feels weird, I hope I'm not going soft.
Anyway, its the new campaign for Jigsaw by The Corner. We see hundreds of ads for clothes with pictures of attractive people wearing the clothes. That's okay. Generally the fashion business understands its customer and business very well when it comes to advertising, and agencies tend to confuse things when they get involved.
Quite often, you can see that they tried to put in an idea of some kind, but often the idea isn't a good fit (irony, that) and you can see a struggle between product and idea in the work itself.
But I rate this work because there's a thought and a point at the centre of it – and that thought starts where it should: with the product and what it means to me as a (potential) customer. So these ads, whilst they do show me the clothes, and nice-looking people wearing the clothes (I don't have a problem with that) they attempt to engage my mind.
They treat me as an intelligent being, not a moron. They say to me, yes these clothes might cost more than Primark or New Look or Top Shop, but they're made to last. I appreciate this effort to communicate to me with intelligence, it makes me think better of them as a company, it reminds me that they make good quality clothes, and it justifies the price premium (a very valuable job that often goes unsaid in advertising).
The craft is good, too. It could have been over-written, but it isn't, it's pithy. The art direction is strong – the simplicity and the bold colours are strong and distinctive. And I do like that they have used the images of landfill – I can imagine that much debate was had over that. Over on the Creative Review blog where this was featured, a few commenters said they didn't like those images being in there, but I think they help. Normally you might argue that you don't have to show what you say, or vice versa. But with a point like this I think that image helps to make you think about the disposability of cheap clothes.
Our point of view here at Sell! Towers is that the most successful advertising tends to have the product or service at its centre, and provide some reason why the customer would benefit from buying it – this does that. But also, that successful advertising needs to surprise, provoke or entertain in order to be noticed and remembered. By engaging the customer's brain, this advertising does that too.
As advertising generally becomes more facile and moronic (and as a result, increasingly insulting to the intelligence) it's good to see some work that bothers to communicate something of substance.
So well done all round to team and client. Hats off to you from us.
Anyway, its the new campaign for Jigsaw by The Corner. We see hundreds of ads for clothes with pictures of attractive people wearing the clothes. That's okay. Generally the fashion business understands its customer and business very well when it comes to advertising, and agencies tend to confuse things when they get involved.
Quite often, you can see that they tried to put in an idea of some kind, but often the idea isn't a good fit (irony, that) and you can see a struggle between product and idea in the work itself.
But I rate this work because there's a thought and a point at the centre of it – and that thought starts where it should: with the product and what it means to me as a (potential) customer. So these ads, whilst they do show me the clothes, and nice-looking people wearing the clothes (I don't have a problem with that) they attempt to engage my mind.
They treat me as an intelligent being, not a moron. They say to me, yes these clothes might cost more than Primark or New Look or Top Shop, but they're made to last. I appreciate this effort to communicate to me with intelligence, it makes me think better of them as a company, it reminds me that they make good quality clothes, and it justifies the price premium (a very valuable job that often goes unsaid in advertising).
The craft is good, too. It could have been over-written, but it isn't, it's pithy. The art direction is strong – the simplicity and the bold colours are strong and distinctive. And I do like that they have used the images of landfill – I can imagine that much debate was had over that. Over on the Creative Review blog where this was featured, a few commenters said they didn't like those images being in there, but I think they help. Normally you might argue that you don't have to show what you say, or vice versa. But with a point like this I think that image helps to make you think about the disposability of cheap clothes.
Our point of view here at Sell! Towers is that the most successful advertising tends to have the product or service at its centre, and provide some reason why the customer would benefit from buying it – this does that. But also, that successful advertising needs to surprise, provoke or entertain in order to be noticed and remembered. By engaging the customer's brain, this advertising does that too.
As advertising generally becomes more facile and moronic (and as a result, increasingly insulting to the intelligence) it's good to see some work that bothers to communicate something of substance.
So well done all round to team and client. Hats off to you from us.
Show Don't Tell And The Desert Of Crap – Shot On iPhone 6
I've been meaning to post up about this campaign for a little while, since a couple of us came into the office one morning and simultaneously said "Have you seen that new shot on iPhone campaign?"
That's what I like most about this work. The images are great, and the simplicity is excellent – it's increasingly rare to see simplicity (that is intelligent simplicity, not lowest-common-denominator dumbness) in advertising.
But the best thing about it, is that the first thing you think is wow, that was taken on the new iPhone camera? And that, ladies and gents, is what good advertising should largely be doing – making you think that the product is really good in some way that might be of use to you.
It seems silly to have to point that out, but increasingly it seems that many people in advertising think that the job of advertising is to make the advertising famous. I disagree with those people.
There used to be a useful phrase in advertising: show don't tell. And this work does that. Where other phone-makers will crap-on about megapixels or stability controls or some other crap, Apple and MAL continue their legacy of strong, simple, product-based ads by showing us a demonstration of the benefit: a great photo.
It's simple, and it works. And these posters are nice to look at, too. This last point is important.
Back in the sixties, Howard Gossage railed against the use of outdoor advertising as a blight on society. He argued that with all other media; radio TV, print, etc. you opt into it - you pick up a magazine or newspaper, or turn on the TV or radio fully in the knowledge that there will be ads, and that those ads are largely paying for the other content that you're there to enjoy. It's a choice, a transaction. And those ads are discreet by the nature of their media. But, he argued, when it comes to outdoor – it's different – those ads are forced upon us in our own environments, we don't get to choose whether we get to see them or not.
And you know, I have some sympathy for that point of view. Not completely – I don't think that outdoor should be banned, as Gossage did. But I do think there is a responsibility when using outdoor not to despoil our environment with poorly designed, poorly photographed, shouty, ugly or stupid posters. These things are twenty feet wide and bigger for God's sake. We have a responsibility to make our work add to the world around us, not abuse it.
We live in a time when advertising is completely disappearing up its own arse. Becoming more stupid, more inane, more ugly, less of interest or of use to the customer and more selfish and self-centred. This work is a rare oasis of good in that interminable desert of crap.
One final point is just to acknowledge Apple's continuing success at using so-called traditional media to effectively advertise innovative, technological products. No interactive gizmos or fashionable faddy, latest-thing gimmicks. Just simple, relevant thoughts, based on the product, relevant to the customer, simply put and well crafted, with great media placement. If only more clients and agencies had the confidence (or talent?) to do this. Maybe they would have built the most valuable brand in the world?
Here's a couple of examples...
That's what I like most about this work. The images are great, and the simplicity is excellent – it's increasingly rare to see simplicity (that is intelligent simplicity, not lowest-common-denominator dumbness) in advertising.
But the best thing about it, is that the first thing you think is wow, that was taken on the new iPhone camera? And that, ladies and gents, is what good advertising should largely be doing – making you think that the product is really good in some way that might be of use to you.
It seems silly to have to point that out, but increasingly it seems that many people in advertising think that the job of advertising is to make the advertising famous. I disagree with those people.
There used to be a useful phrase in advertising: show don't tell. And this work does that. Where other phone-makers will crap-on about megapixels or stability controls or some other crap, Apple and MAL continue their legacy of strong, simple, product-based ads by showing us a demonstration of the benefit: a great photo.
It's simple, and it works. And these posters are nice to look at, too. This last point is important.
Back in the sixties, Howard Gossage railed against the use of outdoor advertising as a blight on society. He argued that with all other media; radio TV, print, etc. you opt into it - you pick up a magazine or newspaper, or turn on the TV or radio fully in the knowledge that there will be ads, and that those ads are largely paying for the other content that you're there to enjoy. It's a choice, a transaction. And those ads are discreet by the nature of their media. But, he argued, when it comes to outdoor – it's different – those ads are forced upon us in our own environments, we don't get to choose whether we get to see them or not.
And you know, I have some sympathy for that point of view. Not completely – I don't think that outdoor should be banned, as Gossage did. But I do think there is a responsibility when using outdoor not to despoil our environment with poorly designed, poorly photographed, shouty, ugly or stupid posters. These things are twenty feet wide and bigger for God's sake. We have a responsibility to make our work add to the world around us, not abuse it.
We live in a time when advertising is completely disappearing up its own arse. Becoming more stupid, more inane, more ugly, less of interest or of use to the customer and more selfish and self-centred. This work is a rare oasis of good in that interminable desert of crap.
One final point is just to acknowledge Apple's continuing success at using so-called traditional media to effectively advertise innovative, technological products. No interactive gizmos or fashionable faddy, latest-thing gimmicks. Just simple, relevant thoughts, based on the product, relevant to the customer, simply put and well crafted, with great media placement. If only more clients and agencies had the confidence (or talent?) to do this. Maybe they would have built the most valuable brand in the world?
Here's a couple of examples...
"Remember Those Great Books About Those Great Volkswagen Ads?"
At the weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Alfredo Marcantonio and John O'Driscoll, two of the authors (along with the late, great David Abbott) of the seminal book about the seminal VW ads (that's a two-seminal sentence). And very nice gentlemen they are too, not least because it turns out that they regularly read this blog (hello gents!). They have released an updated edition of the book, with new material and improved images of some of the ads. Well worth getting even if you're lucky enough to already have a copy of the original...
Read it again and ask yourself the difficult question: Is advertising going backwards?
Read it again and ask yourself the difficult question: Is advertising going backwards?
Advertising Is Losing Maverick Thinking - What's The Solution?
It's a well discussed topic that the advertising business is suffering from a lack of the maverick and challenging thinking that has traditionally given it it's edge.
You need the mavericks - they're the ones who ask the difficult questions, and who won't accept the lazy or easy answer.
"All progress depends on the unreasonable man" as George Bernard Shaw said.
You can point to a number of reasons why this might the case.
Within agencies, things like agencies increasing in size meaning they have become more like huge corporate structures, or the pressure of holding companies leading to a 'play-it-safe' mentality.
And bigger, societal factors like the economic pressures and a less buoyant jobs market meaning people are scared to risk their jobs or their income. But being outspoken and maverick in ad agencies used to be a positive quality. Why is it now seen as a bad thing? Why do people now feel at risk if they poke their head above the parapet and question the status quo?
Certainly most mainstream agencies are largely led these days by the boring wankers who greased their way up the pole without upsetting anyone over the last ten or fifteen years. And sometimes it's self-perpetuating – mavericks like and hire other mavericks – these civil-service types hire and promote other grey, smiley yes-men.
But advertising is a worse business for it. And the value to businesses is diminished as a result. Ad agencies used to be a kind of way of gently cradling the creative mavericks needed to get something great – businesses could access that thinking from people who they would never employ directly.
But now agency people are largely hard to distinguish from people in other businesses.
How does the ad agency break out of this cycle?
I'd love to hear your thoughts, dear readers.
My suggestion is the same for a lot of these problems: the good people should start their own agencies.
You need the mavericks - they're the ones who ask the difficult questions, and who won't accept the lazy or easy answer.
"All progress depends on the unreasonable man" as George Bernard Shaw said.
You can point to a number of reasons why this might the case.
Within agencies, things like agencies increasing in size meaning they have become more like huge corporate structures, or the pressure of holding companies leading to a 'play-it-safe' mentality.
And bigger, societal factors like the economic pressures and a less buoyant jobs market meaning people are scared to risk their jobs or their income. But being outspoken and maverick in ad agencies used to be a positive quality. Why is it now seen as a bad thing? Why do people now feel at risk if they poke their head above the parapet and question the status quo?
Certainly most mainstream agencies are largely led these days by the boring wankers who greased their way up the pole without upsetting anyone over the last ten or fifteen years. And sometimes it's self-perpetuating – mavericks like and hire other mavericks – these civil-service types hire and promote other grey, smiley yes-men.
But advertising is a worse business for it. And the value to businesses is diminished as a result. Ad agencies used to be a kind of way of gently cradling the creative mavericks needed to get something great – businesses could access that thinking from people who they would never employ directly.
But now agency people are largely hard to distinguish from people in other businesses.
How does the ad agency break out of this cycle?
I'd love to hear your thoughts, dear readers.
My suggestion is the same for a lot of these problems: the good people should start their own agencies.
Building Real Brands: The Difference Between Building A House, And Painting A Picture Of A House.
The latest in our best of the blog series...
Much of advertising and marketing has developed into the study of brands. But are marketers and advertising people over-obsessing about brands?
That's possibly a controversial statement I realise, the kind of statement that is often met with You just don't get it or pitying shakes of the head. Because obsession with brand is the 21st century advertising and marketing business.
But whilst I totally agree that a 'strong brand' - a brand with positive associations and that people trust or believe in - is important, I'm not so sure I agree with the current thinking of how they are built.
Marketing and advertising people, and 'brand consultants' increasingly measure things like the above; trust, positive associations, etc. - the kinds of things that cumulatively tend to be known as 'brand saliency'. That might be a useful barometer of where the brand is at, but it's only one half of the story.
People outside of marketing departments in client companies understandably get twitchy when those things become the sole measure of marketing or advertising success. After all, they're used to measuring things like growth, profit margin, market share and 'gasp' - sales.
The trouble is, when people become over-obsessed with the measures of brand saliency and related soft measures, these are then often subsequently taken to be the 'end game' - brand saliency becomes the ultimate aim, rather than a useful barometer. Brand saliency becomes what people call a 'false proxy' - something we can measure, but that in itself isn't actually success.
What do I mean by that? Well, good advertising and marketing people are well aware that strong brand saliency and business success tend to go hand-in-hand. There is a strong correlation between brands with a strong image and positive associations, and brands that are commercially successful and strong in their category.
The big mistake being made by marketing, advertising and branding professionals is in the blanket assumption that the brand saliency was the cause of the business success, and not simply a correlation.
That is to say - doing well the things that build commercial success, also tends to build alongside it a strong brand. While there are exceptions to this line of thinking on both sides (brands with strong saliency that go out of business, and brands with poor saliency that are commercially successful) in the era of the cult of brand, the assumption and belief from marketing, advertising and branding professionals is that this purely happens one-way - that strong brand saliency causes commercial success. But I'm not so sure it always happens that way around.
So what happens next in their line of thinking is, these people have decided that to build a commercially strong brand, you need to use your advertising to build saliency. And if you want good saliency measures as results, you put in stimulus designed to increase them. So the obsession becomes with 'brand' and its attributes, personality, emotions, trust - the soft measures.
Today, most branding experts and advertising experts alike will tell you that your marketing and advertising budget should be spent building these things. But in effect they are often just 'gaming' the system of measurement ("Yay, look our saliency is great!"). Not actually brand building.
Unfortunately this a very 21st century type of problem. Much like a lot of current popular culture, it's all about facade and light on the substance. But whilst it's fine for a modern pop star or slebriddy to have a fleeting, mayfly-like moment in the sun, we expect the money we spend on building a brand to have a lasting, commercial effect.
Just like vacuous celebrities, building a brand 'outside-in', image first, isn't very robust. And just like celebrities, those with some actual substance and robust foundations (in the case of celebrities, read 'talent') at their heart will outlast and endure.
The 21st century approach to brand building is like the wannabe pop star who, noting that Tina Turner wears high heels and a sparkly dress, spends all their time at the mall, working on their outfit.
In this industry we spend a vast amount of time studying successful brands. When you look at the strongest and most enduring brands, it's clear that most have what we would consider to be strong brand saliency.
But what is often dangerously overlooked in this era of the cult-of-brand, is that their success has often been built over time by people buying, and continuing to buy – and use, and be satisfied with, that brand's product or service.
And that, in turn, that good saliency we can observe and measure in those successful brands, has been generated by that continued purchase, use of, and satisfaction with, those brands' products and services.
Those are very robust foundations. And often, when we observe the saliency of these brands, we don't realise that that saliency wasn't created by the things we now call 'brand building', it was built by promising and delivering something of substance.
It's easy to overlook the fact that often the marketing and advertising that built those strong brands was used to communicate why people would benefit from the product or service of that brand, and reminding them to use it.
To (badly) paraphrase Bob Hoffman, people grow to 'love' those brands because they buy those brands' products (and are satisfied with them), they don't buy their products because they love the brand.
So when you take a step back, we might ask ourselves if where marketing and advertising people are going wrong, is that they have the causes and effects mixed up.
That in a world where all categories and products are different, where reasons and impetus for buying are different - complex combinations of rational and emotional reasons - that the blanket assumption that the best way to build strong brands, is by using the advertising for brand-building - attitude pieces, rebrands and emotional, please-like-us brand-led advertising, is possibly a little naive. And maybe, an extremely bad use of a lot of valuable budgets.
That, in effect, it's like the difference between building a house out of bricks, mortar, wood and nails – or painting a picture of a house.
In advertising agencies of the 21st century, people seem to be spending an awful lot of money painting pictures.
Maybe those advertising budgets should be used to actually build instead?
First published 29.01.2014
Much of advertising and marketing has developed into the study of brands. But are marketers and advertising people over-obsessing about brands?
That's possibly a controversial statement I realise, the kind of statement that is often met with You just don't get it or pitying shakes of the head. Because obsession with brand is the 21st century advertising and marketing business.
But whilst I totally agree that a 'strong brand' - a brand with positive associations and that people trust or believe in - is important, I'm not so sure I agree with the current thinking of how they are built.
Marketing and advertising people, and 'brand consultants' increasingly measure things like the above; trust, positive associations, etc. - the kinds of things that cumulatively tend to be known as 'brand saliency'. That might be a useful barometer of where the brand is at, but it's only one half of the story.
People outside of marketing departments in client companies understandably get twitchy when those things become the sole measure of marketing or advertising success. After all, they're used to measuring things like growth, profit margin, market share and 'gasp' - sales.
The trouble is, when people become over-obsessed with the measures of brand saliency and related soft measures, these are then often subsequently taken to be the 'end game' - brand saliency becomes the ultimate aim, rather than a useful barometer. Brand saliency becomes what people call a 'false proxy' - something we can measure, but that in itself isn't actually success.
What do I mean by that? Well, good advertising and marketing people are well aware that strong brand saliency and business success tend to go hand-in-hand. There is a strong correlation between brands with a strong image and positive associations, and brands that are commercially successful and strong in their category.
The big mistake being made by marketing, advertising and branding professionals is in the blanket assumption that the brand saliency was the cause of the business success, and not simply a correlation.
That is to say - doing well the things that build commercial success, also tends to build alongside it a strong brand. While there are exceptions to this line of thinking on both sides (brands with strong saliency that go out of business, and brands with poor saliency that are commercially successful) in the era of the cult of brand, the assumption and belief from marketing, advertising and branding professionals is that this purely happens one-way - that strong brand saliency causes commercial success. But I'm not so sure it always happens that way around.
So what happens next in their line of thinking is, these people have decided that to build a commercially strong brand, you need to use your advertising to build saliency. And if you want good saliency measures as results, you put in stimulus designed to increase them. So the obsession becomes with 'brand' and its attributes, personality, emotions, trust - the soft measures.
Today, most branding experts and advertising experts alike will tell you that your marketing and advertising budget should be spent building these things. But in effect they are often just 'gaming' the system of measurement ("Yay, look our saliency is great!"). Not actually brand building.
Unfortunately this a very 21st century type of problem. Much like a lot of current popular culture, it's all about facade and light on the substance. But whilst it's fine for a modern pop star or slebriddy to have a fleeting, mayfly-like moment in the sun, we expect the money we spend on building a brand to have a lasting, commercial effect.
Just like vacuous celebrities, building a brand 'outside-in', image first, isn't very robust. And just like celebrities, those with some actual substance and robust foundations (in the case of celebrities, read 'talent') at their heart will outlast and endure.
The 21st century approach to brand building is like the wannabe pop star who, noting that Tina Turner wears high heels and a sparkly dress, spends all their time at the mall, working on their outfit.
In this industry we spend a vast amount of time studying successful brands. When you look at the strongest and most enduring brands, it's clear that most have what we would consider to be strong brand saliency.
But what is often dangerously overlooked in this era of the cult-of-brand, is that their success has often been built over time by people buying, and continuing to buy – and use, and be satisfied with, that brand's product or service.
And that, in turn, that good saliency we can observe and measure in those successful brands, has been generated by that continued purchase, use of, and satisfaction with, those brands' products and services.
Those are very robust foundations. And often, when we observe the saliency of these brands, we don't realise that that saliency wasn't created by the things we now call 'brand building', it was built by promising and delivering something of substance.
It's easy to overlook the fact that often the marketing and advertising that built those strong brands was used to communicate why people would benefit from the product or service of that brand, and reminding them to use it.
To (badly) paraphrase Bob Hoffman, people grow to 'love' those brands because they buy those brands' products (and are satisfied with them), they don't buy their products because they love the brand.
So when you take a step back, we might ask ourselves if where marketing and advertising people are going wrong, is that they have the causes and effects mixed up.
That in a world where all categories and products are different, where reasons and impetus for buying are different - complex combinations of rational and emotional reasons - that the blanket assumption that the best way to build strong brands, is by using the advertising for brand-building - attitude pieces, rebrands and emotional, please-like-us brand-led advertising, is possibly a little naive. And maybe, an extremely bad use of a lot of valuable budgets.
That, in effect, it's like the difference between building a house out of bricks, mortar, wood and nails – or painting a picture of a house.
In advertising agencies of the 21st century, people seem to be spending an awful lot of money painting pictures.
Maybe those advertising budgets should be used to actually build instead?
First published 29.01.2014
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