Big Idea
Merv Rey is visiting from Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners tomorrow, so I’ve been thinking about the work they’ve done for clients like HP and Saturn. What an excellent example of how we’re returning to the basic tenets of advertising and brand stewardship—back to Lois’s Big Idea, the belief that consumers are real human beings who are smart and should not be talked down to, and that advertising must connect with them as individuals—find out their likes and dislikes, discover what they really need, and communicate in a genuinely warm and friendly way. This IS what branding is all about. For the past thirty years, until just recently, we’ve gotten far away from the tried and true. We have to get back to it—but in a new way. And we are: The stronghold the commissioned media based model has had on us has been broken. And thank God, because, while it made a lot of money, it was never good for the industry. This return to the Big Idea is a great opportunity for creatives. It’s a call to have fun again, for now we must be truly innovative. We can revel in the challenge of creating advertising that is less intrusive and more participatory.
More food for thought (6 years old, but still relevant):
http://www.cluetrain.com/#manifesto
Hank,
What’s your reaction to #74 (of the Cluetrain Manifesto)?:
I think Merv would probably disagree, eh?
Matt, I’m curious to know how YOU feel about #74. Speaking strictly as a consumer—and as the mother of four consumers ranging in age from 5 to 18, I’d say no way we’re immune to advertising. Smart product placement, branding, etc. (and lack of parents’ setting limits on television, apparently) works so well that, while we were riding down the street recently, my pre-schooler pointed at a car and yelled excitedly, “American Idol!” (It was a Ford). My sixteen-year-old girl just HAD to have one of Venus’s new vibrating razors (hmmm) she’d seen advertised, and I myself was so tickled by that f’d-up Emerald Nuts commercial with the unicorn and Easter Bunny that I had to go straight to Publix (Yes, Publix! I’m sold) and buy the product as a way of congratulating both product and creatives.
I loved the manifesto. It was provocative and true. As for number 74, though: Perhaps the point is that because we’re so bombarded by advertising (and the media, in general), it has to be fresh to catch our attention. And it does indeed have to speak to us as individuals—in our own language—over the roar.
The vibrating razor is pure genius. Ahh, Venus, the goddess of love.