bill bernbach said

I'm a creature of advertising legends. My background is in non-profit marketing, so I live vicariously through the books and wisdom of the titans who came before me (and following people currently in the business via Twitter). I recently ran across DDB's publication of "Bill Bernbach Said," a spiral-bound compendium of quotes from the man who pioneered artistry in advertising.

It's fantastic.

It doesn't matter if you're starting in the industry, or have a few decades under your belt -- there is still much to learn from the godfathers of advertising.

I really encourage picking it up.

ahab

I wasn't always a Venables Bell & Partners fanboy. I thought their Audi "Green Police" commercial was wonderfully entertaining, but did little to move Audi's brand forward. I felt the "environmentally friendly" angle probably one of the more minor points that drive people to buy an Audi.

But, Venables responded with a new positioning strategy, couching Audi as the "new" face of German luxury cars.

Holy crap. I stood up and cheered. And, to drive this new position, Venables released a remarkably brilliant campaign that was not only entertaining, but on-point with the brand strategy.

See my take on it here.

I recently ran across one of their ads they did for Audi called "Ahab." Again, it's hysterical, but the sell isn't lost in the comedy. It's a fantastic example of how to make an entertaining ad without placing humor above the brand. (see it at the bottom of this post)

As a side note, Venables recently created a brand strategy company called vpborange. I encourage you to check them out, if only to see a great site using parallax scrolling. And, as a personal side note, I would kill an unicorn to work for them. Yeah, that's right...a unicorn.

deutsch/la bringing the magic

I watched an entire pre-roll ad on YouTube for the first time the other night. It was the "Cubs Win" spot by Deutsch/LA. It features the euphoric scene in the city of Chicago upon the Chicago Cubs finally pulling off a World Series win. And, by the end of the narrative, you're shown that it is actually just a simulation on MLB 12.

I haven't been blown away by an ad like this in a long time. It was...remarkable.

I think it's rare that a commercial can truly encapsulate the emotion of a sacred event, especially one that's as light-hearted (notice the absence of abused puppies, or starving kids) as this. Yet, you're immediately pulled into the narrative. It may be a little inside-baseball (oh look, a pun) for people who may not be aware of Chicago's complete inability to survive in the post season, but that's not really the audience MLB 12 is targeting anyways.

So, bravo, Deutsch. Amazing work.

call for reinforcements

A recent post at Nex Level Advisors, LLC has a headline that reads, “It’s important that you do everything possible to establish and reinforce a positive brand.” The article goes on to list several good suggestions for brands, such as basic (but, often forgotten) fundamentals like positioning and consistency. However, the headline itself drives home an important concept for brands: reinforcement.
 
The vast availability of knowledge now available at the fingertips of any one on the Internet has made for incredibly intelligent consumers. This has completely changed the game for branding, as not only are consumers demanding more from brands, but brands are also held to a higher standard.
 
Delivering a wanted product is no longer enough. Not only must brands deliver on their promised value, but they must also do it in satisfactory ways, and provide excellent customer service in the process. Oh, and brands should seek to create an exceptional “brand experience” for their consumers. A flat model for branding doesn't work when consumers expect brands to be three-dimensional. 
 
This wealth of information in today’s consumer environment means brands are no longer shaped by the messaging of their 30-second ad spots, or an endcap display at a grocery store. Brands are now defined by every thing they do — from production, to the actual product, to delivery, to answering the phones on the help line.
 
This is why brands should always “call for reinforcements” when taking an analysis of their branding strategy. Is there some process, or facet, of your organization that doesn’t enhance or help define the brand? More importantly, is there anything that underminesthe brand?
 
Chipotle’s emphasis on “food with integrity” digs out a brand position that their food is ethical to eat. You better believe they are constantly monitoring the sources of their food. With the speed at which information travels, a single chink in their armor — say, a source for their chickens that keeps them frozen in microscopic crates — could end up on a YouTube video exposing this hypocrisy, which would create a PR nightmare for Chipotle.
 
This situation is a bit more extreme, but the general principle of reinforcements for any brand is ensuring the branding signals all are aligned to promote, enhance, and reinforce your brand strategy.

four elements of an effective super bowl ad

According a National Retail Federation study conducted by BIGinsight, 73% of viewers of the Super Bowl see commercials as entertainment. This sets a high standard for advertisers for not only capturing the attention of viewers distracted at parties, or looking down from the television to check Facebook on their phone. It also requires that they keep consumers entertained.
 
However, this demand to create a commercial that can both capture attention and entertain sometimes causes creative teams to overlook the primary purpose of any advertisement: selling the brand. If consumers aren’t more motivated to support a brand after a commercial, then advertisers dropped $3.5 million to get a chuckle out of consumers. Or, if things get “overly creative,” they spent a significant chunk of change to either confuse or bore them. And, in the worst-case scenario, which occurred with Groupon in last year’s Super Bowl, the ad just pisses people off.
 
It’s a huge gamble. For many companies, a Super Bowl ad-buy is most (or, all) of the marketing budget for the entire year. If the ad bombs, or fails to drive the brand, all is lost.
 
“An ad can be funny, cute, viral, likeable, watchable, etc.,” writes Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix, in a recent editorial at AdAge about the gamble of Super Bowl advertising. “But if a consumer doesn't get anything out of it but a laugh, it's just not effective.” Daboll says Internet companies are particularly prone to Super Bowl failures, since their products are outside the norm, and their ads do little more than simply announce their presence to the world. On past Internet ads, Daboll says: “Not only did these companies spend millions on Super Bowl media, they also wasted significant dollars on hiring celebrities that did nothing to move their message or their brand forward.”
 
It’s easy to get a laugh. It’s much harder to get a laugh and then sell a product. And, even if an ad gets millions of YouTube hits, or is voted the viewers’ favorite, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was a “good ad” in what could be considered effective advertising. In the words of advertising legend Rosser Reeves: "Somebody, some day, is going to put advertising awards on the proper basis. And that basis is, does it work?"
 
Volkswagen had one of the most popular commercials last year. Yet, how many consumers remember the little Darth Vader compared to how many remember what that Volkswagen car looks like, or what model it was?
 
This year, I’ve decided to create an advertising matrix that puts Super Bowl commercials to the test. There are four key elements that make an effective Super Bowl commercial: attention-grabbing, entertaining, brand promotion, and brand recall. A commercial must grab the consumers’ attention, entertain them while promoting the brand in a relevant (and effective) way, and consumers should remember the brand at the end of the game.  If one of these elements is missing, then the commercial will have failed to fulfill its purpose.
 
To download the Super Ad Matrix for yourself, click here (or, you can find it on Google Docs by searching for "Super Ad Matrix"). And, come back after the game to report what you felt was the best commercial based on your findings.

billboard brands

Designing an effective billboard is always a challenge. This probably explains why so many are terribly executed. Billboards require concise copy — sometimes only a few words — that people are supposed to read, digest, and process in just a few seconds. If the copy is too long, or the billboard is too busy, consumers will take a quick glance and move on.
 
Branding should be approached in the same way.
 
You don’t want a billboard so junked up with extraneous items that consumers are unable to understand it. Brands, like billboards, should be simple and direct. The battle for a position in the mind of a consumer is much like battling for their attention in the few seconds they drive by an out-of-home advertisement. If it isn’t something they are already familiar with, you have but just a few precious seconds to grab their attention. The sharper, more narrowly focused your brand is, the likelier it is you’ll land a strike.
 
Brands that are complex, or vague, have a hard time fighting through the noise to reach the consumers. However, brands that are simple, narrowly focused, and clear as to their purpose, or value, resonate better.
 
If you have just a few seconds to reach consumers about your brand, what would you say? Think of what you would put on a billboard to describe your brand. Ideally, it would be just one key word. It would be the one word that your brand has come to dominate, and one that defines it. For example, here is what some of the top brand billboards might look like: “Apple: Innovation in Technology;” “Google: Online Search;” “Burberry: Fashion’s Luxury;” “Marlboro: #1 in Cigarettes;” “Toyota: Automotive Reliability.”
 
Just two or three words, paired with a logo, would be all these brands needed to not only advertise the brand visually, but also tell consumers everything they need to know about it. Apple is where to go for the latest technology. Google is where to go for online search. Burberry is what you buy to look posh. Marlboro is what you smoke (because if they are number one, they must be the best). Toyota is what you buy if you want a reliable car.
 
Taking a look at your brand, could you explain it to consumers in just a few seconds, with just a few words? Could you turn your brand into a billboard? If not, maybe it is time to revaluate the brand, and trim off some of the excess. The best brands are ones that are narrow in focus, simple, and consistent. If you have a busy brand — trying to be everything to everybody — it will never hold a spot in the minds of consumers, just as a busy billboard will never register with consumers.

how apple and google came to dominate the world

Apple and Google. They are respectively the number-one and number-two brands in the world, according to BrandZ’s ranking of the Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands of 2011. Compared to other brands in the top-10 — such as IBM (1911), McDonald’s (1940), Coca-Cola (1886), and Marlboro (1924) — Apple (1976) and Google (1998) are relatively new brands. So, how did they come to dominate the world?

At the center of brand building is creating an idea in the mind of a consumer that his life will be improved should they buy your brand. This is what industry jargon terms as the “value proposition.” However, Apple and Google have gone beyond simple value proposition and have built products that consumers feel they can’t live without. They reinforce this “life-altering” benefit through simple, yet powerful, advertising.

See for yourself with one of Apple’s advertisements for the iPhone 4S and Google’s “Dear Sophie” campaign. Both commercials are simple in their execution, which allows them to masterfully drive home the value proposition built into their brands. The truly genius aspect of the brand advertising is that it injects their products into the consumer's life through the timeless technique of “demonstrations.”

As I wrote in “Why Apple Can Get Away With Murder,” Apple and Google didn’t build their brands through things like product quality or the exclusion-factor inherent in luxury goods. Google offers many of their products for free, and there isn’t an Apple product launch that isn’t followed by days of consumer gripes about build quality or battery life. Apple and Google built their brands on the idea that their products were not like anything else, and that your life is made significantly better by their use.

Small-business owners with struggling brands may look to Apple and Google and say, “Well I could never do that. They have the most brilliant minds in marketing, and a massive advertising budget, to help them stay at the top.” While this may be true now, it wasn’t always like that. Apple began in the family garage of Steve Jobs, and Google started out as a PhD research project.

Brands with larger advertising budgets than most companies gross in an entire year, who hire the best and brightest from Madison Avenue, have failed miserably in launching new products or even keeping their current brand alive.

The key to Apple and Google’s success was building products that set themselves apart from all other competitors and provided benefits to consumers that they cannot now ever live without. Does your brand do that? If not, focus on how you can get it there, then align your entire organization behind that idea.

a conversation about branding with stanley hainsworth

Advertising is very much a learning experience. Even the advertising greats received valuable knowledge from their predecessors. Before today’s advertising legends, there was David Ogilvy. And, before Ogilvy, there was Claude Hopkins. Each generation gives the next lessons from which they can draw upon in creating better advertisements, and stronger brands.

Over at Fast Company, Debbie Millman, president of Sterling Brands, sits down with a man who helped build Starbucks into one of the world’s most powerful brands. Stanley Hainsworth, who has served as the creative director at Nike, Lego, and Starbucks before leaving to start his own agency, knows something about branding, and making brands superpowers in the marketplace.

The whole interview (available here) is full of expert wisdom worth an entire read, the following excerpt is the most valuable for those seeking to build a brand with staying power. Hainsworth describes how Howard Schultz took a coffee shop in a crowded marketplace, and turned it into a global icon [parts bolded for emphasis]:

When Howard Schultz first came to Starbucks, he wasn't the owner of the company. He joined a couple guys that had started the company. He went over to Milan and saw the coffee culture and espresso bars where people met in the morning. He saw how people caught up on the news while they sat or stood and drank their little cups of espresso. That inspired the vision he crafted from the beginning--to design a social environment where people not only came for great coffee, but also to connect to a certain culture.

Howard was very wise in knowing that Starbucks was not the only company in the world to make great coffee. On the contrary, there are hundreds of other companies that can make great coffee. So what's the great differentiator? The answer is the distinction that most great brands create.There are other companies that make great running shoes or great toys or great detergent or soap, but what is the real differentiator that people keep coming back for? For Starbucks, it was creating a community, a "third place." It was a very conscious attribute of the brand all along and impacted every decision about the experience: who the furniture was chosen for, what artwork would be on the walls, what music was going to be played, and how it would be played.

Differentiation. That’s the key.

Starbucks didn’t just make coffee. Starbucks made an “environment” for coffee. It was this differentiating factor — a conscious decision, executed to perfection down to the very art that was hung on the walls — that moved Starbucks beyond its competitors and into branding glory.

What differentiates your brand from your competitors? How are you creating an emotional connection with your consumers? Read the interview, and take a lesson from one of the masters of branding.

digital era makes a brand alignment analysis even more important

Decades ago, brand management was a much simpler pursuit. Limited access points to brands for consumers allowed brands to better craft their messaging and control how customers perceived them. The access points to brands were limited mainly to traditional advertising and storefront operations. If you kept your advertising on point, and your brick and mortar operations running smooth, that was managing the brand.

The advent of the digital age, especially in regards to the rise of social media, has made brand management a much more complex operation.

The Internet has opened a seemingly endless number of ways for consumers to connect to brands. Information is widely available, and can be shared instantly with thousands — if not millions — of others. This makes a once manageable mistake, such as a distasteful ad that wouldn’t go beyond the circulation of the magazine in which it was printed, a very, very public scandal. Take, for instance, Kenneth Cole's tweet announcing a new spring line of clothing using a pun and hashtag related to the riots in Egypt.

“This time, however, Cole isn't simply forcing his ‘Aw, Dad!’ jokies via billboards,” wrote MSNBC Technolog’s Helen A.S. Popkin. “Thanks to Twitter, perhaps Cole is now getting the feedback on his ad work he inexplicably never got before — well, at least in such volume, anyway.”

In addition to the amplification effect, consumers also have access to information that can shine sunlight on previously “protected” secrets. A little research can expose unscrupulous manufacturing processes that may conflict with brand messages. Viral videos — such as that featuring two Domino’s employees bathing in a sink as a prank — can lead to major public relations disasters in a matter of hours.

Even more than just gaffes, secrets, and scandals, brands are constantly being judged by the online community for things such as customer service or response times to issues. “Amazon.com apologized for a ‘ham-fisted’ error after Twitter members complained that the sales rankings for gay and lesbian books seemed to have disappeared,” writes the New York Times, “and, since Amazon took more than a day to respond, the social-media world criticized it for being uncommunicative.”

Brands operating in today’s world of lightning-fast communication — where brand reputations can be “blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea,” as Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre stated in response to the sink prank — must take precious care to ensure every facet of the brand is in line with the overall brand strategy. For example, if your company promotes a culture of environmentalism and “green” responsibility, it will not be long before your company’s energy usage or manufacturing processes come into question if they don’t also align with the environmentalism brand message.

Be it a major corporation or a small business, brands can greatly benefit from a “brand alignment analysis.” Think about everything — from customer service, to marketing messages, to your front-end operations — and make sure they all serve to not only bolster your brand strategy, but also fulfill all your promises. If you take time to improve areas that aren’t serving to support your brand, you’ll strengthen your brand and protect it against an online “black eye.” You may also see a boost in positive online chatter about your brand.

looks like abercrombie got itself in 'a situation'

Brands pay celebrities all the time to sport their gear. Yet, clothing line Abercrombie & Fitch is taking a different approach. Instead of sponsoring a celebrity, they’re offering to pay the cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore to not wear their clothes.

According to A&F, the appearance of their label on the Guido and Guidettes of the Shore is “contrary to the aspirational nature of the brand.” I suppose reality stars puking in the streets while wearing an A&F shirt is not exactly what the brand wants people to “aspire” to become. (Then again, they are making a boatload of cash for being, well, talented at getting drunk.)

Yet, the request is a bit confusing. A&F isn’t exactly known for their aspirational advertising. The clothing line is wrought with its fair share of Shore-esque branding signals, including shirtless greeters welcoming customers into its club-like stores. And, as Shore cast member Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio pointed-out in a recent tweet, A&F has taken advantage of the Shore hype. “Hmmm if They Don’t Want Us To Wear Those Clothes Why Make GTL Shirts,” asks Delvecchio.

It’s a good question, and has a few people asking if A&F isn’t just building a PR stunt around the request. "With respect to The Situation, Abercrombie & Fitch saw an opportunity to get some advantageous publicity during the all-important back-to-school season," BMO Capital Markets Senior Retail Analyst John Morris told the Chicago Tribune. "It's definitely a good water-cooler conversation."

Stunt or not, it serves as a good lesson about the importance (and, consequences) of your brand narrative.

You have a product. That product has a brand image. That brand image is created through branding signals. And, your branding signals tell a story to consumers. If your brand narrative is one of youthful bacchanalia — as is A&F’s — don’t be surprised if your brand starts showing up in places where said bacchanalia occurs.

Pervasive brands have a tendency to get co-opted by consumers. Therefore, it’s important that your branding signals weave a narrative that ensures the brand is reaching the right audience.

your brand narrative

Your brand is a narrative about your product. Just as an author uses words to build his story, brand managers use a series of brand signals to establish the narrative. And, just as there are many genres in literature, there are several genres of “brand stories” in the marketplace, particularly among beers.

The competition among brewers is amazingly fierce. The market for their products isn’t growing; therefore, expanding their share of the pie is the only way to move the needle on sales. This makes their brand story especially important because they must change consumers' tastes for competitor brands — no easy task.

Enter Coors and Corona.

Coors' latest offering to its product differentiation is the temperature bar on the label of their can. It turns blue when the beer is cold. Asinine? There isn’t a better definition. But, wait! Coors recently introduced a second bar, indicating whether beer has gone from “cold,” to “super cold.” (It was easy-pickings for Breckenridge Brewery.)

Meanwhile, Corona Extra’s “Find Your Beach” campaign is running strong. In these spots, Corona drinkers are shown to be on a beach, mentally, no matter where they are. For example, one of the latest spots features a man drinking a Corona on a beach when a Stewardess pushes a cart up to his chair. The shot switches to the man sitting on a plane. He found his beach, a mile above the earth.

One brand wrote a children’s novel. The other wrote War and Peace.

Cramer-Krasselt, who is Corona's agency of record, wrote that the “Find Your Beach” campaign is built for “further evolving the [Corona] brand's iconic campaign to extend the ‘Corona Beach’ from a physical place to a state of mind.” "What we want 'Find Your Beach' to do is literally show that the beach is where you make it," said Marshall Ross, executive vice president/chief creative officer, Cramer-Krasselt.

On the other hand, Coors’ “Bar Exam” spots pushes consumers to consider if drinking the beer will make them dumber.

When writing a story for your brand, consider what you hope to accomplish when the story is finished. It’s important that you create brand narratives that buttress what you want consumers to feel about your product.

The example to follow in this case is Corona. Instead of opting for a cheap trick, which has become the latest trend among the Big Three (Bud Light’s “write-on label,” Coors’ temperature bar, and Miller Lite’s vortex bottleneck), Corona chose to create a narrative that moved the souls of consumers and reinforced the power of escapism that has become a centerpiece of the brand.

the commercial your commercial should look like

"Whatever happened to commercials?" asks Michael Imperioli, in one part of a series of commercials for 1800 Tequila. "So many of them don't make any sense, and you can hardly tell what anyone is selling." How is it that a commercial reached a level of enlightenment lost on even the biggest advertising agencies in the world? This ad from Dead As We Know It, New York calls out one of the worst offenses in advertising: letting the ad overshadow the brand.

There is an insidious trend in advertising over the past few years. It’s what I refer to as “advertising absurdism.” Examples of this trend include Wieden & Kennedy's Old Spice deodorant campaign, Grey’s Dairy Queen Blizzard and DirecTV campaigns, and many more that create a stream of creative that is as surreal as it is illogical. Most often these campaigns are characterized by long camera shots filled with fast copy, and include a storyline fit for a few hours compacted into 30 seconds.

The paradigm for this style is W+K’s Old Spice deodorant campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” While the novelty of the ad sent it viral almost instantly, making it the prevailing “buzz” of the Internet for some time, the replication of its absurdist technique in other campaigns (and, even in future iterations of the Old Spice ads) make it seem cheap, played-out, and completely lacking in substance. As a result, these brands are trapped in the failed attempt of advertising creatives pushing a product with a trick, rather than a substantive brand strategy.

In contrast to this advertising absudism is the cutting simplicity of the 1800 Tequila ad, featuring nothing more than Imperioli in a suit with a bottle of 1800 Tequila. "This is a commercial for tequila,” says Imperioli — a fatal, sardonic swipe at the pop-advertising trends.

Humor, special effects, story appeal, and the like are advertising techniques. They are not products. However, when technique (whether effective at capturing attention, or not) overshadows the brand and becomes the true product of the ad, there is a serious problem. Humorous commercials like Grey’s “Russian Oligarch” spot for DirecTV may have great recall with consumers, but how many consumers connect the ad’s tiny giraffe with DirecTV? DirecTV paid Grey millions of dollars to sell a fictional creature and a rich Russian — at least, that was the end result.

The Dead As We Know It ad is about as close to perfect as you can get, and should serve as a model for how simplicity can take a brand further than large advertising budgets, special effects, and overly creative account teams. There are no distractions in the 1800 commercial that detract from the key purpose of the ad: to sell tequila. Imperioli may be a TV celebrity, but his Sopranos fame isn’t vast enough to overpower the tequila he’s marketing. From the dark, classy setting, to Imperioli’s haughty tone, and even his simple — yet finely tailored — suit, are all branding signals that serve to enhance the brand. Those signals convey that “real men drink real premium tequila,” as notes Tim Nudd of AdWeek, when the spot was featured as the site’s Ad of the Day. “Why make it more complicated than that?”

Some of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the years have been some of the simplest (and, not for lack of creativity): Bill Bernbach’s “Think small;” Dale Pon’s “I Want My MTV;” Goodby Silverstein’s “Got Milk?” So, indeed, why make it more complicated than that?

your brand doesn’t need a 'mr. t' strategy

Mr. T is one of the most iconic faces of the 1980s. He was the star of the A-Team, showed-up in the Rocky series, and has done a myriad of commercials over his acting career. His catchphrases reside among the immortal words of other American paragons like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet, in spite of Mr. T’s cultural and celebrity prowess, he won’t save your brand.

“American consumers insist that they are not swayed by celebrity endorsements,” reports Adweek on the results of a recent Adweek/Harris Interactive survey. “More than three-quarters [of respondents] answered that it has no impact on their intent to buy.” Furthermore, only 4 percent indicated it would make them more likely to purchase. So, what are brands getting for the millions they spend on “buying” celebrities in hopes they can get consumers to buy? More often than not, nothing more than a wasted advertising budget.

Of course, this should come as no surprise to brand managers. Advertising master David Ogilvy (himself once a cultural icon whose words still serve as teaching tools for young, and old, advertising junkies) wrote in his 1983 book, Ogilvy on Advertising, that celebrities don’t move product. “Viewers guess that the celebrity has been bought,” Ogilvy wrote. “And they are right.” Ogilvy also suggested that celebrities have a way of overpowering the brands they’re advertising, making the celebrity (and, not the brand) the only memorable part of the campaign. Any time that an advertising technique — be it a celebrity, or “humorous” copy — overshadows the brand, it’s not good advertising. It’s even worse when you spend extra thousands, or millions, to secure an endorsement.

Your brand doesn’t need a celebrity. It needs a strategy that’s based on solid branding fundamentals. There have been several famous non-celebrities as “brand figureheads.” For example, Subway’s “Jared,” or “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.” However, the difference between these individuals and celebrities like Mr. T is that the ad campaigns made Jared famous; Jared didn’t make Subway famous. Their appearances in the campaigns were techniques that enhanced the brand instead of overpowering it. Jared wasn’t a celebrity. He was a product testimonial. Likewise, The Man in a Hathaway Shirt was story appeal.

Would Subway have achieved the same level of success with its “health and nutrition” positioning if they used someone like Justin Bieber? No. Celebrities have access to personal trainers and nutrition consultants. The “testimonial” technique would have been completely lost. And, what would have happened if Ogilvy had decided to use Frank Sinatra instead of Baron George Wrangell for the Hathaway campaign? Would consumers have even paid attention to the shirt? Doubtful.

This is not to say that celebrity endorsements fail 100% of the time. Using a celebrity who is an authority on the industry or product for which he is advertising can be beneficial to a brand. Rory McIlroy testifying to the quality of golf clubs, for example, might be a worthwhile investment. Maybe. At least it will certainly be more worthwhile than Mr. T hawking Snickers.

If your brand is looking to do something with endorsements, try focusing on delivering a solid brand performance to your customers. After all, it’s their endorsement that is the most influential to their friends. Yeah, it’s really cool that for $1 million you can get a celebrity to like your product. And, for $2 million, that celebrity will probably endorse your competitor as well.

Instead of dumping money into expensive advertising campaigns, or buying a head-nod from a celebrity, turn that money back into your business to improve upon things that will really better your brand. Denny’s opted out of advertising in the 2011 Super Bowl, saying they would rather spend that money on programs throughout the year. "It is a very expensive exercise and I don't believe it's necessary for us to continue to put all our eggs in one basket," says Frances Allen, Denny's Chief Marketing Officer, in an interview with AdAge. “We decided to focus our efforts on a broad, multilayer program that we believe better rewards our guests throughout the year, vs. doing a big, onetime push for Super Bowl.”

This lesson is especially apposite for small businesses with limited budgets. Never underestimate the power of smart branding fundamentals that resonate with consumers. There’s more evidence that a solid brand foundation will move product than there is for any endorsement from a celebrity. And, the return on investment is unquestionably higher.

lessons from ogilvy

"I don't believe in tricky advertising. I don't believe in cute advertising. I don't believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that type of advertising have never had to sell anything in their lives." - David Ogilvy

sometimes, we just get too creative

It's said that too much of a good thing is bad. Moderation is the key. It's what keeps us sober, and keeps us healthy. However, moderation is also helpful in restraining our creative juices when it comes to advertising. Because, sometimes, we just get too creative for our own good.

Case in point is a recent ad for Eastpak created by WE ARE FROM L.A. As Richard Becker, president of Copywrite, Ink., puts it, the product is a copywriter's dream. The backpacks have a great reputation for durability. They a military hook. And, they have a certain retro-chic design that is the fashion du jour. Basically, putting copy together for this product is like a being thrown a fastball right down the center of the plate. Knocking it out of the park is just a matter of swinging the bat.

It could have been a great campaign. "Instead, the newest ad campaign from Eastpak is a great example of how more and more advertisers think they need to draw attention to themselves instead of the products they peddle," says Becker. Rather than focusing on the backpacks, the ad features young adults throwing themselves off of a building in a game of human Tetris.

Creative? Sure. Clever? Maybe. Effective at selling backpacks, or increasing brand awareness? Not even close. "They don't even bother to land on the backpacks that are among the toughest in the industry," Becker remarks.

Creativity is an advertising technique. It is a means to an end, with the end being a consumer response. In the case of the Eastpak ad, the creativity of the ad ceases to be a means to an end, and becomes an end itself. When creativity begins to overshadow the product, the brand loses.

There is no doubt that advertising has become increasingly more difficult in modern times as consumers are bombarded with more and more ads. And, it is more difficult to get their attention as a result. But, the general premise of advertising remains the same: "We sell, or else," as David Ogilvy once put it.

Ads don't have to be boring, but they do have to be effective. They have to have a purpose beyond entertainment. That is, once you have someone's attention, do something with it. Sell to them. After all, a sale is worth more than a laugh.

copywriting wisdom from rosser reeves

"Let's call it the artsy-craftsy crowd. They believe their advertising has to be different... The illogicality of their argument is not obvious to them, and it's even less obvious to the public and to many business men.

"In fact, it sounds enormously convincing, and it goes like this: One, the advertising, not the product, must compete with a tremendous number of other advertising messages. Two, therefore, the advertisement, not the product, must get attention. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Three, therefore, a given advertisement, and not the product, must be different.

"Such reasoning bypasses the product, and when it does, it bypasses the advertising function. It is a classic example of confusing the means with the end. For if the product is worth paying money for, it is worth paying attention to."

From The Art of Writing Advertising.

think simple.

"Some copywriters write tricky headlines -- double meanings, puns, and other obscurities," David Ogilvy, one of the greatest minds in advertising, once wrote. "This is counter-productive…your headline should telegraph what you want to say."

"Iconic designs that stand out apart from the crowd have just one feature to help them stand out," writes brand identity guru David Airey. "That's it. Just one. Not two, three, or four."

More recently, AdAge Editor in Chief Rance Crain flatly stated, "Good ads are simple and direct."

"Bad ads aren't," he continued.

If there is one ubiquitous theme throughout all the disciplines of advertising, it's simplicity. Simple headlines. Simple logos. Simple ads.

Unfortunately, as Crain points out, simplicity is "a characteristic that advertisers have a woeful lack of these days."

Simplicity seems like a simple concept for advertisers. You only have 30 sec. in which to sell a product to a customer, so it would seem like ad should be as concise and direct as possible. Sometimes, in the case of print, the time to capture a prospect's attention is even shorter -- three seconds at most.

So, why then do copywriters write blind headlines, or creative directors piece together television spots that waste 80 percent of the airtime on setting up some plot or twist unrelated to the actual product?

The war for consumer "attention" is certainly not anything new. It's a battle advertisers have been fighting since the days of Claude Hopkins and before.

The new war, however, has evolved. Advertisers now seem certain that in order to grab a consumer's attention, a commercial must be "novel," "sensational," or "spellbinding." They try to engage audiences with complex plots or graphics, or either misguided attempts at comedy.

The result is often a complete bust; for example, Kia's cosmic adventure advertisement during the Super Bowl.

Do you even remember what car they were advertising?

Simple and direct ads are, many times, very vanilla. They don't have the "wow" factor. That is, they're not built to entertain.

They're meant to sell product, which (used to be) the purpose of advertising.
And, you don't have sacrifice engagement for simplicity. Apple ads (agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day) are some of the simplest campaigns running right now. Yet, I bet after reading that sentence, you immediately thought of an iPad or iPod.

The Reese's "Perfect" campaign, from ArnoldWorldwide, is another exam of utterly uncomplicated ads accomplishing everything they need to do.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to trick the audience into being engaged. As Leo Burnett said, there is "inherent drama" in every product. The true skill of an advertiser is to find this drama and bring it to life. That is, without tricks and games.

Think simple.

is groupon a “road-to-ruin” for local retailers?

In a February editorial published at AdAge.com, marketing guru Al Ries called Groupon – and the whoring of coupons – a “road-to-ruin deal for local retailers.”

“Presumably, all those consumers who bought products and services for 50% off are going to be happy to return to their local retailers and return to buy those same products and services at full prices,” Ries asserts. "That's not going to happen."

Speaking about the "coupon culture" as a whole, Ries has a point.

Coupons are like crack to companies looking for a quick fix in sales numbers. As such, it’s easy for companies to get addicted. And, unfortunately, it can come with some harsh realities after the rush wears off.

Companies that routinely use coupons lock themselves into a dangerous pattern where consumers shop only when product is on sale, or discounted by coupons.

It’s hard to lay off that sweet, sweet discount, man.

Ries points to department store retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s who have begun to rely on steep discounts to move product rather than the strength of their brand. It’s basically a discount war.

Personally, I find this to be true. I love Macy’s because, from time-to-time, they have a huge discount on dress shirts and ties. Sure, the quality of the store will push me to Macy’s above JC Penny, Belk, or Sears, but I don’t find myself frequently shopping at Macy’s unless I run across a sale.

As a cost-conscience consumer, I know that all I have to do is delay my purchase by a little bit of time, and that the same shirt that costs $39.99 will be $15.99 two or three weeks later.

The distorting effects of coupons also fueled skepticism of the potency of Proctor & Gamble’s Old Spice commercial featuring “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” During the explosion of publicity and social media conversation regarding this pop-sensation of a commercial, a simultaneous marketing campaign using coupons was launched.

“It's hard to determine how much of (the sales increase) was due to an aggressive couponing campaign which was in market simultaneously,” says Adweek’s Joseph Jaffe, though he did admit that there was some impact that could be attributed to the viral success of the commercial.

But, is Groupon the same as a packaged good, or department store?

I have to disagree with Ries on this one. While discounts and coupons can ultimately undermine the strength of a brand when they become assimilated into the shopping behavior of a consumer, the platform of Groupon is much different.

The variety of Groupon’s clients makes discounts unpredictable. There is no reason to expect that a discount for an eatery will appear at a specific time in the future – or ever again. Consumers can’t anticipate the appearance of an additional discount in a way that will cause a delayed sale.

If Groupon’s discounts from clients rotated on a predictable schedule – say, a discount to a local retailer that appeared every two weeks – then Ries’ comments would hold some water.

But, it doesn’t; at least, not yet.

Retailers advertising on Groupon have a chance to offer a discount to their products much in the same way a loss leader is used to entice future sales. It’s more of a premium than a discount.

Retailers with relatively small advertising budgets can get a high profile spotlight in the community through the use of Groupon, which is the appeal that has sent Groupon’s value through the roof. As more retailers partner with Groupon, the more varied the discounts will be, and the less likely company’s are to fall into the “coupon trap” Ries fears.

audi v. chrysler; the two memorable car ads of super bowl 45

There were two car commercials during the 2011 Super Bowl that really stood out among the others. They were Audi’s "Release the Hounds" ad by Venables Bell & Partners, and Chrysler’s "Born of Fire" ad (presumably done by Duffey Petrosky Wieden+Kennedy).

The two commercials were unique for how differently they tried to sell their client. One used humor with a clever positioning strategy. The other used a serious tone and tried to use American tradition and nationalism. One worked. The other did not.

I wrote recently about Venables Bell’s new strategy to position Audi as the "youthful" luxury car among high-end German automakers. Without disappointment, they delivered during the Super Bowl with a comedic--but potent--shot at Mercedes. The ad’s theme, "progressive luxury," drives home the message that Mercedes is a relic of stuffy luxury vehicles, driven by posh old men with no taste (or, as the commercial insinuated, sense).



As long as Audi sticks with this positioning, they will surely close the gap in market share and begin nipping at the heels of BMW and Mercedes.

Chrysler’s two-minute ad--the longest Super Bowl commercial yet for the company--was supposed to be the kick-off for the brand’s rejuvenation attempt.

It failed, miserably.



There were so many mistakes in Chrysler’s commercial it’s hard to recount them here. From using a celebrity to sell a product, to strongly tying itself to a city that has come to symbolize American automaker’s hubris and unimaginative styling; there just wasn’t much that they did right.

Most Americans aren’t stupid. They know that the failure of American automakers is largely their own. For decades, they have made ugly cars with horrible reliability. Unlike their foreign counterparts, American automakers continued to pump-out uninspired cars on the presumption that their "American-made" hokum would sell them.

It didn’t, and one of the worst offenders is Chrysler.

Detroit is not an American symbol of hope and change. It is a symbol of failure and lack of inspiration. Tying your brand to that, no matter how hard you try to pull at the heartstrings of Americans, will not work. This is especially true when touting the product line as a luxury vehicle, when at no point has Chrysler ever been thought of as an American luxury vehicle (the brand that definitively owns that position is Cadillac).

Chrysler additionally wasted extra money hiring rapper Eminem to be featured in the commercial. Eminem’s ties to Detroit are most likely unknown except to a small minority of consumers, so his purpose is the commercial was completely lost on the audience. Additionally, celebrities rarely (if ever) move the needle on sales. And, the use of a youth-oriented rapper is definitely not going to help launch a "luxury" brand targeted to adults.

Reflecting on the commercial, I mostly remember Eminem and images of a decrepit Detroit. I don’t remember the product, much less anything that would encourage me, as a consumer, to think any differently about Chrysler than I did before.

For having two-minutes of airtime, I can’t think of a way Chrysler could have wasted it more efficiently other than just to run two solid minutes of dead air.

For a company that has yet to repay its debt to taxpayers for the bailouts it received to keep its doors open, this commercial was an insult. As a taxpaying advertising junkie, it was an abomination.

favorite three television campaigns currently running

It's easy to point out things in advertising that you don't like. I do it all the time on this blog (cough…Starbucks logo redesign…cough). It's a much harder task to pick the advertising you do like.

However, listed below are my three favorite campaigns currently on TV right now. I picked them for several reasons, but mainly because I find them the best at what they're designed to do: sell. And, if they make me laugh while doing it, that's an extra tip of the hat to the agency.

3) Southwest Airlines - "Bags Fly Free" - GSD&M

(Agency: GSD&M)

Southwest is pounding the airwaves with their "Bags Fly Free" campaign. It launched the campaign in the summer of 2009 using their long-time agency GSD&M. The campaign recently has featured a "Fee Court," where other airlines face a jury of Southwest employees about passenger exploitation.

Not every commercial is a gut-buster, but the commercials do a damn fine job at positioning Southwest as the low budget, low hassle airline of choice. And, when passengers are increasingly cost conscience, Southwest is in a great position to start eating up some market share in the air travel industry.

It still has some time to beat its reputation for its "cattle call" boarding process of the past. But, if Southwest continues to position itself as the fee-free airlines, I think it will pick up a lot of business from passengers tired of being nickel-and-dimed by other airlines.

2) Reese's - "Perfect" - ArnoldWorldwide

(Agency: ARN Worldwide)

"We knew that consumers loved the product the way it was and that we needed to capture the simple brand essence of chocolate, peanut butter, orange, two cups," says ArnoldNYC President Lynn Power. "The solution? 'Reese's Perfect,' a campaign that treats the product as the icon it is, and gives Reese's a bold leadership voice that elevates it from the rest of the candy in the category."

Power's comments encapsulate what I like most about this ad series. In a medium where viewers are bombarded with flashy, over-the-top, outrageous campaigns, ARN took the simple beauty of the Reese's cup and makes a television ad out of it.

The simplicity of the commercials makes them stand out, which grabs attention. Entertaining copy and techniques, featuring the product front and center, brings it all together.

It truly is a "perfect" combination.

1) Allstate - "Mayhem is Everywhere" - Leo Burnett

(Agency: Leo Burnett)

Like Southwest and GSD&M, Allstate and ad agency Leo Burnett have been together a looooong time. Though, when your ad agency is putting out ad gold like Burnett recently has with the launch of the "Mayhem" campaign, it's not hard to see why.

Hands down, the "Mayhem is Everywhere" campaign featuring the hilarious Dean Winters is the best ad series on TV right now.

I can't think of a commercial that has made me laugh time and time again, with each new spot, like these Mayhem commercials.

And, to top it all off, they're not just good for laughs. Pitching the idea that "mayhem is everywhere" by using common, real life situations (deer, limbs, an oblivious teen on a lawn mower), it makes consumers stop and think if they're covered if something like that were to happen.

Let's not forget that Matt Miller, the copywriter on the campaign, continues to churn out brilliant stuff.

When you combine great copy with wicked-funny creative, you create the perfect storm for advertising.

I only blame Allstate for my recent switch to State Farm.