We help companies develop compelling selling conversations that connect with their best customers, both internal and external, offline and online. When that happens, our clients sell more stuff. Think of us as a creative juice bar for fresh ideas - branding, advertising, graphic design, copywriting, TV & Radio concept and production, social media strategy & more.
Take a look at this classic VW spot from 1969. It is a minute long, was very successful, and surprisingly, doesn't even mention the client's name until the end of the spot.
Many marketing types today believe you have to state the client or product's name in the first 10 seconds of every spot and then trumpet it at least every 10 seconds thereafter. But customers won't remember your name if they don't remember your commercial. You have to give them a reason to remember. Either a compelling stiuation or a relavent marketable truth, or ideally, both.
This VW commercial does both. It creates a compelling and entertaining situation, causing people to hang on to the end of the spot where the marketable truth is revealed as well as the name of the product that can deliver on that promise.
Take a look. Who knew (advertising) history could be so fun.
They say confession is good for the soul. So here goes:
As a somewhat Mad Men type guy myself, a CD/writer type who worked at a major agency on accounts including BP, Red Roof Inns, Bennigans, Steak and Ale, Mazda, Kroger, Meijer, etc. and now at a smaller agency where I am a partner working on local and regional accounts (sound familiar?), I love watching Mad Men becuase it echos (if somewhat distantly) the real world of advertising.
Now here's the confession part: I DVR-ed the 2-hour season premier of "Mad Men" and purposly started watching 20 minutes late so that I could zip past the commercials. I must be "Mad!!!" Here I am, a guy who makes his living and his career off of commercials, watching a show about people who make commercials, and I didn't watch the commercials!
Ah, there, I feel better. Now I did pay attention closely as I zipped past the commercials and noted that there wasn't a single one that I hadn't seen before (I watch a lot of TV). But the bigger point is this -- when a TV commercial is crammed into a 4-minute commercial break, even a pro-commercial person like myself has a hard time staying tuned in, let alone the multitude of folks who could give a crap.
My solution is to have fewer commercials per break. The human mind can only store so many messages at a time, anyway. So have fewer commercials, charge more to air them (clients will scream at first, until they understand that there is more of a chance people will actually watch them), and make Mad Men and Mad Women TV viewers a little less mad!
Hey, someone at Nissan reads our Atomic Ideas blog....well maybe not. Either way,they finally are advertising "marketable truths" - ie , things they can say about their products that are true and should appeal to their target markets. Take a look.
It's a far cry from their "Fantasy" of a snowbaording pickup that does things no mass produced vehicle can, or ever will, do. Or their out-and-out lie of a spot (called that becuase they purposely tried to make it look as if it were a real news event-- so much so that some people believed it) which had a jet liner with a stuck nose gear land by placing it in the bed of a Nissan pickup that zooms out onto the tarmack.
But credit where credit is due. This spot gives consumers with a couple dozen grand in their pockets some real reasons to buy a Nissan. Whereas their previous pickup spots gave these same people a reason to say "hey, look at that" but no real reason to part with their dough.
Nissan is at it again. First they had a spot where their pickup races onto the tarmac to help a jet land by letting it put it's semi-extended front landing gear in the bed of the truck. Clearly fake, what does that say about the pickup? Since it's fantasy, NOTHING! I could just as easily (with a special effects budget and matting software) have my daughter's 2001 Chrysler Neon with a bent fender and 126,000 miles on it, race out and save the jet by putting it's landing gear on the roof. Both say the same for the Nissan pickup -- Nothing! Okay, you might remember the Nissan name. But once you think about the fact that they have no real benefits to talk about (which is why they present a fake scenario that no pickup could live up to) you're not going to seriously consider buying it. And isn't the whole reason advertising exists, is to try and put your product or service on top of someone's consideration list?
AND NOW...they come up with a snowboarding pickup. At least this time they try to avoid looking like they are LYING to us or trying to FAKE US OUT by clearly disclaiming it as FANTASY. So again, why should I buy the Nissan pickup??? Just because someone at their ad agency had a wet dream about depicting the vehicle like it was a snowboard and doing impossibly fake flips and jumps over snow covered hills? Substitute a Ford F-150, a Dodge Ram, or a rickshaw as the featured vehicle and the commercial would work equally as well, ie. not at all!
While you're at it, Nissan, if you're going to live in a fantasy world, why not just give your truck lazers, afterburners, and submarine qualities in your commercials, too? No real truck has those, either.
At least when I walk away from an F-150 commerical I remember a benefit or two, like Eco-boost. Or with Dodge Ram, towing capability. But with a Nissan Pickup commercial, other than the dubious entertainment value of "gee, I'd like to see a truck do that", there is no resaon to buy one, because, "gee, NO truck bound by the laws of physics can do that."
Sure a TV spot has to be attention getting, entertaining and likeable, but once the spot is over, if you want people to buy what you're advertising, it needs to have a marketable truth. In today's economy, it's not enough to have someone remember your product or service's name, they need to have a reason to part with their hard earned money to purchase it.
Marketer's have long known the value of the customer testimonial and have done commercials and info-mercials based on that premise. Like for instance, Ronco's big-selling, but short lived, spray-on hair. (Click below.)
Now, let's face it, social media is basically cutomer testimonials on steriods. If people like you or your product or service, they will forward that 'thumbs up" to friends. The difference between social media and an infomercial is that in social media, REAL people are using the product (not paid actors) and everyone knows it. So for social media to work, your product or service has to actually deliver what is promised (and work in real-world situations). If it doesn't, REAL people will dump on it and your offering will be DOA. You won't even enjoy a short-lived success of the spray-on hair variety!
You've been marketing your product or service so long that you really know your customer... or do you? Economic conditions change people's values, new generations with different goals rise to prominence, people move, demographics change, neighborhoods turn over, and every year, some of your best customers leave the market completely. So what's a business, that wants to sell more stuff, to do? Simple. Challenge your assumptions about what your customers want....by asking them.
A little market research from time to time is a tonic for stale messaging. Challenge even your most basic, "everyone knows that" facts. This gem was brought home in an entertaining fashion while tooling around "You Tube." I, like everyone else on the planet "knows" that cats don't like water....or do we? Take a look:
I saw this new Honda Odyssey TV spot the other day. I asked my colleague Greg what it meant and what just happened there. He said they were imitating the Ozzie Osbourne song, “Crazy Train.” Really? Why? Smarter thinking?
Usually when you imitate or parody a popular song in a TV spot you hope that it’s… well… popular and recognizable. Honda struck out on this one. It’s surprising because Honda has always been very solid in their concepts and cleverness over the years.
I like Honda. I’ve owned many over the years and currently drive one. But I have to ask, whom were they targeting in this spot? The worldwide fan base of Ozzie Osbourne? No offense intended, but just how big could that be? Is this a song tune people have stuck in their heads throughout the day? Or maybe Honda just wanted to tie in the song’s title with Honda’s unique mini-van attributes – a weak tongue-in-cheek connection. The visual production value is good - it’s the audio that stumped me. I did not understand what was going on until Greg told me it was an Ozzie Osbourne tune, (Hmm... how did he know that!)
By the way, I later discovered there’s a 90 second version on the web that features a lot more of the Ozzie song performed by all of the Honda’s eight passengers. But it’s the thirty second TV spot that’s the measure for successful selling. One shouldn’t have to rely on the rarely aired :90 to substantiate or fill in the blanks of the :30 concept. However, it’s still not clear what Honda is trying to say here. The new Honda Odyssey is a crazy train?
This is one of those spots where you wonder how it was presented to the client. Was it acted out? Did they go so far as to test it as an animatic? And, who said, “Go for it” on the client side? - An Ozzie fan?
The spot wraps up with the line, “Smarter Thinking from Honda.” I’m sure there was smarter thinking for the new Odyssey vehicle, I’m not so sure there was for the commercial.
On my Steeb-O-Meter (a rating system for evaluating projects on film, video, music, television and print on a scale of 1 - 63), I’m giving this spot a 26.
You've seen the commercial, a "simulated" news story about an Airliner with half-extended nose gear, is saved when it sets the wheel down in the back of a speeding Nissan Frontier. (No I didn't remember the name from the spot, I had to look it up).
Sure it was well produced. Sure it cost gazillions to produce (Not the least of which is all that CG work). And sure it got my attention... right up to the part when I realized it was...as the youtube title says "unbelievable" (ie NOT believable).
THE FLAWED IDEA:
Now the idea was to "demonstrate" that the Frontier is tough and can haul a big payload. But a fake story about a fake event leads viewers to wonder what else is fake -- like the sales points they desperatly want to convince us are true? I was so turned off, that I tuned the spot out before they even got to the name of the truck. With advertising already being suspect for false promises, why go out of your way to purposly make a false promise (exaggeration for humor, aside). This is especialy true if you are marketing to the GEN Y crowd who eschew being "suckered" into anything.
Also, since they went to such great lengths to make it look real, and never let on that this was a joke or exaggeration, it leads one to wonder if they expect us to believe it's actually true...thus, insulting our intelligence? Now they're not just fakers, they're rude fakers!
WHAT THEY COULD HAVE DONE:
Okay, now I didn't have the benefit of seeing the creative brief (and I'm not being paid to spend a couple weeks to create a killer idea for this -- although Atomic Ideas is available, give us a call!), but IF the idea is to convince us that the Frontier can carry a big load, then show us an impressive, entertaining, REAL load that it can carry! If it can carry a half ton, have it put down the tailgate and let a mini-car drive into the bed ("Hauls everything from a mini to a full-sized load") . Or lead a half-grown elephant into the bed ("Hauls a full-size load for peanuts"). Or fill it with 100,000 gumballs ("A mid-size pickup that hauls a full size load. Chew on that a while"). And that's three, off the top of my head, that make the point without pegging the B.S. meter.
THE IDEA IS THE THING!
Without a good idea and a sound strategy, you can throw all the money you want at a commercial and still have it go down the drain. Or in this case, having it "not land."
The simple answer is: As much as you can afford. Why? Because people at home don't rationalize a crappy spot, saying "Gee, I bet they didn't have much money to produce their spot." No, they think, "Gee, what a crappy commercial." And a crappy commerical makes your product or service look crappy. And let's face it, your commercial may run after a million dollar spot produced by Nike or Budweiser. And again, the people at home don't rationalize that your company is not as big as theirs, they only know your commercial doesn't look as good as the other ones on TV.
Now that's not to say you have to spend millions. A small budget does not necessarily mean a small idea. You just need to be clear about the budget up front, so your agency can create a spot that can be produced well (and look good) with the dollars at hand. Sure, with a tiny budget, you may have to settle for a simpler execution . But that simple spot will look good, and get your message across. The biggest mistake advertisers make is wanting an ambitious million-dollar commercial like they saw on the Superbowl, but only bugeting a few thousand dollars to pull it off. A recipe for disaster.
The bigger the budget, the more options your agency has to create stopping power with a unique technique or entertainment vaule -- two important elements in getting your spot noticed and remembered. And we all know that a TV commerical that is unnoticed or quickly forgotten is wasted money.
The flip side is not agreeing up front on a specific strategy for the agency to follow. Even a slick, million dollar spot will fail to make the cash register ring, if it doesn't connect with your corel customers.
So the the bottom line is...spend what you can, but be sure to set a clear strategy before you start.
(This spot cost a bundle, not just for the number of scenes, actors, and quality of the lighting and directing, but also remember that they had to buy the rights to use "Star Wars" characters and music -- easily another $100K-$500K. Again, the bigger the budget, the more options for creating something entertaining, memorable and unique.)
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