Get Your Foot Off the Break!

GET YOUR FOOT OFF THE BRAKE Consider today's Sticky Note as an open letter to advertising agency clients. Although most clients who work with an ad agency will give lip service to wanting to be Bold, Innovative andCompelling, most are really a stumbling block. Unfortunately, many insist on ordinary. Somehow playing it safe is the name of the game. I have personally run into many business owners who refuse to be different. They insist on using methodologies that imitate what their competition is doing rather than being innovative. For example, I recently pitched a car dealership that spends a fortune in local advertising. As our meeting progressed, I felt a real disconnect in that his only concern was the need to do the same things, in the same way as his competition. In other words, be as obnoxious in his ads as his competitors. The loud, cheesy ads are what you get when allowing the media outlet create them.Anytime I mentioned a new and unique approach, I was immediately shot down. Perhaps if he was open-minded and less of a know-it-all, his marketing would be more successful. Check out the 1961 ad by Ogilvy & Mather for Rolls Royce, below. Although the agency may have pulled the Rolls-Royce ad headline from a line that appeared in a printed MOTOR article -- (Notice the quotation marks around the headline) Ogilvy saw the grabber of a headline and ran with it. Today this ad stands as an icon and David Ogilvy a legend in daring to be different. Does anyone not get the headline message? Does anyone not want to read further? "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" Now, that being said, not all bold, daring ads are successful. Advertisers and their agencies should never forget to sell the product not the ad.Daring without sell is a waste of an opportunity. Leo Burnett said it best in that an ad should say, "Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it." The key is to make sure that the selling message gets seen, read and acted upon. This is where a great agency becomes worth their salt. Most viewers only read an ad's headline. So, start by making the headline compelling enough to be read and motivate the reader to read on. If you have a headline that screams, let your visual whisper and vice versa. Clean, well-designed ads are more successful than cluttered ads where every inch of the space is crowded with information. These ads leave the reader not knowing where to look first or what the key selling point is. The imagery and the copy need to work in harmony.   This is where being bold plays out. Think of the DDB (Doyle, Dane & Bernbach) ad for Volkswagen. How great was Volkswagen as a client to allow an ad to run with the headline "Think Small"? Did they know their customer and what they wanted? You bet. Keeping the message simple avoided confusion and made it memorable. Lots of white space is my favorite.  Even the best and most creative agency can't make a bad product better. This, of course, is the job of the client. It can, however, make a parody product distinctive by learning everything they can about the product and understanding the audience. Find that singular product benefit for the customer and pound that message home. Ever face someone trying to sell you something you don't need or have the slightest interest in? The most critical component is to be honest. Remember, advertising is people talking to people. Who wants to do business with people they don't believe or trust? Sometimes clients want to avoid unpopular subjects. If the subject is relevant, run with it. Some of you might remember the 1962 ad for Avis, "We Try Harder." The ad, subsequent tagline and positioning was adopted in 1962 to make a more positive reference of Avis' status as the second largest car rental company in the US behind its larger competitor The Hertz Corporation.  TO ALL ADVERTISERS Can you really get these types of legendary messages from that newspaper producing your Print Ad, your TV Spot produced by that TV station or the Direct Mail campaign created by your printer? It takes a copywriter who writes like a poet, visuals designed by an artist and an agency who cares more about making great advertising than making money.Let your agency break rules, be uncommon and then get out of the way. It will amaze you what your agency can accomplish when clients inspire agencies and allow them to improve their ideas rather than waste time having to defend them. GET YOUR FOOT OFF THE BREAK AND WATCH YOUR AGENCY ROLL!    ***Although these ads are from the 60's, they are still relevant to today, proving that great advertising is timeless.