Think Billboard

Want to know if a new-product idea is any good?

Create an ad for it. 

Or, better yet, a billboard.

That's how Apple rose "from flame to fame" in the late '90s.

Using journal entries and agency memos, California adman Rob Siltanen constructs an account of the birth of Apple's legendary "Think different" campaign in Branding Strategy Insider.

On a July afternoon in 1997, in a cluttered conference room inside Siltanen's agency, the campaign began life as a series of billboards. 

They looked just like the ads that would eventually appear on TV and in newspapers and magazines nationwide a few months later.

The idea for the campaign paired two sources: an IBM ad campaign running at the time ("Think IBM") and Ralph Waldo Emerson's chestnut, “To be a genius is to be misunderstood."

No sooner had "Think Different" launched than "Apple became the talk of the town," Siltanen recalls. 

The ads pushed consumers "to suddenly think about the brand in a whole new way."

Within 12 months, Apple rolled out the multicolored iMac and the company's stock price shot up 300 percent.

Want an acid test for your new idea?

Think billboard.

Social Can't Sell

In The New York Times, tech journalist Stephen Baker recently asked, “Can Social Media Sell Soap?”

His short answer: nope.

Precision targeting, which generates ads "so timely and relevant that you welcome them," has "fueled a market frenzy around social networks," Baker writes.

But social networks are heading for a fall, because social can't sell.

As proof, Baker cites a chilly sales statistic (courtesy of IBM) from last year's Christmas season. 

"On the pivotal opening day of the season, Black Friday, a scant 0.68 percent of online purchases came directly from Facebook," Baker writes. "The number from Twitter was undetectable. Could it be that folks aren’t in a buying mood when hanging out digitally with their friends?"

I think Baker is on to something.

Social can't sell.

That's why the oxymoron "social media marketing" would make George Carlin's list.

Social is unlike traditional media.

When you consume traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV), you willingly trade your attention for content. 

That means ads are—more or less—welcome.

But in social, ads aren't welcome. 

They're like a telemarketer's cold call in the middle of the family dinner.

Ready for the Content Arms Race?

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B2B marketers be warned!

We stand at the threshold of a "Content Arms Race," says Doug Kessler, creative director for Velocity, on Hubspot's Inbound Marketing Blog.

He compares the state of content marketing today to that of TV advertising in the 1950s.

"The first companies to jump into this exciting new medium discovered something big," he writes. "They discovered that they could use TV ads to build something called brands."

But it wasn't long before TV's pioneers were swamped by sodbusters, and TV advertising lost its luster.

"We’re in a similar place right now," Kessler writes. The window is shutting on opportunities to become content-marketing pioneers ("Those guys who put out that great stuff”).

Marketers instead are entering a Content Arms Race in which "every marketing discipline is becoming content-powered. 

"In the content marketplace, you’re not just up against your direct competitors," Kessler says. "You’re up against everyone who’s producing content on the same issues. You’re competing against all of these in an epic battle for the scarcest resource on Earth: people’s attention."

What's the fallout?

"When the deluge hits," Kessler says, "all this content is going to start to look a hell of a lot like something we’ve all become really, really good at ignoring. It’s going to look like advertising."

Write Once. Edit Five Times.

Concerning copy, quintessential adman David Ogilvy once told a fellow writer, "I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor."

To compensate for his lack of skill, Ogilvy would edit his own work.
 
"After four or five editings," he said, "it looks good enough to show to the client."

Lousy copy is king on the Web, where carelessness takes a back seat to craft.

Nonsense like this is the norm:

Reach all Convention attendees who opt in to receive a Convention Program (approximately 10,000) for the APA Annual Convention, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 31-Aug. 4, 2013. As an advertiser in this highly visible vehicle, you have a unique opportunity to promote your organization’s products or services in the APA Convention Program. Seeing your ad with your booth number ensures you are on each attendee’s “map”—reinforcing your booth objectives for the show.

Had the writer cared, a single edit would have bolstered her effort:

Make sure you're on the map! Promote your exhibit by advertising in the APA Convention Program, a must-read for 10,000 attendees.

Just imagine what five edits might do.

Next time you write, take Ogilvy's advice: Edit. Edit. Edit. Edit. Edit.

PS: For more good-writing tips from David Ogilvy, check out Branding Strategy Insider.

Another Early Retirement

You can't pick up an advertising textbook that doesn't mention Avis Car Rental's slogan, "We try harder."

The poster child for competitive positioning, the slogan was at the time of its roll-out half a century ago a powerful shot across the bow of the Number One car rental company, Hertz.

Alas, Avis has announced it will retire the slogan in favor of a new one, "It's your space."

Avis' chief marketing officer told Advertising Age the new slogan "presents the brand in terms of the customer experience and the advantages inherent in renting from Avis."

Nothing lasts forever in this wayward world. But I wonder why Avis chose such a humdrum slogan, when it had something so right.

I have a feeling the next early retirement at Avis will be the CMO.

The Closer They are to Buying, the More Customers Talk about Your Advertising

As they near a buying decision, customers talk about your advertising, according to a 2011 study by the Keller Fay Group.


But if your advertising's not talkworthy, they won't have much to say.


That's why it's wise to begin any ad campaign with the copy.


No one ever talks about the clever use of of Calluna Sans in your mailers, the bold use of orange on your home page, or the relaxed read in your radio spots.


The words put the word in "word of mouth."


That's why Miami-based agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky asks its creative teams to submit their ideas for new campaigns in the form of a news release.


By framing the campaign in terms that are newsworthy, they increase the odds the campaign will also be talkworthy.

Mad Man: Copy Rules

I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, a few miles outside New York City.

Both good and bad ad campaigns were pervasive.

There were posters and billboards everywhere: on roadways, in train stations, at bus stops and on the sides of buildings.

I've forgotten all the bad campaigns, but still vividly recall the good stuff.

One of my favorites, a campaign for Levy's Jewish Rye, was cited last week by ad man George Lois in an interview by NPR.

I was delighted to learn from the interview that Lois believes in the primacy of copy.

Even though the synergy between words and images is crucial to a good ad, the copy must come first, Lois insists, "because a line, a slogan should be famous."