Advertising and politics

Advertising for political parties sucks, doesn’t it?

Sure, we have to have it in our lives because short of running around with assault rifles and Molotov cocktails, or giving some muppet with bad hair total control, it’s the only way to run society.

But damn, why does it always have to be so hard?

For example, who’d want to be an American at the moment? It’s an election year and their political system has descended well beyond the level of farce into, oh I don’t know… debacle maybe?

Never mind the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and endless Congressional deadlocks that could shut everything down, the poor buggers also have to deal with a Republican primary field that looks like it’s made up of rejects from a C-Grade horror movie, while the “obvious” Democratic candidate is nothing more than the same old, same old wearing a dress. At least they’ve got Bernie to make it interesting instead of just being utter laughing stocks on a global scale.

Then there’s little old New Zealand. Frankly we shouldn’t be too smug. A quick look through the archives of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight show makes it plain that we’ve got our own share of cringe-worthy politicians, hell bent on lifting their game to world-class levels of buffoonery. If I said what I thought about our Prime Minister, I’d probably get locked up, but he’s there because middle New Zealand loves a “winner” (choke), and because there’s no other bloody choice!

If I was a Yank with conservative leanings, I’d have to choose between creatures like Trump and Cruz. In New Zealand, I get to choose between a flag changing, ponytail tugger and… hang on, who’s running Labor again? And as much of a hippie as I am, the Greens would just muck it up given enough rope. But if I want a PM and a party who seem to be more aligned with my values, and less inclined to change the flag just “because”, then I might actually have to give one of the other parties my vote, even if they’ve got zero chance of winning or even of having an impact. Talk about a lousy choice.

Politics is all about choosing the lesser of two evils, which are basically two pieces of the same pie with marginally different fillings when it comes down to it. If the whole mess wasn’t fired up by ideology, no one would ever vote. And if anyone could find a credible alternative, we’d probably roll it out in a flash.

Which brings us to advertising. In most cases, we have more than one choice of any particular product or service, but usually, they’re all much of a muchness, no matter how stridently the various brands proclaim their uniqueness.

I’ve written before about grudge purchases. Some products and services (like insurance or shock absorbers for example) are total grudge purchases, but others, well, they’re stuff we need or want, but these purchases are either driven by ideology aka belief, or price. We buy a certain beer because we like the taste, or we identify with the brand’s values and advertising messages i.e. we believe. Or we buy whatever’s reasonably tasty at a big discount at the supermarket on a Friday afternoon because price matters more.

But truth be told, we could buy any of the brands. Heineken is Steinlager is Stella. Don’t kid yourself they’re not. And Lexus is BMW is Audi as much as State is IAG is Southern Cross. You only think they’re different because you’ve been told they are often enough.

What would happen if a brand became a grudge purchase based purely on ideology? If your favourite beer became the name sponsor of the Australian rugby team, who went on to handily and repeatedly trounce your beloved All Blacks? It’s unlikely, I know, but bear with me.

Would you change your beer? Are you buying based on a thin veneer of belief and nothing more? Are the things that make up who you are (fashion, phone, accessories, car etc.) nothing more than constructs in your head?

More to the point, if you run a business, or are involved in the marketing one, then what are you and your company doing to truly stand out and to offer products or services that are more than just the sum of their price and the messages you feed out into the world?

Think about how you’d market a true grudge purchase, and then apply that same thinking to your own marketing. Why would you want to sell stuff that’s merely the lesser of two or more evils, when you could stand out and be remarkable? What happens when you slip down the ladder and are seen, for whatever reason, to be more “evil” in some small way than the opposition?

Here’s my usual hint – you won’t be different (or “not evil”) by doing the same thing you always did. And embracing whatever the latest trend is doesn’t count either because your competitors are already doing just that. You need to look at the big picture and find ways to be excellent, and if you can do that, along with everyone at your organisation, then the consumer will always find ways to support that.

Otherwise you’re just another part of the filling of a big, but exceedingly bland pie.

Getting a job in an advertising agency.

Partisan Advertising recently ran another advert on SEEK looking for someone to join our advertising agency.

I like to be creative when writing recruitment ads as it makes the process a bit more fun for me. And I like to think it will be fun for those who read it and hopefully it will attract a better kind of applicant. In our ads, I like to include what some people refer to as “crazy pitches”. I start by telling applicants that I do not want to see their resumes. That’s only half the crazy bit. What I ask these punters to do instead is to send me (together with their portfolio) something that shows their uniqueness. This can take the form of a letter, a song, a dirty limerick, a dirty video (so far I’ve only gotten one), a poem, a photo; basically anything that shows the real you. That’s all I ask for.

I do this because I abhor resumes.
 
There’s nothing worse than putting your future employment possibilities in the hands of an indistinguishable Word document set in 10 points Arial with double line spacing detailing when and where and what has led you to this point in your life. Especially if you’re responding to an ad for a spot in an advertising agency, and even more so if you’re responding to an advert written by a crazy person asking applicants to send in dirty videos* instead of resumes.
 
Why? Because you never do the same job twice in advertising.
 
Sure you might be unfortunate enough to do 12 TV commercials a year but the only thing that’s similar between them is the media in which they are shown. The same goes for social media campaigns, logo design, web design, brochures, billboards, packaging and on and on and on. The requirements are different for each because the message, and the execution of that message, is different every single time, without fail.

So when it comes to applying for a job, why do people choose the same method for every application, which also happens to be the exact same method everyone else chooses? It’s kinda like trying to sell a TV commercial for tampons to a company that manufactures bricks. It just can’t be done.

Hence the “crazy pitches” I include in our recruitment ads.  
 
The advertising industry is meant to be full of the crazy ones. The ones that somehow find a way to compare drug use to the frying of an egg; who transform ordinary men wearing ordinary shirts into legends merely by adding an eye patch to their attire. These are the people that manipulate and persuade consumers like sirens calling sailors to the rocks. I’m smart enough to know that I’m not one of these people but I’m also smart enough to know that I want to work with people like that. And you don’t find these people in a two page Word document set in 10 points Arial with double line spacing. Unfortunately, you don’t find them in dirty videos either.
 
*P.S. The dirty video I received was from a cool art director who loved motor-cross and who was covered in mud when he made the video. Sadly he lived in Belgium.

Does advertising work? 2016 Review.

I’m an immigrant, just like all New Zealanders.

I arrived here in 2008 from South Africa. Now you most likely have heard about the madness that is South Africa so I won’t go into it any further. Except to say that it wasn’t the deadly bleakness running rampant through the country that made me decide it was time to grab my family and leave. There were so many reasons to leave and just as many to stay. What finally made me leave was an advert.

It wasn’t a beautifully shot television commercial proclaiming that New Zealand was the place to be. Nor a beautiful, full-page ad in a lush magazine. It was a newspaper ad and I can remember it as clearly now as the day I first read it. It was simple. It was one colour. It was one column wide (about 4 centimetres) and 4 centimetres high. Half the size of a business card. In a serif font, perhaps Times, it read: “Thinking of immigrating to Canada, Australia or New Zealand? Contact Network Immigration to find out if it’s possible.” There was a telephone number and a web address.

I got in touch with Network Immigration and after some brief chit-chat I was told there would be a free seminar at a hotel near my offices and if I’d like more info I should attend. Three days later I went to that hotel, and walked into a conference room packed with people, somewhere in the region of 200 stuffed into a room best suited for 50. There wasn’t a seat to be found. I ended up sitting against a wall midway down the room. I took notes and listened intently. Six months later I was living in New Zealand with my family. So yes, advertising does work. Without doubt.

But there’s always a crack in every theory, and this is mine: what truly matters in the wide world of advertising is what you say and whether consumers give a damn to pay attention to it.

Can an Advertising Agency Heal The World?

If you’re feeling a bit down and you can’t quite work out why, it may be because you’ve seen the news recently.

The media thrives on negative stories. Media studies show that bad news far outweighs good news by as much as seventeen negative news stories for every one positive news story. Every day, we are inundated with sinister stories and depressing information fed to us by mainstream media. While learning about the dark side of the world can propel us into making positive changes, in most cases sinister stories serve no purpose but to sell papers to the voyeurs and cynics of this world.

I remember feeling resentment towards the New Zealand media earlier this year when they prolonged coverage of the Charleston shooting. I felt tremendously sad and powerless at the time as there was little I could do but feel deep sympathy for the victims. The media coverage went on and on, obsessing over all the details so that even when I wasn’t reading about the story, I was still thinking about it. I could only imagine that the people of Charleston would have felt twice as upset as me, but also may have been less inclined to leave their house that day.

Negative media stories are not just upsetting the public; they’re also harming businesses. In 2009, economists in the US found a correlation between negative media stories about the recession and consumer spending during the recession. The more fearful people were about the recession, the less inclined they were to go out and spend as usual. There were industries that benefited from the sinister stories such as the drug, sex and gambling industries, but for most businesses, the fearful public spelt bad news. Nothing has really changed.

The New Zealand media seem all too keen to publish a sad or sinister story. With that said, is there an opportunity for businesses to lighten up the mood a little bit when the media have consumers feeling down? Social media is not only a comparatively cheap platform on which to advertise, but it is also the best way to constantly connect with consumers. It’s also how media companies engage readers. What I have noticed is that when people see something bad, they will often look for something good to negate those unpleasant feelings. They’re looking for a pick-me-up and that is where the smart business comes in.

Last week I opened my Facebook account and the first post to appear was a video of ISIS, yet again senselessly destroying something sacred and historic. Without clicking on anything, the New Zealand Herald’s video began to play and I was subjected to a couple of seconds of explosions and flames. Needless to say, my mood was immediately dampened, in fact, I felt violated. I scrolled down to the next post and that’s when life improved. A local café had posted a photo of the most decadent chocolate cake I have ever seen. The cake flaunted three layers of rich chocolate with ebony sauce dripping down the front side. Accompanying the photo was an even sweeter headline “Chocolate fixes everything.” I repeated the line in my head and in my moment of sadness, I agreed, that chocolate was a fix I could do with. That weekend I visited the café and I ordered the cake that was advertised. It wasn’t nearly as delicious as the Facebook photo suggested, but it didn’t matter, the café had won my money due to their timely online post.

Advertising campaigns do not always need to be mesmerizingly clever and original, sometimes strategic placement and good timing will do the trick. Like most things in life, advertising is all about timing. With so many negative stories constantly circulating the Internet, it’s easy to find a good time to advertise your brand and be a contrast to a negative story.

The social media revolution has enabled businesses to reach out to consumers 24/7 and thanks to media sites, there’s a lot of displeasing information constantly crowding the Internet. Perhaps there’s something your business could be doing on-line to help customers forget about all of the negativity?