What's Your Advertising Budget?

Everyone has an advertising budget, even if they spend all of it or not.

Advertising agencies, corporates with a big advertising budget, small businesses with a reasonable advertising budget, and even your wanna-be influencer friend who buys branded everything because it’s within their budget, advertise.

Adding our good old friend, the Internet, we’re constantly bombarded with messages about what to buy and where to buy them – and if you’re as high-strung as I am, you tend to plan your life out to the T (or at least try). I think any reasonable person often has a budget they work with – whether you’re responsible for it or not is an entirely different topic.

For example, I have a grocery budget (like many people)! What I can and cannot purchase will depend on that budget – and sometimes, that budget can even increase or decrease, depending on other factors. This begs me to ask; WHAT’S THE BUDGET?

Advertising is not everyone’s game – but so is every other work that requires expertise to provide. Let’s say your watch broke and you need a new one, but you can only spare $300 for it; you know not to go shopping at any luxury stores. In the same way, when you have $50,000, you’re more likely to be able to afford a watch that represents status as well as tells time.

I know that anything that has to do with money is a tricky conversation to have. Whether that’s asking a bank for a loan or getting quotes from different companies – people tend to shy away from disclosing what their budget is. I understand that people tend to gravitate towards either the cheapest option or the option with the best value these days. However, as a company that supplies services to clients – it’s critical for us to know what your actual budget is.

In saying that, here are four reasons why you should disclose your budget to an advertising agency:

1. It gives us a better idea of how to provide (and deliver) your advertising requirement.

2. Knowing your budget saves both parties’ TIME – the most precious resource we have in life.

3. It streamlines the process of finding the right solution to your problem.

4. You’ll find that disclosing your budget for every project produces the best value from your advertising.

By now, people should be aware that they will always get what they pay for – but in terms of advertising, you will always be better off telling us what your budget is. I know that there’s a whole heap of trust involved when it comes to spending money, but advertising should always be looked at as an investment rather than an expense. Advertising is an art of persuasion. When you trust your advertising agency, they will work hard for you to get value out of your spending, but most importantly, they will lay out a plan to use your budget to create revenue for your business.

 Now tell me, what’s your budget?

ANZ Bank – We Do How

ANZ bank has been pushing their latest advertising campaign, “We do how”, for quite some time now.

As is the norm for the banking sector, ANZ is still advertising the usual bank offerings. There’s nothing new on offer that you can’t get with any other bank. The campaign is fairly good as far as banking advertising goes, and like all banks, it’s backed by a mega budget.

The characters in the campaign, the Sharma family, are fairly likeable. We have Ravi; the “trying-too-hard-hero-dad”, Claire; the token mother, and Sameer and Tara; the prop-like children. The variations of the theme are clever in the series of ads they’ve made, which blend together nicely.

However, their singular pay-off line in the advert below makes me cringe: “See how ANZ could help you pay off your home loan faster”. As a homeowner, I’m really into the concept of paying off our mortgage as fast as possible. The idea of paying vast amounts of interest to tyrannical banks has no appeal to me and I want to be out of our black hole of debt as quickly as possible.

The depressing part of this commercial is that ANZ clearly shows that our characters have had a mortgage since January 2000, and now, 22 years later, they still owe $47,360. 22 Years in debt is already a very long time.

What’s far worse in this advertisement is that ANZ’s claim is frivolous and that’s because one word sticks out of their payoff line: “See how ANZ could help you pay off your home loan faster”. Yes, they could help you, but will they, and how? How can ANZ advertise such a vague, variable service in such a way? It’s all puffery. I can’t even say they’ve used some smoke and mirrors trickery here – they’ve just weaselled out of their service offering by claiming that they might be able to help.

If the Sharma family have been in debt for 22 years, how is ANZ making their mortgage go “out the door” any faster? And most importantly, what benefits are there for consumers to move from one faceless banking institution to another? If all they can offer are low mortgage rates then how long will it take for other banks to match them?

What would have happened if ANZ and their advertising agency, TBWA NZ, used a more persuasive word that drives action, like “will”? What if ANZ had instead said, “See how ANZ will help you pay off your home loan faster”? What would the response have been from consumers and would they switch to ANZ?

One word can make all the difference, especially in advertising.

Media Space Versus Creative – Who Wins?

The creative work of advertising agencies is more important than media space.

Media space is the exact same 30 seconds of wasted time that it was 30 seconds ago. Media is static, boring, unchallenging, and interruptive. Media is nothing without a creative message, especially if the creativity asks for permission to communicate with consumers.

Here are ten pros and cons of media and creativity:

1. Con: Media is just a space, and there’s too much space, meaning media is no longer valuable or scarce. Please tell me, where can’t I advertise?

2. Pro: You can make heaps of cash through media commission throughout the lifetime of the campaign. Produce one ad and run it for a year and you’re rolling in it.

3. Con: You can’t make heaps of cash through creativity. Sorry.

4. Con: Creativity is a sliding scale and suffers from the “Jackson Pollock Curse”. What appeals to one person is a failure to many others.

5. Pro: Media doesn’t necessarily share creativity’s failures. The ads will still run if the client is happy to do so, even if consumers find the ads ineffective.

6. Con: Media measurement is mostly pointless. One hundred thousand people saw your ad three times during a six-month campaign – how many sales did you make?

7. Con: Don’t get me started on how media builds awareness. Awareness is masturbation.

8. Con: Media is an interruption. Who invited you into my life? People care that you have their permission to talk to them. Just because I have an Internet connection doesn’t mean you can bombard me with banner ads.

9. Con: If you’re spending big money on media, then creativity loses power. Think of Harvey Norman, Bunnings, and Mitre 10, all not known for creative excellence.

10. Pro: Creativity is unbridled, powerful, and can be life-altering and immense.

A lot more cons than pros. In most circumstances, people do not care about the place but only about the content. No one stands outside the Louvre to say they stood outside the Louvre. They stand for hours outside the Louvre so they can say they finally got in and saw the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo. I’ll admit that not every gallery is as amazing as the Louvre, and obviously, not every piece of art is a Mona Lisa, but how many people want to stare at a blank wall?

Creativity wins.

Often the story is truer than the truth.

People love a good story, and nothing is truer than in advertising.

Or is it? The story of how delicious a McDonalds’ burger looks and influences us in an advert is far more powerful than the truth – the tiny burger that you get in a store, stuffed into a tight, snapping white box, and dumped into a brown paper bag. The two don’t match, but that’s okay since the story is what consumers buy into. Should it be?

Compare Maccas to Save The Children, a charitable organisation that, (well, how else can I say it?) want to save children from hunger, sickness, disease, and many other issues. What Save The Children want from people is a small, monthly contribution of $20. Unlike Maccas, their advertising and website tell the truth – images of children and babies suffering through terrible conditions are the majority of what you see and read about. It’s heart-breaking. Is it possible they can tell a story that is more powerful and motivational than the truth? After all, what’s the story you tell yourself about $20 per month?

Two Save The Children ambassadors knocked on my door a few weeks ago. The truth is I said no, I wouldn’t help. Maybe it was the inconvenience of filling out forms and giving bank details to strangers, or perhaps I’m just a shitbag? But it is what it is, and the truth hurts me.

In the world of advertising, the story and the truth should always be the same, but they’re often not – that’s the truth. What right does any business have to lie to consumers and why is the vast majority so willing to absolutely accept the story?

As an advertiser, where does the line stop between telling a manipulative story versus going out there and spreading the power of the truth?