Tuesday, 8 October 2013
Bullshit Detector
I came across this Adobe ad again recently and it made me chuckle given all the nonsense that was floating around in the afterglow of Social Media Week.
Personally, I think Adobe missed a trick by not making these bullshit detectors for real. They could have made a fortune as some clients are beginning to slowly cotton on to the fact that there's a lot of snake oil being peddled in the often shady world of digital marketing and could do with some help in quickly outing the purveyors of meaningless gobbledygook.
Monday, 7 October 2013
Needle in a Haystack
Its uncommon to make it through a day without seeing some bullshit chart that unlocks the key to the consumers mind, the ideal production process or how to optimise your brands social media like to sale conversion.
Some on the other hand make a whole lot of sense.
Some on the other hand make a whole lot of sense.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Ad Factories
I'm going to nail my colours to the mast here:
I don't think that advertising is something that benefits from being mass produced.
Yet the vast majority of the advertising we see is produced in vast ad factories.
Factories housing hundreds of people, a production line of human machines each adding a part to the product.
It's efficient.
But it isn't the best way to get the best advertising.
Advertising is conceived and made by people. And talented people tend to make better advertising.
But there aren't enough talented people to produce all of the advertising that needs to be produced.
There aren't enough talented people to keep the factories' production lines moving.
So the factories make out that it isn't the people that make the advertising great.
No. It's the process. The production line.
So the ad factories claim to clients is that their particular production line will ensure the best advertising.
Some clients fall for it.
They buy the production line. They buy the schematic. They buy the chart.
But a schematic doesn't come up with an idea.
A schematic doesn't know the difference between a great edit and a cheesy one.
A schematic can't come up with an image that blows peoples' minds.
A schematic doesn't know how to arrange words into moving, persuasive sentences.
But ad factories have become the norm.
The factories have been successful in selling the production line to clients.
Ad factories are poor at making advertising.
But they are good at selling ad factories.
And let's face it, it's an easy buy for a lot of clients.
Very few dare to buy into the uncertainty of people.
That's a scary thought.
I have to put my budget, and success, into the hands of people?
And hope that they're talented and smart enough to make it great?
It's much easier to buy into the certainty of a process.
A into B, B into C. Output D.
So ad factories have become successful at attracting clients.
They make up the vast majority of the advertising industry.
Agencies, rated by size, by billings.
'The top 30 agencies' say the lists, the articles.
Top 30, always by size.
By the size of billings.
Even though 99% of the advertising that fills those billings is pedestrian.
As if size is the best arbiter of what makes a top agency.
And one of the real shames of all of this, is that many talented people set out to make their own agencies.
They set-up a small boutique, a small workshop of talented people.
They make great advertising.
They craft it, they skilfully, artfully create advertising worth paying attention to.
But then they allow themselves to grow into another factory.
Or be absorbed by one.
Another ad factory, churning out a production line of pedestrian work.
And that, unfortunately, is the work that makes up 99% of what we are subjected to as customers, as punters, as people, every day.
Mass produced, low quality product, from vast factories.
I don't think that advertising is something that benefits from being mass produced.
Yet the vast majority of the advertising we see is produced in vast ad factories.
Factories housing hundreds of people, a production line of human machines each adding a part to the product.
It's efficient.
But it isn't the best way to get the best advertising.
Advertising is conceived and made by people. And talented people tend to make better advertising.
But there aren't enough talented people to produce all of the advertising that needs to be produced.
There aren't enough talented people to keep the factories' production lines moving.
So the factories make out that it isn't the people that make the advertising great.
No. It's the process. The production line.
So the ad factories claim to clients is that their particular production line will ensure the best advertising.
Some clients fall for it.
They buy the production line. They buy the schematic. They buy the chart.
But a schematic doesn't come up with an idea.
A schematic doesn't know the difference between a great edit and a cheesy one.
A schematic can't come up with an image that blows peoples' minds.
A schematic doesn't know how to arrange words into moving, persuasive sentences.
But ad factories have become the norm.
The factories have been successful in selling the production line to clients.
Ad factories are poor at making advertising.
But they are good at selling ad factories.
And let's face it, it's an easy buy for a lot of clients.
Very few dare to buy into the uncertainty of people.
That's a scary thought.
I have to put my budget, and success, into the hands of people?
And hope that they're talented and smart enough to make it great?
It's much easier to buy into the certainty of a process.
A into B, B into C. Output D.
So ad factories have become successful at attracting clients.
They make up the vast majority of the advertising industry.
Agencies, rated by size, by billings.
'The top 30 agencies' say the lists, the articles.
Top 30, always by size.
By the size of billings.
Even though 99% of the advertising that fills those billings is pedestrian.
As if size is the best arbiter of what makes a top agency.
And one of the real shames of all of this, is that many talented people set out to make their own agencies.
They set-up a small boutique, a small workshop of talented people.
They make great advertising.
They craft it, they skilfully, artfully create advertising worth paying attention to.
But then they allow themselves to grow into another factory.
Or be absorbed by one.
Another ad factory, churning out a production line of pedestrian work.
And that, unfortunately, is the work that makes up 99% of what we are subjected to as customers, as punters, as people, every day.
Mass produced, low quality product, from vast factories.
Thursday, 3 October 2013
The Inaction Of The Call To Action
Call to action.
It's one of those phrases that have become such a part of the business of advertising, that they're said and heard often without realising how weird they are.
Apart from when people are arguing about whether an ad should include one or not, that is.
It's a silly argument really, when you think about it.
If someone desperately thinks an ad is lacking a call to action, it's because the ad itself is wrong, or not doing the job properly – or there is a tacit difference of opinion about what the ad is meant to be doing.
Or they don't know what they're doing.
If your intention is for someone to do something specific as a result of seeing a piece of communication, then that should be the actual job of the ad – it shouldn't be relegated to a line of copy or VO thrown in at the end.
I am utterly convinced that your typical one-line call to acton makes absolutely no fucking difference to whether someone does that thing or not.
Say I'm watching an ad for, say, a burger.
If the ad doesn't make me want to try that burger when I'm next in the market for a burger, then adding "Try our burger" at the end, is not going to make any difference.
And the even greater stupidity of adding "Try our burger - Now!" will not convince me to try it Now! either.
It's as if nothing has been learned over the last hundred years of marketing.
People aren't stupid.
If you compellingly show them how something will be good for them, if you explain why something would be in their interests, or convincingly make them desire something, the chances are, you will have successful advertising.
Just adding "Do it, do now! Now! NOW I tell thee!" won't.
It is marketing stupidity of the highest order.
People do things – download an app, buy a burger, test drive a car – if they feel it is in their interests do so.
They do not do it because you tell them to.
Stop it.
Stop it NOW!
It's one of those phrases that have become such a part of the business of advertising, that they're said and heard often without realising how weird they are.
Apart from when people are arguing about whether an ad should include one or not, that is.
It's a silly argument really, when you think about it.
If someone desperately thinks an ad is lacking a call to action, it's because the ad itself is wrong, or not doing the job properly – or there is a tacit difference of opinion about what the ad is meant to be doing.
Or they don't know what they're doing.
If your intention is for someone to do something specific as a result of seeing a piece of communication, then that should be the actual job of the ad – it shouldn't be relegated to a line of copy or VO thrown in at the end.
I am utterly convinced that your typical one-line call to acton makes absolutely no fucking difference to whether someone does that thing or not.
Say I'm watching an ad for, say, a burger.
If the ad doesn't make me want to try that burger when I'm next in the market for a burger, then adding "Try our burger" at the end, is not going to make any difference.
And the even greater stupidity of adding "Try our burger - Now!" will not convince me to try it Now! either.
It's as if nothing has been learned over the last hundred years of marketing.
People aren't stupid.
If you compellingly show them how something will be good for them, if you explain why something would be in their interests, or convincingly make them desire something, the chances are, you will have successful advertising.
Just adding "Do it, do now! Now! NOW I tell thee!" won't.
It is marketing stupidity of the highest order.
People do things – download an app, buy a burger, test drive a car – if they feel it is in their interests do so.
They do not do it because you tell them to.
Stop it.
Stop it NOW!
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Ravel's Bolero like you've never seen it before.
This shiny new website for the London Symphony Orchestra is pretty special.
It's an interactive extravaganza that allows the viewer to watch HD footage of the orchestra performing Ravel's Bolero from lots of different angles at the same time. The functionality lets you flick between them, focus on one, view 4 at a time or find out about the orchestra. All harmoniously in sync with the music.
These things are always difficult to get right. Lots of big, bandwidth heavy media, complicated user interfaces, too many features etc. But the guys at Sennep have smashed it out of the park. I can't think of a better multimedia experience I've had online.
It's utterly compelling, even to the classical music layman. Watching Valery Gergiev's intense focus as he masterfully conducts the orchestra is mesmerising.
Oh, and I'd recommend whacking your speakers up to 11 to get the full Bolero hit.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Vespa Print Ads from Voices Of East Anglia
Voices Of East Anglia is not a new talent show hosted by Alan Partridge. It's actually a treasure trove of retro and vintage pop culture ephemera from, in their words, "the deepest recesses of the internet".
The site's always well worth a visit if you want to lose yourself in the obscure, the bizarre and the long forgotten as this nifty collection of Vespa print advertising from around t'world illustrates.
More Vespa ads from their collection here.
The site's always well worth a visit if you want to lose yourself in the obscure, the bizarre and the long forgotten as this nifty collection of Vespa print advertising from around t'world illustrates.
More Vespa ads from their collection here.
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