25
Jan
I recently came across this fascinating post about Apple Marketing principles, as articulated by Apple circa 1977. Here they are:
Now, as a marketer, the Empathy and Focus parts are second nature — at least in terms of understanding. Putting them into practice every day is harder stuff, but any copywriter that doesn’t understand the importance of empathizing with the prospective customer and focusing in on their primary buying motivations and concerns isn’t a copywriter at all.
It’s the last element most marketers and copywriters screw up or overlook: the importance of Imputed Quality. Not nuts and bolts, specification-driven build quality or value for the dollar quality. But quality cues that tap into buyers’ pre-existing mental imprint of luxury and virtuous manufacture. The telling detail that says everything.
Want to see an example of imputed quality used in copy? Here ya go:
Notice that the actual build quality is detailed by the bullet points of the body copy, while the imputed quality — the telling detail — is given pride of place within the headline of the ad itself.*
Of course, this sort of quality cue or imputed quality factor has to be already existing or freshly baked into the product or service itself before it can be advertised, but recognizing the need for it — and doing the patient research and digging to find it — is one of the major keys to writing copy that works.
Apple of course, is a master at this, which is one reason they are renowned design icons, because inspired design imputes high quality. But it’s also why Apple never skimps on screen quality, keyboard feel, and the overall polish put on their user interfaces: those are the sort of tangible, experiential things that impute quality.
Yes, of course, we expect real quality from an Apple product in the sense of freedom from typical PC-like annoyances, annoyances brilliantly dramatized and mocked by Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign. But even if you knew nothing about Apple or PCs and just LOOKED at the competing products laid side by side, you’d intuitively get that one set of products were special and nicer than the rest. Regardless of how their internal components and specs stacked up.
So Here Are My 3 Takeaways from This:
1) Quality is important, but quality without imputed quality will go unrewarded in the marketplace.
2) Business owners should never expect customers to recognize quality and should “bake” imputed quality into their offerings.
3) Copywriters who fail to use imputed quality cues will end up with underperforming ad copy.
P.S. — Want to see an already-existing quality cue in action? Check out these guys thudding the door closed on a Mercedes:
P.P.S. — How do I know that Ogilvy diligently searched for product facts that would help him find and recognize important quality cues? Because he listed research twice when explaining his copywriting methodology! Steps 3 and 5 both emphasize the importance of research and facts.
* For a more detailed analysis of this famous Ogilvy Ad, check out my old GrokDotcom post.
Kindness and Professionalism — that’s what great customer service boils down to, according to my colleague Tim Miles.
And while Tim has drilled down to discover the 7 elements in small business Kindness and Professionalism (which you should consider a must-read), for me the real genius is in his general formula of “Kindness and Professionalism.” Why?
Because it’s the opposite of “Adding insult to injury.”
Believe it or not most medical malpractice suits, along with most “United Breaks Guitars” PR and word of mouth catastrophes all prominently feature both elements — often with the “insult” taking precedence over the injury.
Imagine what would typically happen without the “Insult.” If united broke the guitar and then apologized and even only partially compensated Dave Carroll for the loss, do you still think he would have made that video. Think about that: even if the ordeal still cost Dave hundreds of dollars — even if the “injury” part of the equation was still present — that element alone would never have sparked a viral YouTube revenge without the added injury of an uncaring and calloused bureaucratic response.
But flipping the equation goes beyond avoiding PR nightmares; adding kindness to professionalism offers a powerful mental framework for creating emotionally compelling customer service. And these elements are present in every “WOW” customer service story you’ll ever hear or experience, whether it’s the I Heart Zappos story, the various Nordie stories, and so on.
So, think about it: Kindness and Professionalism.
And then head on over to Tim’s blog to see everything that can go into each part of that dynamic duo.
Ever wonder what happened to Avis’s “We’re No. 2″ campaign?
I always assumed Avis foolishly dropped it out of boredom. Some brand manager wanted to put his “mark” on things and foolishly killed the goose that was laying golden eggs. But that’s not nearly as interesting as what really happened…
See, a few years after Avis and Doyle Dane Bernbach launched their legendary campaign, Hertz (aka No. 1) got nervous about how quickly Avis was gobbling up their market share. So Hertz got wise and hired the other legendary creative agency of the day: Ally & Gargano.
And here’s the counter-campaign that Carl Ally created for Hertz:
Hertz basically took that “No. 2″ position and rammed it right up Avis’s arse, detailing point by point what customers give up when they rent cars from the smaller company: locations, car selection, guaranteed performance, customer support infrastructure, etc. And you gotta love that ending line: “No. 2 says he tries harder. Than who?”
That counter-campaign went for the throat. And the results show that it worked:
To the right you’ll see a snapshot from a leaf of a new book on Ally & Gargano. You can find a digital version of the entire page here. But the important points to note are:
1) “After only 90 days from the start [of the campaign], Avis abandoned their extremely successful campaign and quickly created advertising with no references to Hertz, Trying Harder, or being Number 2.”
2) From the launch of the campaign at the tail-end of 1966, Avis’s market share flat-lined and Hertz maintained their position as the leader in the industry (which wouldn’t have happened had the earlier trends continued on for another 2 years).
And that’s what happened to the famed “We’re Number 2″ advertising campaign.
So what are the lessons to take away from this?
First, I think Avis wimped out on this one. If they were vulnerable on their branding, it was because they weren’t factually living up to their “We Try Harder” claim. But even then, they could have re-vamped their customer experience and fought back rather than voluntarily surrendering the one campaign that was actually working for them.
Before the Avis campaign was launched in 1963, Bill Bernbach insisted that Avis revamp their fleet and actually improve the customer experience so that he had a “better reality” to advertise. If Avis was really serious about keeping the campaign — and they should have been — why didn’t they make another revamp and show exactly how they “tried harder” than Hertz
Second, you simply can’t afford to ignore great advertising. If a competitor has launched an immensely successful ad campaign that resonates with the public and that’s driving increased market share, you must respond. And the only way to do that is with great advertising of your own.
Third, counter branding works both ways. Ries and Trout famously advised challenger brands to “find the weakness in your competitor’s strength” and that’s exactly what Avis did with their “No. 2″ campaign. But “Marketing is often a battle for legitimacy. The first brand that captures that concept is often able to portray it’s competitors as illegitimate pretenders.”* And that’s how Hertz countered Avis’s counter branding — by recasting Avis as an illegitimate pretenders to the “customer service” throne.
At least, those are my takeaways. I’d be thrilled to read yours in the comments…
* Quote taken from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
1
Jun
“Songs with words are recalled more quickly (and with greater accuracy) than music that has no words. Likewise, pictures with people in them are viewed more often (and longer) than pictures that have no people.”
- Roy H. Williams, Secret Formulas of The Wizard of Ads
I’ve always cringed at the mention of “personal branding.”
“Personal branding” grates on me because I believe that it’s far more profitable to understand corporate branding through the lens of personal reputation than to create some kind of contrived reputation through use of corporate branding.
For example, if you understand brand as reputation, you can’t help but understand that:
- Your actions speak louder than your words
- What others say about you is more important than what you say about you
- Deep relationships are more important than shallow popularity
- Straight-talking, look-you-in-the-eye individuals are trusted while “organizational men” aren’t
And yet, I do believe that the very best advocates for personal branding have a worthwhile point or two, namely that:
1. People want to do business with other people — people they know and trust
There’s magic to George Zimmer promising us that “You’ll like the way you look, I guarantee it.” Or a Lee Iacocca challenging us with “If you can find a better car, buy it.”
The magic lies in the human connection, in the sense of doing business with a live human being invested with the magical power of free will, instead of with some faceless organization, utterly without agency.
When given a choice, we prefer businesses run by people whose passion for what they do extends beyond making money. People who’ll do the right thing; people that care.
We want to know that Mama Gert Boyle simply won’t stand for her company to produce anything less than the best, even to the point of torture testing Columbia’s clothing on her own son. This hits us at a far deeper level than technical specifications.
Want to see what it looks like when a small business puts some of this magic into their advertising?
Check out Tim Mile’s branding campaign for a local Heating and Air Conditioning Company
2. (most) People can’t “know” the real you
Do you think that any of us actually knows the real Lee Iacocca? Other than his wife, kids, and close friends? Heck no. And yet most of us feel as if we know him. He has a public persona.
The reason most of us don’t have a crafted public persona is because most decent people shy away from self aggrandizement. It goes against the grain and feels icky.
We’re far more comfortable with Jimmy Stewart’s “aw shucks” foot twisting than Donald Trump’s “I’m the greatest” chest thumping.
We have to grow more comfortable both with the need for self-promotion and with the need to provide the public with a narrower and more easily grasped projection of ourselves than could possibly fit our own complex personalities. We have to be OK with the public perceiving us as something approaching a caricature of our real selves.
I’m sure the owner of the HVAC Company that Tim Miles renamed “Dr. Comfort” probably wouldn’t have thought to caricaturize himself as a method to brand his company. Nor would he most likely have been too comfortable with what must have seemed a boastful and over-reaching title — that of “Dr. Comfort.”
And yet the strategic use of the Dr. Comfort persona has convinced a lot of people to do business with him.
How Domino’s Could Have Made “Rate Our Chicken” Even Better
Want to see this at work in a national ad campaign? Check out Tom Wanek’s analysis of Domino’s Rate Our Chicken Ad.
Just keep in mind that Tom approaches this analysis from a Credibility-based perspective. He’s analyzing how Domino’s use of transparency and signaling lends credibility to their claim of superior chicken.
And from that perspective, Tom finds fault with how the “Rate Our Chicken” ad opens and closes its message. It opens with a weak, non-attention-bragging image and it closes with a show of hesitancy and doubt on the part of Domino’s chicken expert. Tom recommends a more confident closing image — and he’s right!
But that’s coming from a logical/credibility perspective.
What actually unites the two mental images has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the magic of “Pictures with People.” Tate Dillow is the thread running throughout the commercial, and he is who commands both the opening and closing images of the ad.
As much as Domino’s is looking to gain credibility through transparency, they are also looking to gain an emotional involvement through Tate Dillow’s public persona as Mr. Domino’s Chicken. And for the most part it works.
But as Tom so rightly points out, it could be made better by strengthening the opening and closing images. Yet knowing that Tate is the thread that holds the commercial together, we wouldn’t want to remove him from either the opening or closing images. Nor would we want to do away with any image that helps to convey Tate’s humanity to the audience.
So my suggestion would be to simply switch the opening and closing mental images.
Show me the transparently human and understandably nervous-about-the-box Tate Dillow first. Make me curious why the box has him so worked up. Hook me into his story.
Then, at the end of the commercial, show me the confident, “My Name’s Tate Dillon and I am Domino’s Chicken” image, leaving me with the impression that this guy’s hell-bent on giving me great chicken.
The Bottom Line:
The best bet for your ads isn’t to be either purely logical or emotional, but to combine the two in the evident passion and verifiable actions of a spokesperson the public can trust. And if you’re the owner of the company, that spokesperson should likely be you.
Are you up for it?
P.S. I couldn’t find an already-online version of Roy H. Williams’ essay, “Song’s with Words, Pictures with People,” so I made a hasty scan of it and posted it here. Enjoy…
22
May
Portals and Why They Matter
“Taking it to the next level” is cliché. So is the phrase “he/she/it opened a lot of doors for me.” But people still reach for these phrases regardless. There’s a reason for that.
Both phrases reflect an intuitive understanding of transitions: that there’s always a threshold to cross. Boundaries define an area, environment, or world. Movement past boundaries necessitates movement through openings in those boundaries — or though portals, if you will.
So where there is change, there are portals, or so our subconscious minds expect. But all too often, businesses fail to meet our subconscious expectation for portals.
Businesses usually want to transition shoppers from thinking one way about a product or service (price sensitive) to another way of thinking, typically one that elevates shared values, big-picture performance, and total experience above price. The goal is to move shoppers from an objective, consumer-reports mindset to an enthusiast’s mindset.
And yet people don’t just snap from one state of mind into another; there has to be a transition and a portal to mark that transition. Put plainly: if you’re selling premium products or experiences, you need to understand the power of portals.
Fantasy Writers Understand Portals
When it comes to portals, perhaps the best people to study are fantasy writers, who have always intuitively sensed the need for portals between worlds:
- C.S. Lewis had his Wardrobe.
- J.K. Rowling had her Platform 9 3/4s,
- L. Frank Baum had Dorothy ride her twister, and
- The Wachowski Brothers gave Neo his red pill (among other portals).
Enter The Picture Book Powerhouse of Portals
But some of the most intense and easily observed stacking of portals I’ve come across take place in a children’s picture book: Skippyjon Jones, by Judy Schachner.
And what follows is my breakdown of Portal Stacking in Skippyjon Jones. And to start, let me give you a bit of set-up…
Skippyjon Jones is a young Siamese Cat who likes to pretend that he’s really some other animal. The story starts with him pretending to be a bird, much to his mother’s dismay. So she sends him to his room for a little time out, and that’s when ol’ Skippyjon begins his transformation into the great sword-fighting Chihuahua, El Skippito Friskito. A transformation involving portals galore.
First, Skippyjon starts bouncing on his bed, with the bouncing symbolically equivalent to flight. Then, during that flight, Skippyjon Jones encounters his first portal:
Literature is rife with the notion of mirrors as portals. And Skippyjon’s midflight glimpse into his mirror reveals his hidden chihuahua nature. A nature which is amplified through the donning of a Lone Ranger style mask by the little kitty. Skippyjon literally becomes invested in the identity.
Then we flash down to Skippyjon’s mother and sisters watching TV downstairs, talking about Skippyjon’s time out. But when the book cuts back to Skippyjon Jones, we’re not brought back up into the room, but forced to look into his room through — you guessed it — a portal:
We’re outside seeing Skippyjon objectively as a masked kitty racing around his room like a freak. And the half-conscious expectation is that when we move inside, we’ll transition from outside to inside in more ways than one, moving from an objective to a subjective understanding, so that we will start to see what Skippyjon/El Skippito Friskito sees.
Still, the reader is further prompted to engage in Skippyjon’s whimsy by yet another portal transition, this time from the room to the closet:
So we have a double-portal transition, from outside the room to inside, and from inside the well-lit room to inside the dark closet, wherein the magical realm of imagination rules, and where Skippyjon Jones, the Siamese cat, fully becomes El Skippito Friskito, the great sword-fighting Chihuahua.
But still, if Skippyjon is to fight something truly monstrous, he might have to cross yet another portal within the imaginary story, before he is to face the monster. And so it is, as Skippito and his band of Chihuahua friends take a nap, using sleep as the ultimate portal to dreams…
And that’s when the adventures really begin. Until, at the conclusion of Skippyjon’s imaginative adventure, El Skippito is blown back through the portal/closet door, and back to the everyday reality of his mother and sisters. Portal crossing in; portal crossing out.
So why is this important for the book?
It makes the difference between watching a kitten dream something silly, and being emotionally pulled along with him into his dreams. All those portals really help readers (of all ages) “get into” the story. Yes the story itself is delightful, and yes, the author (Judy Schachner) does a wonderful job making the book a blast to read. But I can’t help but think the brilliant use of portals has more than a little do with the books critical praise and widespread popularity.
And in case you think I’m reading too much into this, take a look at the Official Skippyjon Jones Website’s entrance page:
Anyone want to guess what happens when you click to enter? Go ahead and try it!
So, that’s cool and all, but how can you use it for your business? We’ll get into that next week…
But for now, let me just give Judy Schachner’s book a hardy plug for all those with young kids out there. It won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award because it’s both a blast for the parents to read and a delight for kids to listen to. Highly recommended.
And who knows, you might learn something too…
P.S. My mentor and business partner, Roy H. Williams, teaches an entire course on portals. If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, you probably ought to check out Wizard Academy at some point. And, yes, as adjunct faculty, my opinion on Wizard Academy is heavily biased ; )
28
Mar
Actually, the title should say Myths, as there are two of them.
Stradivarius Myth #1
The first Myth is that there is one single isolated element responsible for the unique sound and virtue of a Stradivari.
Most theories about the Stradivari magic fall into the “silver bullet” category. According to them, just one, solitary factor or element make these violin tower over all other merely mortal violins. Some say it’s the wood density; others the resin or chemicals used to treat the wood, or the way the wood was shaped or constructed. But the vast majority point to just one thing.
Almost no one claims that the unique sound signature is due to a hundred smaller aspects pushed in the right direction and working together synergistically. Superior craftsmanship, after all, usually involves the artisan making thousands of decisions and getting them all right, not just in isolation, but in terms of how each decision affects the whole. So one might figure that most theorists would suggest a multitude of elements rather than “One Big Thing.” Yet precious few ever suggest this.
We simply don’t think of explanations like this because we’ve lost touch with the nature of craft in this mass-produced, hyper-rationalized, “7 Steps for dummies to earn riches in their sleep” world of ours.
We not only desperately want there to be an easily analyzed and duplicated shortcut, but balk at acknowledging exceptions to this because they imply a rebuke. To suggest that excellence is made up of a totality rather than one secret formula is to suggest that there’s no substitution for long diligent practice, for study, for mastery of craft, and for attention to detail.
And who wants to hear that?
Stradivarius Myth #2
The Second Myth is that Stradivari really are better than the very best modern violins.
Believe it or not, there are highly trained craftsman that have dedicated their professional lives to creating violins to the same standards of the Stradivari. And by every objective and subjective test some of them are as good as those legendary violins that sell for 100 times as much money. Whether it’s scientists recording and analyzing the sound quality, or it’s expert musicians and violinists listening “blind” to a comparison, there’s no evidence that the Stradivari outperform the best modern-made violins.
So the superiority of these violins is largely subjective, encompassing far more magical thinking and legend than fact, such that, when put to the pepsi-challenge, many Stradivari devotees end up preferring the sound of the modern violins.
So what does this tell you?
It tells you that expectations override perception:
- Wine in an expensive bottle tastes better than the same wine out of a jug or box.
- High-end name brands not only make us feel better about the products, but about ourselves, as well.
- And precious few people can pick out quality on its own merits alone.
So here are 2 Marketing To-Dos:
To-Do #1 = Get the Little Big Things Right; Aim for Mastery
This one is hard, but crucial. Just as the Stradivari’s excellence resides in hundreds of elements, deftly aligned and optimized, so too is your brand made up of scores of touch points: your parking lot, bathrooms, packaging, on-hold messaging, customer service reps, auto-responders, Website copy, and so on. And the same goes with any brand.
Case in point: after every launch of an Apple product, some knock-off jumps into the fray, heralded as an i-killer due to it’s superior specs or 1–2 killer functions. Yet these so-called i-killers always end up slaughtered in the marketplace. Why?
Because the appeal of Apple’s products never rests on price, functionality, or specs alone. Apple products are the Stradivari of the marketplace because Steve Jobs and crew understand Myth #1; they push hundreds of small, seemingly tiny elements in the right direction to create a whole that’s much bigger — and far more profitable — than the sum of its parts. Which is why the invariably leave the “silver bullet” products in the dust.
So commit to mastery and push for added excellence on each small piece that goes into the process. Don’t rely on just one thing to pull you through.
To-Do #2 = Create Your Own Brand Mythology
This one’s a bit harder to explain, let alone pull off, but for starters, why not let your advertising “Manage Up” your sales, service, and technical staff? If you don’t currently have a genesis story, worth sharing, why not go dig one up and polish it off? In other words, share your passion, so people know you have the raw emotional voltage to power yourself to mastery of your craft.
Additionally, focus on creating the right marketing cues. Cues that’ll alert your customers that your product and service is the result of craft and not just automated process. It could be as simple as an expensive looking packaging, or a hang tag on an item that normally doesn’t have hang tags. Leaving a bit of skin on your “hand cut” french fries and seasoning them with sea salt. There are hundreds of opportunities out there for business owners who’ll stop to search for them.
And while you’re thinking about cues, spend some time pondering over what goes into the mythology behind a brand like Steinway, Red Wing Boots, Snap-on Tools, etc. Obviously, quality plays a huge role, but what else? Why are these names preeminent and known amongst the general public when Mason & Hamlin pianos, White’s Boots, and Klein tools are not?
What can you do to help mythologize your brand?
First, before we do anything else, watch this:
Yup, “Presentation” is often THE critical difference between good businesses that grow to be great and good businesses that struggle to achieve the success they deserve.
And, yes, presentation, in the larger sense of the word, not only encompasses marketing and advertising, but is an essential element within marketing, a fact alluded to by Seth Godin in this short but brilliant post.
The Arrogance of “Keeping it Real”
So if presentation is so important why do so many of us neglect, ignore, and otherwise screw it up?
Because we’re sold on the better mousetrap myth — this idea that a better mousetrap naturally leads to the world beating a path to our door, that the “real deal” doesn’t need to be dressed up. More insidiously, we’ve also half-bought into the millenial notion that spending time and effort on presentation somehow equates to “posing” or fakery or thinking that one is “all that.” That presentation is, in a word, arrogant.
The truth, of course, is the very opposite: acknowledging the need to seduce, entertain, and wow an audience in order to earn their attention is a sign of humility, not arrogance.
Before a prospective customer can possibly notice your unannounced and unheralded quality advantage, they usually have to invest significant attention and interest, and expecting them to make that investment up front, with no promise or hint of a payoff, is not only arrogant but deranged. You are essentially expecting people to be as concerned with your industry and business — i.e., your life — as they are with there own. What kind of lunatic expects that?
Your prospects don’t know the industry insider info you know, the kind of stuff necessary for them to recognize quality. They have no clue how lower-priced providers cut corners, or what that means for them in the long run, because your industry isn’t part of their day to day world. They don’t know that this or that thing or habit is a cue of sloppy work or great work or whatever. Nor are most of them willing to do the research to find out. They just want to buy ____ and get back to their regularly scheduled lives.
Fixing Your Marketing Presentation Skills
If you’re willing to get off the crazy train and onto the gravy train, there are two rather unequal solutions to this, and you should employ them both:
1) Educate the Customer
This is the less effective but still necessary option. Get past your own “curse of knowledge” to figure out what your prospective customers don’t know but need to know in order to recognize your superior quality. Now boil it down to super direct, no BS messaging, and train your sales staff to deliver that same messaging to your prospects. Also, extend your educational reach past your sales team and target those earlier stage buyers through great content marketing. Make sure you have a content-rich Website, so your full explanation of, and case for, quality will be available to interested customers whenever they come looking for it.
All of this works and is worth doing. But on its own, education never quite works as well as most business owners hope. That’s because this educational approach reaquires customers to be motivated enough to do the research for themselves. And for a lot of markets and industries, the motivated researchers are a rather small slice of the customer base, meaning you lose more sales than you save. As my partner, Roy William’s says:
“The challenge isn’t to make the customer understand. The challenge is to learn to think like customers – it’s faster, cheeper, and more effective.”
A quote that leads me into the second strategy…
2) Tap into the customer’s natural quality and value cues
If people can’t tell that your HVAC guy is top notch just from watching him work, you can ensure that they’ll think of him in those terms by activating their quality cues for “professionals,” simply by having your worker:
- show up in a professional van,
- wear a clean, branded uniform,
- put on booties to keep your home from getting dirty, and
- talk through what he’s doing and why he’s doing it while he’s working.
All of those things speak to presentation. You are forcing your workers to focus on how they present themselves to customers in order to signal “this guy is an expert” in the language that the customer already understands. When you bake these things into your operations, you’ll have really satisfied customers. But when you bake them into your advertising as guarantees, you’ll have truckloads of NEW customers.
Better yet, when you ADVERTISE those kind of quality cues, people begin to expect them from everyone in your industry; in other words you shape customer expectations to your advantage and your competition’s disadvantage. More importantly, the listener consciously and unconsciously associates these quality cues with your company and brand — i.e., they think of you as the benchmark for top quality service, expertise, etc.
After an ad campaign like that, when prospective customers need what you sell, they’ll think of you first and feel the best about you, making them seek you out rather than vice versa. Some will go onto your Website and educate themselves in order to prove that you’re for real. But many more will buy based on nothing more than that advertising-fueled “gut feel.” And regardless of whether they researched it or not, all of those customers will not only want to do business with you, but will be willing to pay premium for the privilege.
Here’s what this technique sounds like when used in an actual ad*:
01 MikeDiamond-LeftJabRightHook
Note that “smells good” is cue for ‘presents himself as a professional,’ which is only reinforced by the “shows up on time” line. Those are the quality cues, and the price guarantee is the direct offer. Put the two together and is it any wonder why this plumber dominates his markets?
Bottom line: presentation matters. Not just for sales pitches or a Keynote Speeches, but for your frontline marketing and advertising, too. Find the cues, codes, and signals, your customers already associate with first-rate quality and service, and then bake them into your operations while simultaneously weaving them into your marketing.
Don’t be just another business in your industry; focus on presentation and make yourself Super in the eyes of your customers.
* Ad written and produced by Roy H. Williams
Interactive ads often strike me as a next-generation “funny ad” — with the “interactivity” feeling just as gratuitous as the humor in most funny ads.
And as any copywriter worth his pay can tell you, gratuitous humor hurts ad performance.
So as clever as many interactive ads are, the ad professional in me usually walks away from them with that same impression: did this really help convey the message, or did it just showcase the “talents” of the ad agency?
But that wasn’t the case with Spent from the Urban Ministries of Durham (created by McKinney).
Spent lacks all of the “hey look at me, I’m digital and cool” variety of interactivity, as it’s a text-based game. But Spent’s text-based interactivity forces the player to make the same soul-crushing and dilemma-filled choices pushed onto America’s working poor.
As Ad Freak writes, “It’s a jarring experience, and several of the choices will stick with you long after you’ve played.” Now that’s interactivity that works!
Interactive Insight From the Heath Bros
And Spent reminded me of this example of persuasive interactivity highlighted in Chapter 5 of Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch:
- Children completing chemotherapy are sent home to complete their treatment by taking a regimen of antibiotics and low-dosage chemotherapy pills.
- But compliance is critical to success. Missing 20% of your meds means a 200% higher chance of getting cancer again.
- To increase compliance HopeLab developed a video game that let kids play the part of a silver nano-bot that kills cancer cells with chemo rays.
- The game has 20 levels and is supposed to teach kids about their Chemo regimen and recovery through between-game lessons
- The game is a smashing success, boosting compliance by 20% and doubling kids chances for cancer-free success.
- BUT, most of the kids only completed 2 levels of game play, meaning they got little info and mostly game-play
The findings seemed counter-intuitive, until HopeLab’s research director asked a marketing professor at Stanford to explain:
“Think about this from a Marketing perspective. We can change behavior in a short television ad. We don’t do it with information. We do it with identity, ‘If I buy a BMW, I’m going to be this kind of person. If I take that kind of vacation, I’m this kind of eco-friendly person.’”
In other words, the game got the kids to identify with the chemo as their weapon for getting their life and health back, rather than as a reminder of their sickness. It dramatically changed how they felt about taking chemo through direct involvement – an involvement made possible through interactivity.
Got it? Interactivity should foster imaginary and emotional connection to the persuasive message. If it’s not doing that, it’s probably a waste of resources.
How This Applies to Regular Advertising
What you’re probably thinking is: That’s great, Jeff, if you’ve got the ad budget to create interactive ads in the first place.
My first response: the costs of interactive advertising have dropped tremendously over the last few years. Plus the more you rely on message-based involvement and the less you require wizz-bang graphics, the cheaper it’s likely to be. In other words, don’t dismiss it; research it, and even if it is still too expensive, be willing to check back in a year’s time.
My second response: If text alone can be interactive, no other medium has an excuse not to be.
Does that second response surprise you?
Here’s an example of interactive text (not hyperlinks) from Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memo, Revealing the Vivid Unexpected:
“The thing about growing up is that you get fewer scabs on your knees, but more internal injuries. Do you remember the day when that little yellowhammer flew straight at the window? You picked it up. It had a drop of blood on its beak. Identical color to ours. Just one drop, like a bright bead. And then there were all those brightly plumed kids who left school, flying cheerfully and didn’t get far. Ran smack into World War II. Little Tommy Naylor lying in Africa somewhere, blood on his beak. Identical color to ours.”
– monologue of Peter Sallis as Norman Clegg, Last of the Summer Wine; Getting Sam Home, (1983) written by Roy Clarke
We’re not told the yellowhammer collided with the window. Neither do we read the words “dead” or “death.” Yet we know the little bird hit the window and died because of the line, “You picked it up.“
We come to this conclusion on our own. This technique of “revelation by inference” pulls us into the narrative by making us fill in its blanks…
…Read the passage again and witness the brilliant restraint. Roy Clarke flashes just a few slides onto the movie screen of our mind and we fill the gaps between them. We conclude:
(1.) A yellowhammer is a bird.
(2.) It hit the window and died.
(3.) Tommy Naylor was a schoolmate.
(4.) Tommy grew up and went to war.
(5.) Tommy died in Africa in WWII
But none of this is told to us directly. Yet we know it just as surely as if it had been.
Tony Schwartz and Evoking a Response with Old-School Media
As you can see, forcing your audience to “fill in the gaps” is a form of interactivity that’s available to all media, whether it’s billboard, radio, or TV. As Media Guru Tony Schwartz writes:
“For an advertiser, the issue of concern should center on how the stimuli in a commercial interact with a viewer’s real-life experiences and thus affect his behavior in a purchasing situation.” [Emphasis added]
Now, Tony is most famous for his Daisy commerical, an interactive piece of advertising if ever there was one. Take a look:
Goldwater’s campaign complained bitterly about the ad, claiming it was an attack ad and that it misrepresented Goldwater’s remarks and policies with regard to nuclear weapons, but oddly enough, the ad never mentions Goldwater or his policies. That was filled in by the listeners as they interacted with the images and sounds. They filled in the gaps.
And for those asking the question, yes, the technique works just as well for product commercials rather than political ads. Here’s a commercial where Tony Schwartz used his techniques to pitch Coca-Cola without ever mentioning the product’s name:
So the real question isn’t are you using digital advertising, but are you creating interactive advertising, regardless of your media?
If not, maybe you need a better ad writer. Or maybe you need a better trained copywriter.
P.S. As the Web holds all media, the importance of meaningful, non-redundant interaction between graphics and copy and video and cross-channel communication is becoming more and more important. Start thinking about it, if you haven’t already.