Snake Venom & How Good Advertising Works -Part 1
Dear Students,
In an article in the Houston Chronicle, this story is told of a man poisoned by a rattlesnake that didn't bite him:
Even a dead rattlesnake can hurt you. Just ask Trey Hanover of College Station.
On Labor Day weekend, Hanover and his father, Tommy Hanover, were working on their deer lease when they killed a big rattler. They shot the snake's head off with a shotgun and loaded the carcass in the truck to show other hunters on their lease that they needed to be careful.
"We hung the snake on the fence at the camphouse," Tommy Hanover said. "When we got ready to leave, Trey picked up the snake and threw it out in the pasture for the buzzards to eat."
By the time he'd driven to College Station, Trey Hanover's eyes were very irritated. By the next morning, his eyes were swollen shut. The doctor who examined Hanover said it looked like he'd suffered a chemical burn.
It took them a while to figure out that the shotgun load that vaporized the rattlesnake's head splattered the snake's venom over its body.
When Hanover handled the snake, he got the venom on his hands and later rubbed it in his eyes, made itchy by dust and ragweed. Sixteen days later, the vision in his right eye was back to normal. His left eye was still a little cloudy, but the doctor thought it would return to normal as well.
"We learned a valuable lesson about handling rattlesnakes — even dead ones," said Tommy Hanover.
People know way too much about ads to let themselves be directly affected by one.
Same way cowboys know too much about rattlesnakes to let themselves get bit by them.
The human heart is closed to marketers who want to bully it.
The number of thoughts we're willing to hold in our crowded minds about products/services we might buy or accept as part of our lives is incredibly small.
How many of the obvious & banal propositions made to us daily on TV find a home in your mind?
If all the ad you're writing is aiming at is a direct bite on who walks by, what you're writing is a bad ad.
Or, more indelicately, you're writing crap.
Something the audience sees coming a mile away and finds no problem ignoring.
At best they pay it the compliment of disregarding it with a flick of anger as it goes by. Resentment that it took up time they can't get back.
Sublime and wonderful advertising hits people without them knowing it.
Great, life-changing advertising doesn't waste time shouting at a closed ear.
It tickles it open, slips in a thought like a depth-bomb, and is two blocks away before it explodes.
The kind of ads that made you want to get into this business, students, don't work obvious, like a snake, they work secret like venom.
Just getting some of it on your hands can be deadly.
How to make ads like this?
Next time.
In an article in the Houston Chronicle, this story is told of a man poisoned by a rattlesnake that didn't bite him:
Even a dead rattlesnake can hurt you. Just ask Trey Hanover of College Station.
On Labor Day weekend, Hanover and his father, Tommy Hanover, were working on their deer lease when they killed a big rattler. They shot the snake's head off with a shotgun and loaded the carcass in the truck to show other hunters on their lease that they needed to be careful.
"We hung the snake on the fence at the camphouse," Tommy Hanover said. "When we got ready to leave, Trey picked up the snake and threw it out in the pasture for the buzzards to eat."
By the time he'd driven to College Station, Trey Hanover's eyes were very irritated. By the next morning, his eyes were swollen shut. The doctor who examined Hanover said it looked like he'd suffered a chemical burn.
It took them a while to figure out that the shotgun load that vaporized the rattlesnake's head splattered the snake's venom over its body.
When Hanover handled the snake, he got the venom on his hands and later rubbed it in his eyes, made itchy by dust and ragweed. Sixteen days later, the vision in his right eye was back to normal. His left eye was still a little cloudy, but the doctor thought it would return to normal as well.
"We learned a valuable lesson about handling rattlesnakes — even dead ones," said Tommy Hanover.
People know way too much about ads to let themselves be directly affected by one.
Same way cowboys know too much about rattlesnakes to let themselves get bit by them.
The human heart is closed to marketers who want to bully it.
The number of thoughts we're willing to hold in our crowded minds about products/services we might buy or accept as part of our lives is incredibly small.
How many of the obvious & banal propositions made to us daily on TV find a home in your mind?
If all the ad you're writing is aiming at is a direct bite on who walks by, what you're writing is a bad ad.
Or, more indelicately, you're writing crap.
Something the audience sees coming a mile away and finds no problem ignoring.
At best they pay it the compliment of disregarding it with a flick of anger as it goes by. Resentment that it took up time they can't get back.
Sublime and wonderful advertising hits people without them knowing it.
Great, life-changing advertising doesn't waste time shouting at a closed ear.
It tickles it open, slips in a thought like a depth-bomb, and is two blocks away before it explodes.
The kind of ads that made you want to get into this business, students, don't work obvious, like a snake, they work secret like venom.
Just getting some of it on your hands can be deadly.
How to make ads like this?
Next time.
11 Comments:
I remember a wise man once told me don't go up to a girl at a bar and say "hey I have a Ferrari!" just sit down next to her, drop the key chain and say " sometimes I go so fast it scares me" Now you have her attention.
Yes, you do. And she thinks you're a dork.
This post has some nice points to make, but I think we've heard them all before, i.e. people hate ads, people hate being yelled at by ads, people hate obvious ads, etc.
That's all great, but I have to think most of it is obvious to anyone who visits this site. Which makes the post a direct violation of its own "don't write obvious" message, right?
OK, fine, this is a blog, not an ad. But still, the snake venom analogy doesn't really apply, either. In this case, the snake who failed to bite his victim directly got its head blown off. I'd say that's a bigger endorsement of taking the direct approach, wouldn't you? If the snake had, he might still be alive.
Oh, God. I've just made an argument in favor of direct marketing. Sorry all. Draft/FCB here I come.
Dear huh?,
I think you're right. I repeat myself and it's boring. Thanks for the gut check. I'll do better. Cool snake teeth graphic, though, eh?
Yes, cool snake teeth graphic.
I meant to mention that.
Cheers.
What I want to know is where does the dust and ragweed come into play?
So marketing = poison. How apt. I've always appreciated that advertising creatives are the only honest agents of capitalism. For this distinction, we get to be second-to-last against the wall.
very cool
any examples of ads like this?
I do think that the snake bite analogy works. The point is that the snake bit the cowboys even though the cowboys thought that it hadn't touched them. Maybe it's not new information, but it is still an apt analogy, in my opinion. Anyway, it was a positive read for me.
Maybe...just maybe...as advertising is based on the concept of fear, the fear is that if you ignore it (ie - kill the snake)the more it affects you...the more you CANT escape it...
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