A Promise is an Infomercial.
Dear Students,
A good ad tells truth.
It is concerned with a fact.
(it doesn't have to be an informational fact. observations can be the truth)
A bad ad promises.
A promise is a lie because it has not come true.
Example:
BARKLEY'S BUBBLING BUBBLES OF BARIUM WILL WHITEN YOUR LAUNDRY WHITER THAN THE WHITEST SNOW IN SNOWLAND.
Granted, nobody's going to run a headline like this, but I see variations of this every week in class and the airwaves, websites and magazines are full of the same.
People aren't moved by a promise.
They know better.
Not only do they know the whitest snow in Snowland isn't nearly as white as they want their towels and sheets to be because the whitest snow in Snowland still has bug detritus and tire tracks and dirt on it, but more to the point, they know better than to listen to a promise because they've all been broken up with when they were in high school by boys and girls who'd promised to love them forever.
The audience knows you're getting paid to write ads.
Stick to facts.
It doesn't mean you can't speak to the strategy statement the clients are in love with.
Example:
SCIENTIST MEASURES: WHITEST SNOW IN SNOWLAND EXACTLY 3.4% LESS WHITE THAN STINKY GOLF TOWELS LAUNDERED IN BARKLEY'S BUBBLING BUBBLES OF BARIUM.
A good ad tells truth.
It is concerned with a fact.
(it doesn't have to be an informational fact. observations can be the truth)
A bad ad promises.
A promise is a lie because it has not come true.
Example:
BARKLEY'S BUBBLING BUBBLES OF BARIUM WILL WHITEN YOUR LAUNDRY WHITER THAN THE WHITEST SNOW IN SNOWLAND.
Granted, nobody's going to run a headline like this, but I see variations of this every week in class and the airwaves, websites and magazines are full of the same.
People aren't moved by a promise.
They know better.
Not only do they know the whitest snow in Snowland isn't nearly as white as they want their towels and sheets to be because the whitest snow in Snowland still has bug detritus and tire tracks and dirt on it, but more to the point, they know better than to listen to a promise because they've all been broken up with when they were in high school by boys and girls who'd promised to love them forever.
The audience knows you're getting paid to write ads.
Stick to facts.
It doesn't mean you can't speak to the strategy statement the clients are in love with.
Example:
SCIENTIST MEASURES: WHITEST SNOW IN SNOWLAND EXACTLY 3.4% LESS WHITE THAN STINKY GOLF TOWELS LAUNDERED IN BARKLEY'S BUBBLING BUBBLES OF BARIUM.
I apologize for the lame example. I been out of practice.
posted by Fenske at Monday, May 26, 2008
12 Comments:
Good to have you back. I'll check back often.
-BT
I read this entry just after a read an article on the new iPhone on Washingtonpost.com.
The writer said, "I love the iPhone for the same reason I love technology in general, and loved Disneyland as a child - it drives my imagination and makes me wonder what kind of magic to expect next. Also, it just works."
Seems to me that it is the promise of creating something, connecting with someone, or somehow improving ones life that draws people to Apple products.
Maybe people are moved by promise, but not A promise?
Nice to see a new post, Mark. And a wise one at that.
Another wise man, I believe it was David Ogilvy, once said the following: “Emotions are among the toughest things in the world to manufacture out of whole cloth: it easier to manufacture seven facts than one emotion.”
In the early days of BMW's rise to iconic status, for example - I was the first copywriter hired by Marty Puris and Ralph Ammirati at their nascent agency - we used facts to make the case. Not a laundry list of them, mind you. Rather, an artful telling of BMW's story that left readers feeling a connection to the emotions implicit in Marty's enduring tag line.
"The ultimate driving machine," by the way, was written at least 33 years ago. That it's still in use and still as viable as ever is, to me, ample testament to its truth and power.
Off the subject but still worth talking about sometime and somewhere is a question that's often crossed my mind. How is it that Marty Puris, one of modern advertising's great thinkers and tag line writers, hasn't been inducted into one or all of advertising several Halls of Fame?
"The ultimate driving machine" stands out. So does "The antidote to civilization" for Club Med and "We run the tightest ship in the shipping business" for UPS. No doubt other work he can claim as his, including work for Hertz, Fiat and other companies done at Carl Ally Inc., is equally good.
Marty was often aloof and difficult to work with/for, but all of us who had the opportunity to work at Ammirati Puris gained something valuable from the experience.
If it's truly "the work, the work, the work," then Marty deserves to be honored.
Sorry to send this post off in such an odd direction.
Say, Mark... any chance you might add an RSS feed to your site? What say, mister?
td
Have you found religion? It seems you are dangerously close to embracing the potential of thoughtful research and insight as, perhaps, an element of what you offer as fact. I could have sworn you were the anti-fact guy.
I should have gone to your school.
Glad you're back. Keep bloggin' It's sometimes the only thing that gets me through the cold winters
mark, when are you visiting 12? see you soon -sg
heard you were in town. i am mad, i couldn't see you!
how have you been?
think of you every now and then.
puja
Mark -
Will you please post/re-post the improve "F you, Client" speech you administered in class?
I'm in the mood.
So what, is it time to hold an online funeral for this blog? Where's the new stuff?
What a shameful idea, spreading observations as truth.
That is exactly what caused people to blindly believe that the world was flat, that because white people had bigger heads they were more intelligent then blacks, and that evolution was stupid because humans didn't look enough like apes.
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