Twitter has a great slogan: “Join the conversation”. It
captures exactly the essence of the product, and its’ great success is a
reflection of the fact that it taps into the great human need to run our
mouths.
Because of course conversation, the ability to exchange
ideas and thoughts and opinions, is one of, if not the, defining characteristics
of humanity. Talking is pretty much the first thing that we learn to do
post-birth, and the vast majority of us never stop talking until we meet our
maker, myself very much included.
It is very important for advertisers and marketers to
realize that every time we run a piece of communication, we are communicating
with a society that is already very
busily engaged in an intense process of communicating with itself. People are
not sitting at home quietly waiting for you to run your ad – if anything you
must remember that your ad is almost certainly an interruption of their
conversation.
This is why the use of topicality in advertising (a la the Naivas
ad here referenced) can be a very powerful tool. It is a bit like if two guys
are talking about football and you walk up to them and ask them if they have
seen the latest hand bag collection from Prada. Chances are you will walk away
with a black eye…
It has been my observation that all the greatest
communicators in the world share the characteristic that they are also the
greatest listeners. You can only really know how to talk to ‘the people’ if you
spend some time and effort to listen to ‘the people’. Thus you can always tell
a good ad creative from the quantity and quality of the communication that they
‘input’ – so please don’t be too hard on them next time you see them spend a
couple of hours glued to youtube…
Listening, which also means seeing, observing and
understanding, is the only way that one can pick up on trends (no you don’t
necessarily need a research company), and trends are one of the very driving
forces of advertising. Societies and
cultures are permanently changing (sorry about that Al Shabab), and this is
expressed in fashion, in music, in art, in architecture, in hairstyles, in language
and even in cuisine.
Given this fact, one tends to find that one can break most
ad campaigns down into one of two types: those that follow trends and those
that set them.
N.B. there is a third type, those that ignore trends, with
this type being utterly brilliant or fundamentally incompetent.
Following the trends is the easiest thing to do – it is
safe, it is comfortable, people will tend to kind of ‘get it’, and it probably
won’t get you fired. However, it will also almost certainly not, ever, turn
your brand into a leader. So if you happy with 3rd/4th
place, follow dem trends…
But if you want your brand to be the leader, then you must
lead. You must be… the trendsetter. You must be the one who comes up with new
ways of doing things. You must be the first to explore new media opportunities.
You must be the first to identify the next hot MC to endorse your brand, before
he’s actually become hot. You must be the first to spot the growth of the new ‘retired
with money’ market segment. Please note repeated use of the word first.
In many ways, this process of keeping your brand first, of
keeping it ahead in an increasingly fast-paced race, is the fundamental job of
your ad agency. It’s not “I want posters, flyers, a radio ad and a branded
handkerchief”, it’s “I want you to take my brand to the very very top and don’t
want it to ever ever leave there”.
It is very important to paint this bigger picture for your
agency, because we ad people are a very sensitive bunch, and if we’re not to be
found aiming for the stars, we tend to be found drowning (our sorrows) in a
ditch…
In closing, remember that advertising – the tools and
techniques and exposure and budgets – gives you the power to set trends. With power comes responsibility, so use that power
well.
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