To tease or not to tease?

Like the testimonial, the 'teaser campaign' is a favorite device of advertising creatives who are a touch unsure as to how to sell a particular product or service. 'Let's run some teasers!' becomes the battle-cry, as everyone nods their heads in agreement at the inherent cleverness of spending money to tell people that you are going to tell them something before you actually tell it to them.

This is not to say that teasers (like testimonials) do not have their place. A famous story is told of the launch of the Orange mobile brand in the UK, a launch that was preceded by a teaser campaign that lasted exactly one year. "The future's bright, the future's bright, the future's bright... (fast forward 365 days)... the future's Orange!!!"

At the risk of sounding trite, this example perfectly illustrates the key point that teasers are called teasers because they are supposed to tease. The obvious and appropriate analogy comes from the bedroom. The objective of fore-play is to increase the ultimate intensity of the climax. Exactly the same logic applies to a teaser campaign.

There is nothing worse, as the ladies will tell you, than a teaser campaign that raises expectations but fails to deliver to those expectations come the moment of truth. It is very easy to give your campaign the patina of excitement by prefacing your launch with some teasers, but you had better make sure that the launch itself is worthy of the excitement generated.

Again, as in the bedroom, a good teaser campaign should be long, slow, patient, intuitive, mysterious, indulgent, rhythmical and increasingly intense. Two half-pages running the week before your launch is not a teaser campaign, it is what the English call 'copping a feel.' Get your teaser campaign right and your audience will fall in love with your brand for a long long time. Get it wrong, and they will not come back for more or, what's worse, they'll go elsewhere!

N.B. Remember that teasers are essentially designed to make 'big news' even bigger. They are perfect for launching new brands or major product innovations. In general, if your agency suggests a teaser campaign for any reasons other than these, they are either salivating over the added media money or they haven't yet cracked your brief...