10 Advertising Things That Must Disappear in 2013

To end the year, here is a look at the bad things we need to fix. Next year will start with good things we need to keep doing more of. Happy New Year everyone!

1. Treating People Like Idiots

I can't believe we still have to talk about this in 2012. People are not idiots, we need to stop treating them as if they are. People can understand a point without the use of false setups and bad acting. Let's demonstrate this with an unbelievably bad ad from Colgate.



2. Using Songs in Place of Creativity

If you have a song that sums up your idea, wonderful. If you add a good song as the soundtrack to your idea, brilliant. Using the song as the sole idea in an ad that has no creative or strategic thought in it whatsoever... go away. See also number 10.

3. Using Ideas From the Internet in Place of Creativity

There are two ways to utilise ideas you find online. Firstly, you adapt or involve the original creator to produce something good. As with John West below.



Secondly, you just steal the idea or rip it off. This must end.


4. Unnecessary Copy

I'm thinking particularly of ads which think people are so stupid they have to be forewarned in advance of upcoming blunt metaphors. Colgate again.

"If you think about it, your tooth is a lot like..."

Why the hell do we need the first five words? You could argue that the rest are superfluous too, but the first bit is ridiculous. Remember the maxim that you should remove any words that aren't necessary to get the point across. Please.


5. Bad Faux-Customers and Respondents

Every time I see the Pounds to Pocket ad where the woman says "I'm so glad I went to Pounds to Pocket...", it makes me want to set fire to the TV. It isn't just them though, I've seen others with it too.

See also that horrific Colgate ad in point 1. They couldn't look any less real if they were made using poor CGI.


6. Gio Compario

I had hoped the change of agency would fix things, but instead of doing something with the character they just kept the annoying ad and bolted on an anti-character motif to it. The anti-character thing doesn't work if you subject us to the whole thing in the first place. The latest ad is a step in the right direction, but unless they take another few steps forward, this point stands.


7. Confused.com Songs

Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Not content with terrible songs, annoying cliched characters, and an apparent total lack of strategy... it even has a main character who appears to constantly pull large objects from her underwear.


8. Client Briefs Based on Existing Ads

"That John Lewis ad is good, give me one of those."

No, no, no, no, no.


9. UK Regional Bias

We live in the age of global instant communication. To see non-London agencies as inherently inferior simply because of their location is an out of date concept. If this bothers you, get over it. American agencies are in New York, Boulder, Portland. Australian agencies are in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. UK agencies are in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, etc.


10. Replacing Song Lyrics

As demonstrated above by Confused.com. Stop taking well known songs and swapping over the lyrics to something inane or your brand name. It sounds awful, it makes the brand sound awful, and it does not suggest creativity or strategy. Please note this excludes cases where there is genuine strategy or creativity involved in parody or wordplay, rather than just swapping lyrics.

Top Brand Tips No1 - Learn from your Estate Agent

As much as some people like to think that we in the advertising business are subversive subliminal deviant mischief makers; we pale in comparison to the triumph of technicality that are estate agents.

Here are some handy hints for brands I have learnt from my current estate agent:

1. Customers are the most important thing in the world, until they have signed their contract.

2. Customers are an expensive waste of your time (if they have already signed). Anything you can do to get out of speaking to them is worth your while. Try these golden ideas:

- Your staff should take long holidays with no cover, especially if they are involved in customer maintenance, refunds or complaints

- Always offer to call customers back, and never do

- When a customer complains you don't call back. Promise to look into it, and never do.

3. When the customer owes you money, always call back.

4. People are mostly decent and reasonable, you can use this to ensure you never need give refunds. See also 5.

5. Use vague details when you sell something. Then look in microscopic detail at returns. You can get away with this by vastly underselling the importance of said details when signing contracts.

6. If customers need urgent assistance, take your time. They can always wait, it's their money not yours (yet). See also 7.

7. People are stupid:

- If you have no idea what is going on, pretend you do
- If something needs doing, say the person on holiday/who is ill is in charge of it
- If you get back from holiday and find you have to do something, see points 2 and 6

If things don't pick up soon I shall be naming the estate agent in question.

Something that puzzles me

Why it that so many companies seem to believe their product or service is the most important thing in the world to their 'consumers'? I keep noticing it in ads at the moment, and it's quite an irritating trend.

For example: Specsavers. Yes, we know that glasses are expensive and people want to pay a fair price for them. But acting (as their latest ad does) as if buying expensive glasses can cause a nervous breakdown is overstating their importance just a little it seems.

Ok, so it's played for comic effect; but it feels like they mean it.

I hope one day soon brands are going to realise that no matter how aspirational they are, they are still selling products and services. Maybe by better understanding that they are not important they can fit more appropriately into peoples' lives and actually increase their importance by understating it.

What do you think?

Image from sisk-o.stumbleupon.com

Interesting People

Finally met lots of the clever people whose blogs i've read for ages!
Was rather odd to be introduced to people and know who they were, yet have no idea what they looked like!

Some of the clever folk I met/saw for the first time:

Faris
Charles
OrganicFrog
Lauren
Marcus
Sacrum

Some clever folk I met again!:

Will
Beeker
Ben

Thanks for being great everyone!
I shall post my presentation soon...

Oh Brother...What Art Thou Thinking?

I think that Big Brother should be mandatory viewing for marketers.
Note, I mean figuratively, not actually watching that hype ball of fake garbage.

Its an absolute masterclass in how people say and do different things.

Millions of people every year say "I'm not watching that rubbish again"...but they do.

People say they want to see sex and huge arguments, and they do; but as soon as they do they complain like mice with mouldy cheese.

People are rightly appalled and disgusted by stupid posh people using racist words without even realising they are being offensive. But they watch it, and will turn in specially just to Big Brother 27, Now with 10% more N-word.

Had Channel 4 censored the word, would they have had half the viewers? I doubt it.

Listen to people talk about Big Brother, and find out what is going on. Because you will rarely get such an insight into how people think and react to unusual stimuli than this....apart from maybe the London 2012 logo. ;)