Jeremy Bullmore wrestles with the catch-22 of advertising approval
Fact one: if it’s ever to see the light of day, a television commercial lasting half a minute must survive, second for second, far fiercer scrutiny than any other piece of cinematography. And that includes Avatar, which runs for three hours and cost $300m to make. Given the number of hurdles, of both research and judgement, that every humble 30-second commercial has to jump – and given the number of people empowered to amend or reject it – it’s a miracle that any get made at all.
Fact two: for at least ten years, serious doubts have been cast on the traditional models of how advertising works. There has been slow if growing recognition that, for many brands, the ‘emotional’ element may be far more important than the ‘rational’. Yet still, more often than not, the ‘rational’ wins. Despite the evidence in support of the ‘emotional’, advertising agencies and their clients seem reluctant to move to a model that could greatly improve the return on investment of their advertising expenditure.
Why should this be? I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the reason lies less with the hope of making advertising that works and more with the need to get advertising approved.
In the good old days, when USPs in their cruder manifestations ruled, the marketing director’s presentation to his board was relatively easy. ‘Good morning. I’m here to ask for your formal approval to make this 30-second commercial for Burgrips Minidrops. Forty potential consumer propositions were reduced to seven as a result of exposure to 3,452 members of the core target group. Those seven, evenly rotated, were then exposed to a similar number in animatic form. The winner, a clear 17 points above the category norm, was this [holds up board]: ‘Burgrips: the only Minidrops to contain WD40. They brush your breath while they tease your tongue.’
‘This commercial graphically demonstrates that unique proposition while the voice-over reiterates the claim three times. We also super it up at the end. Preliminary results indicate unprompted proposition recall at 63%, with purchase intention in the top quartile.’
What wonderfully reassuring numbers. Members of the board don’t need to know anything about people, the market, the brand, the competition or how advertising works. They don’t even need to exercise their judgement. It’s evident that the decision to invest in this commercial is a highly responsible corporate act and one that will shield them forever from future criticism. The board congratulates the marketing director, signs off the final production estimate and moves on to the next item on the agenda, the acquisition of another 29% of an associate company in Taiwan.
‘Rational’ advertising – heavily dependent on tested-to-destruction verbal propositions and the measurement of that which can be easily measured – is relatively easy to sell. ‘Emotional’ advertising isn’t. It’s now ten years since Robert Heath published The Hidden Power of Advertising – with its more useful subtitle, How low involvement processing influences the way we choose brands. When describing his findings, he wrote: ‘Above all, I found I had to accept that effective brand communication … involves processes which are uncontrolled, disordered, abstract, intuitive … and impossible to explain other than with the benefit of hindsight.’
Have pity, then, for today’s enlightened marketing director. ‘Good morning. I’m here to ask for your formal approval to make this 30-second commercial for Burgrips Minidrops. As is widely accepted, effective brand communication involves processes that are uncontrolled, disordered, abstract, intuitive and impossible to explain other than with hindsight. So there’s no way of knowing if this commercial is any good until we’ve run it for a few months. But I think it’s bloody marvellous so may I have £750,000 to shoot it, please?’
I suspect that the potential value of ‘emotional’ advertising can be communicated to the sceptics only by judicious reference to the persuasive power of other emotional stimuli. Noël Coward knew the potency of cheap music. As military leaders and the founders of religious faiths have known for centuries, expensive music can be even more potent. Big speeches still work. Can anyone remember what David Cameron said at that Conservative Party conference? He said almost nothing and he said it without notes and the next thing you know, he’s prime minister. Barack Obama made a speech in Tucson, Arizona, last month. I bet you that his day-after-recall score wouldn’t have looked good but his approval ratings have soared. If I was asked to put the case for creationism in a formal debate, and knew that I’d be up against a reading by Richard Dawkins from his book The God Delusion, I wouldn’t try to defeat him on rational grounds. I’d play that tape of Timothy West reading from the King James Version of the Book of Genesis – with Handel’s Messiah for afters. I think I’d do quite well.
Jjeremyb@aol.com