There’s so many truisms about advertising I could easily fill this page with them if I had the inclination.
The old ‘rinse and repeat’ approach to washing our hair (ingrained from childhood) has little to do with hygiene (we don’t actually need to wash our hair twice), but is thought to be a stroke of genius from a manufacturer of shampoo. That one phrase instantly doubled usage – and presumably sales.
Also in the hall of fame would be “I know half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half” – attributed (perhaps incorrectly) to Lord Leverhulme, of Unilever fame. (They are like an Anglo version of Proctor and Gamble).
To that famous duo, I propose we add a third “People buy from Clowns”.
On one of my frequent trips down the rabbit hole of advertising science, I came across an interesting story involving circuses, clowns, and a character called ‘Sunny Jim’.
At the risk of oversimplification, at the heart of the story is the different schools of thought on advertising. One school of thought is that advertising is about persuasion. Let’s call this the ‘David Ogilvy school’. Scotsman Ogilvy, former stove salesperson turned founder of Ogilvy and Mather (now just Ogilvy), once said:
“Advertising is not an art form, it’s a message for a single purpose: to sell.”
Ogilvy had an ally in Claude C Hopkins (Author of the seminal book ‘Scientific Advertising), who was more succinct:
“People don’t buy from clowns”.
For more than 100 years this thinking held a lot of sway. Advertising is science. Advertising is serious.
But another school of thought is that the job of advertising is not to persuade, but simply to publicise, and build emotional connections.
This school takes you more down the path of creative advertising, with a focus on making the message memorable. Think ear-worm jingles and highly distinctive visual assets (characters, logos, mascots etc). The kind of advertising that Mojo and John Singleton made famous in Australia.
An early and famous test that pitted these two schools against each other occurred around 100 years ago, when an advertising campaign was developed for a brand of breakfast cereal called Force, launched successfully in both the UK and US markets in the early 20th century – off the back of a campaign based around a character called ‘Sunny Jim’. In the US, a change of agency saw them abandon the Sunny Jim character and move to a more persuasive style of advertising. While in the UK, they stuck with the original, jingle-heavy, character-based campaign.
Unsurprisingly, Force continued to dominate the market in the UK, while in the US its position slid.
It may be an anathema to proponents of data driven blandness, but I think there is merit to the ‘publicity’ school. Yes, times have changed, buying behaviour is different, attention spans are shorter bla bla bla. But even more reason why creativity – publicity – is critical, to cut through the algorithm generated blandness that passes for advertising these days.
And that goes double for B2B scenarios, where client created ads (written by product managers and sales managers) have been allowed to prosper for too long!
According to the latest data from LinkedIn, over three-quarters of B2B marketing leaders in the UK are focused on developing bolder creative, and that focus is being reflected in the words and work coming out of the sector.
More than two thirds (69%) agree that B2B purchasing decisions are just as emotionally driven as B2C, and 39% said they are increasingly harnessing storytelling, emotion and humour to help make their creative campaigns stick. More than three-quarters (81%) go as far as saying that B2B brands are now producing creative campaigns that rival consumer brands.
(I have experienced this within these very pages – the most read post of the year from this blog was the one featuring the famous Jean Claude van Damme advertisement for Volvo Trucks.)
You could surmise it’s a natural corollary of the 95-5 rule.
Research shows only 5% of your potential buyers are in-market at any given time, which means the other 95% aren’t ready to buy yet. Creative marketing sticks in your future buyer’s memory, keeping your brand in mind until they’re in-market.
I see a variation on this theme in discussions about Thought Leadership as a content strategy.
Another ditty attributed to Ogilvy is this gem:
“When the client moans and sighs, make his logo twice the size”.
Branding at its finest
It reflects a common attitude I see among some marketers, who believe stuffing content full of sales messages – a bit like a bigger logo – will somehow drive a bigger response.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Financial advisors are so time poor they can’t afford to spend time listening to sales messages. Chances are they know all about your brand and product already. Ramming it down their throats won’t make it more palatable.
Thought leadership on the other hand is like giving them a gift – one which builds your authority while showing respect for their time. Thought Leadership allows customers to engage with your brand in a way that is investing their time, rather than spending it.
The stats below, based on a study of B2B decision makers, explain why:
71% said it allows them to keep up to date with the latest thinking in their sector
68% said it gives them insights into trends likely to impact their business
47% said it allowed them to discover new products that could help their business
We aren’t just talking ‘soft’ metrics here, we are very much at the pointy end of leads and sales. Another study of business decision makers found the following responses after engaging with thought leadership from an organisation:
- 42% – more likely to invite that organisation to bid on a project
- 48% – more likely to award business to that organisation
- 53% increase the business transacted with that organisation
- 54% purchased a new product or service from that organisation which they had not previously considered buying.
Hiring a room where you can just yell about your product for a few minutes might feel good to you and your sales team, but if no one else is there with you, who’s the clown?
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