Quality key to effective advertising

The distinction between creative and media has changed radically. Media agencies are constantly tasked with ensuring cut through. This requires more than our expertise in media channel planning – it requires our creative thinking.

Creating standout has always been a problem. The changing pattern of media consumption does not change this fundamental point. If we feel it was easy to create cut through in the past we are kidding ourselves. The quality of the advertising was always crucial and this still stands. Bad advertising with no consumer insight, poorly executed and with no creative spark was as crap 50 years ago as it is now. To quote Bill Bernbach: You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.”

There is nothing particularly new in the tools we have to do this. TV is still a fantastic brand building medium. This is proved by the success online brands such as Go Compare or Confused have had in driving their business almost exclusively through the channel. Better still it’s affordable the price of TV has hardly risen over the last ten years. It is used widely by the games industry and rightly so, the way it is being viewed presents some interesting challenges but we can only touch on them here…

The major driver in on-line media in the last year has been video streaming – which is effectively buying TV, just in a slightly different (and potentially more targeted, less restricted) way.

Product placement is hardly new – Ford’s ability to communicate the benefits of a Capri or a Granada in the Professionals and the Sweeney makes many of today’s efforts looking clumsy. Soap operas are so called because they were paid for by detergent manufacturers – advertising funded programming is in fact a pre war concept. TV channels are falling over themselves to provide content for you at cost effective pricing, the trick is getting this right.

At MindShare we believe the key to cutting through is the quality of ideas. We are not precious about where these ideas come from – in fact we believe in an all involving client and agencies process. The strength of the idea will determine how successful the campaign will be. It sits in the middle of the communication process and if it is good enough it will work across any medium.

The proof is in the pudding, we have run successful campaigns on this principle for some of the world’s top advertisers. It’s not for girls” Yorkie advertising for Nestle, Run London” for Nike, Lynx’s Boom Chicka Wah Wah” campaign for Unilever to name but three.

All campaigns achieved the holy grail of standout and ultimately drove business because of the strength of the ideas behind them. As Bernbach also said Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make”

Dan Coleman will be a guest speaker at the upcoming Games Marketing Forum.