How to pay a lot of money to say nothing
I very rarely watch TV.
It’s hardly ever as good as a DVD movie, and if it is I can either watch it on iPlayer/4OD etc. or wait for the box set.
This also means I don’t watch many TV ads in their natural habitat.
Yesterday I started watching the thing about Fred West on ITV. I managed about half an hour before switching a movie on instead, but during that half hour I sat through a few ad breaks and it really struck me how bloody awful the writing was.
It’s not so much the homogeneity or the lack of real persuasion that got me; it was more the meaninglessness of what it was trying to tell me.
For example, a car ad said something like, ‘Who would have thought something so spacious could be such a great drive?’. Now, what does that mean? Is it really that spacious? Is the drive really great? Compared to what? In reality the ad says nothing more than ‘We want you to think this car is spacious and is good to drive.’ Well, thanks for that. No chance of telling us that it’s the most spacious car in its class, I suppose?
Earlier in the day I had been at Marks and Spencer. On the wall was a perfect example of meaningless vs meaningful writing. The first sentence said, ‘Animal Welfare? There’s nothing woolly about our commitment to it.’ Underneath that it said, ‘Environment? We show our commitment by supporting sustainable fishing.’
Sentence one is a great instance of a tortuous, meaningless and unnecessary pun creating a strangely ironic sentence. Did they really use the word ‘woolly’ because sheep produce wool and sheep are animals? Wow. Puntastic. Unfortunately they have been entirely woolly with their assertion. What is woolly about M&S’s commitment to animal welfare is that they specify nothing about it. They just make a vague (woolly) claim of such behaviour, and all for that stunning bit of wordplay.
Sentence two, on the other hand, eschews the pun for the straightforward piece of information. It isn’t very detailed, but at least I know that in some way they support sustainable fishing. I could now find out more about this and see how well it chimes with my own commitment to such practices. Great. And I don’t even feel shortchanged by the lack of ‘Carping on’, ‘We know our plaice’ or ‘Fintastic’.
I suppose we’re now so used to these attempts to make companies sound like they are saying a lot while they say absolutely nothing that we just let them wash over us.
Do they result in more affection or sales?
It’d be a depressing world if they did.
The Fred West thing was great TV, in my opinion. I always record it and start watching 15 minutes in to skip the ads, otherwise I’d get depressed. The only place I watch TV ads these days is YouTube.
you could indeed find out more about m&s’s commitment. it takes a bit of research on their website though. as far as i figured from their report, theres nothing about wool in there. i personally wouldnt mind a pun if it would make sense.
i do agree witht the meaninglessness of it all though. when i do watch tv ads, its mostly stuff i couldnt give a rats about. boring and meaningless. after all, if there is nothing interesting to say about a product… the dilemma that brought us ‘the brand’. but brand centric shit is still fucking boring and meaningless most of the time. at least to me.
And how much time, money and effort is expended on that pointless lack of meaning?
exactly, ben. way too much.
id rather see more money spent on worthy causes (which does make business sense) and communicating that than yet another pointless wank. i wouldnt even mind so much if it then wouldnt be well written. whereas if im surrounded by bullshit, at least it could be well done. its still bullshit though. lipstick on a pig…
by worthy causes i dont mean giving money to a charity for tax deduction. there can so much be done in the fucking business context. and why could that not be communicated in an entertaining way. i just dont get it. fucking stupid. /rant
I just saw a press ad for Kerrygold butter spread.
It had Olive Oil from Popeye sitting on a cow.
Underneath it reads ‘Now made with olive oil”.
Fuck me.
Three of the things we learnt at Watford to NEVER do
1. Borrowed interest (tick)
2. Puns (tick)
3. Contrived humour (tick).
Lipstick on a pig indeed.
Much better to improve your products and then tell people about them.
Lipstick on a Mila Kunis.
(I just invented that phrase which will now sweep the nation.)
Anon 6: at least it’s a fact, I suppose. Badly expressed, but it’s better than them saying ‘hand churned for that really buttery taste’.
I’m liking the current ad for some face moisturizer that tells us it’s ‘inspired by gene science’ – which basically means absolutely fuck all whichever way you look at it
anonymous.
much like the wallace and gromit harvey nicks posters.
the fourth thing they teach at watford, is ignore everything they teach you at watford.
Ummm…I don’t want to die in a ditch protecting writer’s words… but I think the woolly line is absolutely fine. The take-out for any punter who bothers to read it, maybe during a momentary pause between comparing support tights, would be ‘Oh, M&S are ethical about their treatment of animals.’
What, pray tell, is wrong with that?
GOUT-LEGS
The Wallace and Gromit ads were shit. Read the Watford pointers again and see why.
ben,
timely post.
i was just admiring this ad the other day…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOHwjjhFTac
when i suddenly realised there’s not really any idea in it.
usually i like an ad because i’m in awe of the creative leap, but there isn’t one in this.
but i still like it.
maybe i like that they embraced the lack of what they have to say (i know they are saying it is different, but it’s hardly an insight).
Is there any connection between the amount of teams in advertising who went to Watford, and the current state of British advertising?
McKevin: what’s wrong with that is that they could instead give us a sentence that explains what they actually do to improve animal welfare. It would be more persuasive and thought-provoking. Judging things by whether or not they are wrong gets us out of improving the degree to which they are right.
And Twittacam: it’s a really tough question. Perhaps the homogeneity of mid-range cars must lead us towards meaningless advertising. But, as in this case, the embracing of the meaninglessness results in a more likeable ad. They are not trying to patronise us into believing some bullshit; instead they are colluding in the pointlessness of it all and just giving us a bit of entertainment to make us like one identical car over another.
I think there’s a lot to be said for treating your audience as if they’ve got some intelligence by showing them some rapping mice.
And I’ve never been keen on the Wallace and Gromit ads. It’s the kind of idea you’d have in the briefing (in fact I believe this was literally the case) but beautifully executed. Remember when Harvey and Hibby wore the clothes? That was good. A real leap in both idea and execution (The idea was there was no idea. It’s high fashion clothing FFS).
Anon 14: I can’t see how. Watford/Tony churned out many greats before the current malaise set in.
Watford and Tony produced the people who produced Blackcurrant Tango.
To paraphrase Sunset Boulevard: They *are* big. It’s the industry that got small.
Are cars still seen as status symbols? Surely they must be. I have no idea what people want in a car these days. I have a Skoda so..
I’d hate to be in car sales.
me – ‘What do you want in your new car?’
customer – “No idea”
me – “Me neither”
boss – “You’re fired Powell”
oops – wrong post – sorry Ben tres sloppy.
All too true Mr Kay. Part of the modern ad malaise: lots of very ‘creadive’ ways of saying next to fuck all.
Clients actively want ads that say nothing. It’s safer.
They get tired of having to turn down ads that say one thing, simply and creatively (as I was taught* at Watford). My god someone might actually notice them and that makes them vulnerable.
* When I say taught, I mean drummed into my cranium through constant repetition from Tony.
I am a spammer but I’ve ticked the box saying I’m not. How do you like them apples?
you all take advertising waaaaaaay too seriously.
do your shit, take the money and run.
if your shit gets rejected, repeat.
Anonymous,
The Wallace and Gromit Harvey Nicks ads were lovely. Those characters are very relevant to us Bristolians, ‘borrowed interest’ could apply to those Yorkshire Tea ads they were in though.
I’ve never understood the obsession with Watford and especially not Bucks, they churn out teams that all think exactly the same. There are plenty of great advertising courses around now but cd’s don’t seem to give them the same respect.
To quote ex-Watfordian Duncan Marshall ‘Thinking broadly around a simple unique truth is what it’s always been about. As my tutor at Watford College, Tony Cullingham, always said, “as long as you revolve around logic you can go as nuts as you choose.” Basically I’ve been working to that advice every day since.’ Which leads you to meaningful communication. Which is why my year alone generated more than 20 pencils. If there’s any justice, Cullingham should be up for the Presidents Award at D&Ad!
watford college has done for advertising what harvard has done for law in the states.
We had 5 teams leave in July. They all had different books. They all had different styles of thinking. They all ended up in different agencies. From the big traditional places to the small project based and digitally led agencies. That just wouldn’t have happened if all the books had the same ideas/thinking.
But isn’t it a question of horses for courses?
I love a bit of persuasive, thought-provoking copy on a wall, just as long as that wall happens to be in the Tate Modern with a bit of art hanging on it.
But when I’m browsing y-fronts in M&S? I’ll take the crappy pun thanks.
Ha! Ben – I was in M&S yesterday. There’s your fishy poster. Including the copy “Hook, Line & Sinker”. Ta-dah! Puntastic.
‘Hook line and STINKER’ more like!!!!!!!!
(Do you see what I did there? It was very clever.)
The Kia ad with the hamsters is pretty damn good, considering they had to figure out how to target black American gangsta types without offending all the people they would have, had they used black American gangsta types. Turn ’em into hamsters, and no one gets offended, even tho they have really stereotyped the whole community. I give them high marks.