Sorry, clients, but there isn’t a magic formula for your advertising/marketing success. There isn’t a single Agency Process™ on the planet that works for every single brand every single time. And if you ever pick up a book on marketing that promises you a step-by-step approach will stimulate your brand growth, throw it in the dumpster fire.
Yes, part of what we do is science-based. Behavioral science, that is, and behavioral science is based upon experimentation. Analytics and data can help us predict behavior and give us some insights into what types of messages work best in what spaces and when, but people aren’t entirely predictable — our behaviors change as our circumstances change. We’re constantly evaluating and adapting and adjusting. As such, more often than not, we buy emotionally and then justify our purchase decisions rationally.
“It was cool. Plus, it was on sale.”
Way back in 2003, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners produced one of the greatest automotive spots ever, in my opinion. The story goes that when the dealers saw the spot they hated it. It didn’t show the cars until the very end. Didn’t talk about the warranty. Didn’t talk about fuel efficiency. In other words, it didn’t follow the automotive advertising formula and, therefore, it didn’t fly with the dealers. However, the CMO of Saturn loved it and she ran it despite their objections. And every time the spot ran, visits to the dealerships increased. Yes, Saturn is no longer around. But it wasn’t the advertising from GS&P that killed that brand.
I recently saw a post on r/advertising where someone plugged a bunch of famous slogans into Grammarly and, predictably, few came out unchanged. Why? Because the slogans were written by people who understood that in order to stand out, they had to stand apart. To break free from convention. Free from same. Free from safe. To freely take risks
To think different.
Sorry, clients, there isn’t a magic formula for your advertising/marketing success. But if you keep doing and saying what every other brand in your category is doing and saying, keep following convention, keep minimizing emotion, you’re going to fail your brand. Guaranteed.