True Confessions of Octogenarian Advertising Panderer David L Lewis
First, a word from… can you name the sponsor? Hint: You may have to be over 50 to remember some of them. Answers at end:
1) Time For Another Commercial Is Here! Quick, Run And Get A ________ ____
2) Pop, Pop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh What A Relief It Is, ____ _______
3) I’d Walk A Mile For A ________
4) _______ ______ Good To The Last Drop
5) _________ Sugar Corn Pops! Sugar Pops Are Tops!
6) Mr Whipple, please don’t squeeze the ___________
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Yes, yes, I know, it now starts in July. BUT, back in my day Christmas shopping season began the day after Thanksgiving. This was the day retailers went from operating in the red to being profitable, that is, in the black. Which meant advertising for Christmas began in late November.
Now that I am an official octogenarian and the grim reaper has me on speed dial, one must consider getting one’s affairs in order and confessing faults. Forgive me, therefore, dear reader, though knowing it has been a venial sin since invention of TV remote, I must confess to sometimes having intentionally watched TV Commercials!
Yes, they can get boring after a few exposures, and some are ‘indiscreet’ at best. But, I must confess the Art of Advertising has fascinated me since before I ever heard of Black Friday. And, I’ve learned a lot of new stuff and stolen a lot of good ideas from them.
I herewith offer penitence for my transgressions by revealing the seven evil temptations of the advertising copy-writing demons.
Temptation #1: Advertising Works In 21st century Nothing, absolutely nothing, gets to you until someone launches an effective marketing campaign - Nothing. This includes not only everything ever purchased, but also every idea ever incorporated into our world view – Everything.
Temptation #2: Advertising Benefits It is what keeps newspapers, radio, TV in business. PBS (and even Cable TV!), once much ballyhooed as Free, must accept advertising revenue to survive. If you watch or read any of them, you benefit from advertisers who paid to make it possible.
Temptation #3: Advertising Infiltrates It’s in everything, everywhere, all the time. They all follow the same format: The ‘hook’ to get attention of likely buyers, the ‘Schick’ to keep viewer attention, the ‘close’ to motivate the buyer. If it works, we get endless repetitions! As they say: ‘If you say it loud enough, loud enough, often enough, it becomes the truth.’
Temptation #4: Advertising Deceives By Law they do have to tell truth; but watch out for how they say it, and what they don’t have to say.
Nothing is “Free” and there are always costs – always
Lawyer Talk is not there to protect the Buyer from law suits
Truth in Advertising does not require clarity in presentation
Presenting Benefits does not require equal time for Problems
When it comes on louder than program the argument is weak
It’s more profitable to sell Cure than market cheaper Prevention
If it is too good to be true then it probably is too good to be true!
Temptation #5: Advertising Fluctuates
Good: ‘Serial’ commercials for property damage insurance are best and most successful ads running (how long has Flo been spokesperson for what?).
Bad: The very worst are the endless drug promotions (if you listen to them carefully, why would anyone put them in their body?).
Tolerable: Infomercials must be working, they have been going on since birth of TV. And, a lot of people have gotten rich from them. Suppose they’re tolerable, I just never watched any.
Worst: Those which offend traditional values and sense of decency. As once said: An old-timer is someone who remembers when a bra was called a brazier, and was never mentioned in public.
Temptation #6: Advertising Profits Every individual commercial you see on network TV represents a gamble of from $50K to multi-millions of dollars. Ads have to pay off! Every commercial endeavor which has ever failed has failed because it lacked an effective marketing plan which reached the target market. If we see an ad repeated a lot, it is for one simple reason – it worked. Ads must profit the advertiser, costs only justified if it brings more income to advertiser.
Temptation #7: Advertising Captures If you watch, listen, read just long enough to be aware of what it is advertising, the advertiser wins. But, if you don’t remember the product, it’s worthless. So, if I remember the advertisers of my above Quiz so many years later, they were worth the effort to the brands whether I bought their product or not.
Just doing some advertising copy-writing to thank that dude who invented the remote control.
TheOctogenaeian
QUIZ ANSWERS
(1) Falstaff Beer (2) Alka Seltzer (3) Camel (4) Folgers Coffee (5) Kellogg's (6) Charmin
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