Why don't we ask more questions?

Nowadays in advertising we are exhort to engage our target in a conversation. For example Nick Moore from Wunderman gave a great talk at Cannes saying just this. Simlilarly Seth Godin exhorts us, “Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.”

But how?

Our creative briefs are based on single-minded propositions. Our creative brings these alive and gets a message across. We measure the impact our message has in terms of reach and message recall.

Our aim is to tell people something about ourselves in the most creative and engaging way we can.

But is that how you’d start a conversation in real life?

No. You’d start by asking questions.

How are you doing?

How’s the new job going?

Did you see what Jennifer Lopez was wearing at the Oscars?

What about them Leafs?

Or as a particularly ineffective friend of mine used to say to girls in bars ‘What’s the word?’

So why don’t we ask more questions in advertising?

We know it works. Here are some great examples to inspire us. But we need more.

Wendy’s famously asked ‘Where’s the beef?’

Shirley Polykoff asked ‘Does she or doesn’t she?

Caramilk challenged us with “How do they get the caramel in the Caramilk bar?’

And Dove has asked us ‘ Grey or Gorgeous?’ and most recently – ‘Does retouching distrort your perception of beauty?’

Great examples. But there must be more out there. Please send me some and I’ll post them.

TV Advertising is Dead

Seems a lot of people are saying this 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 

But as an old school ad guy I'm been resisting the idea that TV is dead. And of course at one level it isn’t true. TV advertising is still over 40% of all ad spending and is projected to remain so. Young people still spend four times as much time watching TV as they do on Social Media. There'll be a need for mass advertising for some time yet.

But what interests me is the complete change in balance of interest creative teams have in it and other channels. A few years ago online advertising, events and social media were the poor cousins creatively. They were done by the promotional agency, the direct response agency or the PR agency. The creative teams at the ad agency would look down their noses at it. And I was with them. We threw in an ambient ad or an event but our heart was in the TV. But that has all changed. Creative teams at 'traditional' agencies are clamouring to do viral videos, events and other non-traditional approaches.

And I've had a change of heart too.

I recently asked my students (I teach creative advertising) to find ‘cool’ advertising ideas. Less than a quarter were regular TV ads. There are still some great TV ads out there they found – Direct TV and Honda CRV for example. But more, though still video in format, were viral or interactive videos e.g. the Guardian's 3 Little Pigs ad, Smart's Water's use of Jennifer Aniston (though I don't know who got the better deal) the UK’s anti-knife campaign or Skittles “Touch the Rainbow”.  

But the really interesting ones were not even lead by video.

Take NAB’s Canned Grand Prix winning campaign from Australia. People believed the banks there were all in a cosy relationship so NAB publicly broke up with them using advertising, social media, PR. It actually broke through Twitter.

And promotions and events are now cool. Take this Cannes award winner for Bing and Jay-Z which uses every channel possible to engage people. Or these variations on the flash mob idea: the Budweiser Flash Fans and the Nike Catch the Flash.

Or this ad which uses You Tube perfectly. I won’t give away the brand as that will give away the ending but check it out.

And Facebook doesn’t have to be sad ads about finding a mate near where you live as this campaign for Mix FM shows.

And as they say on Creativity.com ‘then there’s this’. Is it advertising? I don't know but I don't care either.

Why are my students impressed?

Simple.

Firstly they are great ideas whatever the channel.

Secondly they are winning awards. Many of the campaigns mentioned above are Cannes award winners. And some of the most interesting winning camapigns are interactive. Take Tribal’s Carousel ad for Philips. Or Dove’s Evolution.

And Canadian agencies are doing well in this area. Many of the above examples are Canadian. BBDO won Strategy’s agency of the year lead by non-traditional campaigns. A good friend of mine Siobhan McCarthy presented some BBDO ads to my students. The four campaigns she chose were all non-traditional: the Cannes winning Rotisserie Channel they developed for Swiss Chalet , as well as the Skittles campaign already mentioned, Tropicana Arctic Sun and BBDO Proximity’s M&M’s Find Red.  She could also have mentioned Gillette’s Personal Grooming campaign (also here).

A few years ago I could never have created a list like this of non-traditional ads I admire. Now its easy. And I've undoubtedly missed out some great examples - if I've missed your favourite let me know.

The truth is that the exciting creative opportunities exist in non-traditional media nowadays. And to that extent TV advertising is dead.