I like advertising. This may seem like a strange thing for a
marketing journalist to say. But then I'm a strange marketing
journalist.
And the reason I say it is so that you won't read the following and
think: "Ah-ha, a jaded and cynical old business hack who's seen too much
advertising and is sick to the back teeth of it."
Because I really do like advertising. I just hate most ads. Why? Because
most ads hate me. They hate me as a consumer - they talk down to me,
treat me with contempt and condescension, and seem to assume that if
they tell me to like something enough times in a loud enough voice, I'll
obediently start liking it.
But ads that show contempt for the consumer are dangerous.
This struck me a few weeks ago, when we were sent a press release about
a piece of research by a major advertising agency, which had found that
ads were more likely to be effective if people liked them.
That much seemed pretty self-evident to me, and I had a bit of a scoff,
until I talked to someone at the agency who pointed out that if it's so
obviously true, why is so much advertising boring, patronising and
unimaginative?
Perhaps it's part of a culture of doing things the same way as before,
because That's The Way It's Done.
In certain markets, that's what clients are willing to buy. But that's
not really an excuse. What clients ought to want, and what agencies need
to make them realise they need, is to be challenged.
One way of doing this is with advertising that people actually like.
I live in Hong Kong, and I can't think of a single ad I've seen on
either domestic or regional TV here that I've genuinely liked, that has
charmed me, made me smile, generated affinity, made me feel good about
the brand.
Instead, they choose to yell at me.
But at a certain point, advertisers will have to wake up to the fact
that repeatdly battering down the walls of the viewer's cerebellum isn't
going to work any more.
And as media fragments and consumers become ever more difficult to
reach, it's going to be increasingly subject to the law of diminishing
returns -shouting a lot will become less and less effective.
The level of intelligence with which advertisers and agencies credit
consumers varies throughout Asia. And it can reflect the way they see
themselves and their work.
It's no coincidence that markets with a strong advertising industry,
where it's held in high esteem as a profession that people really want
to work in, tend to produce likeable advertising that treats consumers
with respect; where advertising is regarded as hack work, struggles to
attract good people and operates on ever-tightening margins, repetitive,
derivative shouty advertising rules.
The advertising industry is holding a mirror up to itself, and sometimes
the relfection isn't pretty.
