As great comedians seem to know innately, we communicate through a variety of means, including word, gesture, facial expression, tone, volume and accent. They're also acutely aware of the interaction of text and subtext. In its crudest form, we're conscious of subtext whenever we hear a clever play on words.
Whether we laugh or flinch, a pun's hidden subtext jumps out at us, jack-in-the-box style. While it's easy to see the relationship between text and subtext in humor, many people are less conscious of that relationship in everyday communication. The way language works, however, everything we can say, write or act out as text is shadowed by its subtext.
How we read that subtext depends most significantly on the cultural context we inhabit. A sample song lyric from the 1930s bristles with innuendo that might well have been lost on its original audience. For all that its intent is lighthearted "suggestiveness," I doubt we hear the lyric in exactly the same way in 2011:
You’re an old smoothie,
I’m an old softie,
I’m just like putty
In the hands of a girl like you.
You’re an old meanie,
I’m a big boobie,
I just go nutty,
In the hands of a girl like you.
Poor me, you played me for a sap;
Poor you, you thought you’d laid a trap!
Well dear, I think it’s time you knew,
You’ve done just what I wanted you to.
Silly old smoothie,
Crafty old softie,
I’ll stick like putty
To the hand of a girl like you.
(Lyrics by B.G. DeSylva—from the 1932 musical Take a Chance)
Clearly, the subtext has changed over time, in ways subtle and overt, depending on your reading. Yet, again, without the heightened diction of poetry or the visual cues they receive from comedians, many Americans find subtext difficult to perceive in everyday language.
This is due to the word-by-word way they are taught to read and write. As a result, a mastery of word order, vocabulary and a few of the finicky rules we teach children to help them develop a rudimentary grasp of grammar, is all most people absorb about how language communicates.
Trouble is, our industry demands more than a vague sensitivity to language. Knowing the difference between "dog bites man" and "man bites dog" is not enough. As communication managers, an ability to perceive, shape and control the subtext of the message we send to consumers is essential. The truth of this easiest to see when things go wrong. Consider the headline on view as of 8-26-11 on Volvo.com:
There's no place like a Volvo.
A play on an adage made famous 72 years ago in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, the subtext of this headline is simply too vague to have impact. Are we saying a Volvo is a home where consumers can seed cherished memories? Or is it "special" for no particular reason, neither fun, cool, exhilarating nor enlightening.
Besides, the idea of a car as a place is badly misplaced. If the underlying thought is, "There's no experience like the experience of driving a Volvo," Volvo undoubtedly assumes consumers will arrive at the site with a complete set of mining equipment—so they can tunnel down to this level of meaning.
By grafting the brand name mechanically onto a phrase no longer on the tip of people's tongues, Volvo fails to define the attributes consumers can retain, recall and, ultimately advocate for. Suburu, on the other hand, with the line:
Experience Love that Lasts.
...manages to balance text and subtext more successfully. While its message is still quite generic, this line offers a clear approach to its meaning: "Subaru delivers long-term satisfaction." Also based on familiar phrases, this line succeeds by not falling prey to a venerable cliché: that every headline just gotta have a pun, homonym, phrase inversion or goofy rhyme, Preferably. Separated. By. Periods.
As layered as this discussion is when we stick to headlines, creating and maintaining a functioning subtext within body copy is still more complex. This is partly a matter of sheer volume—the more words, the more they're open to interpretation—but it also involves the dogged persistence of outdated promotional idioms, those undead relics of the '60s that rise from their coffins at the start of every project to strangle innovation and stoke the fires of Marketing Anxiety.
In my next post, I'll have more to say about text/subtext relationships as applied to body copy. Though more often cobbled than creatively conceived, body copy is where the relationship between a text and its shadow has the most impact on the success of the entire project.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Impact of Advertising
& the Snake-Oil Imperative
Years ago, the pioneering English marketer, William Lever, is supposed to have said, "I know half my advertising isn't working, I just don't know which half." More than a century later, the issue is still irresolvable. That's because advertising is a process, not a one-shot quick-fix for slumping sales. It's only one of many contributors to the ambient emotional, cultural and intellectual atmosphere surrounding every product.
By corollary, buying itself isn't a decision, but a reflex—a response to a body of stimuli, including previous experience, word of mouth, cost and brand identity. Accordingly, you can't tell "which half" of your advertising drives sales because that's not what advertising is meant to do. At the same time, without well-crafted advertising, your sales would be hobbled by the absence of a key-influencer. Because advertising does work, just not like a magic wand.
Despite the claims of placebo-toting consultants, the impact of advertising is ambiguous—and, as I see it, that ambiguity is its greatest asset. In light of that, there's something both charming and sad about the quest by Yahoo Research to analyze the impact of advertising on sales.
This ongoing project is flawed, in part, because it fails to define a coherent quality standard for the advertising it plans to test. To yield meaningful results, Yahoo can't study the impact of Advertising as an abstraction. It can only evaluate the relative impact of one particular ad at a time. Without a mechanism to ensure the ads meet industry standards, the resulting data will be completely meaningless. After all, we can't expect a smarmy, pretentious ad for the iPhone to sell...wait, bad example.
Methodology aside, a deeper problem lies in the misuse of words like "data" and "analysis."
Objective questions, subjective answers.
For starters, everyday experience teaches us that the worst way to find out what motivates people is to ask them. The immense social pressure applied to every aspect of American life means an honest answer is unlikely or even impossible. A mind shaped by the lifetime of denial required to meet our strict social norms can't be expected to deliver objective observations.
That means any data acquired through a question/answer process—whether "cross-checked" or not—can't claim the mantle of scientific rigor. Yet as AMC's Mad Men reminds us, we've been fooling ourselves on this score for decades.
That's not to say there's no value in gathering information and trying to interpret it. What else to we have to work with, now that American society is fractured by an incredibly obtuse political discourse about its identity? But the key word here is "interpret." Qualitative or quantitative, marketing data delivers only a fuzzy snapshot of reality that can't be analyzed with scientific precision.
So given that the course of American culture is now about as predictable as the shape of molten lava, I have a hard time understanding why we continue to clamor for such specious statistical rigor. Maybe it's a measure of the anxiety this state of affairs produces—a "rage for order" that's sweeping the nation. Or maybe it's a reflection of the decades-long trend toward injecting pseudo-science into all aspects of American life. Either way, the belief that human behavior follows a predictable curve is inherently toxic.
The side-effects of a doubtful prescription.
Between those who advocate interrupting a brand narrative with the literal repetition of search terms, and those who hear the voice of God in user-testing, we're drowning in rigidity. Clearly, in the trickle-down process between valid scientific research and its assimilation by advertising culture, an essential bit of perspective has been lost.
It boils down to this: No matter how careful you are, the act of observing human behavior transforms it. Besides, in user-testing facilities we can only observe how people behave in an artificial setting, not in their "natural environment." Between the social pressure to perform—we are, after all, asking people to test something—and the social pressure on analysts to justify their paychecks, the resulting data is hardly pure and objective.
Results like this are not rigorous enough to justify multiple, panicky revision cycles until everything fresh, engaging, intriguing, mysterious, thought-provoking—human—has been erased from our work. It's time to acknowledge that the unsatisfying gruel we serve up to consumers is the direct result of this infantile longing for absolute, lifeless safety and comfort.
In spite of that, we continue to produce reams of work that mirrors the mentality of our test subjects—people in the prime of their lives with nothing better to do than lounge around in a conference room and complain. Sad to say, with our reliance on pseudo-science, we've not only failed to evolve past the era of snake-oil advertising—we've turned its harmful influences back on ourselves.
By corollary, buying itself isn't a decision, but a reflex—a response to a body of stimuli, including previous experience, word of mouth, cost and brand identity. Accordingly, you can't tell "which half" of your advertising drives sales because that's not what advertising is meant to do. At the same time, without well-crafted advertising, your sales would be hobbled by the absence of a key-influencer. Because advertising does work, just not like a magic wand.
Despite the claims of placebo-toting consultants, the impact of advertising is ambiguous—and, as I see it, that ambiguity is its greatest asset. In light of that, there's something both charming and sad about the quest by Yahoo Research to analyze the impact of advertising on sales.
This ongoing project is flawed, in part, because it fails to define a coherent quality standard for the advertising it plans to test. To yield meaningful results, Yahoo can't study the impact of Advertising as an abstraction. It can only evaluate the relative impact of one particular ad at a time. Without a mechanism to ensure the ads meet industry standards, the resulting data will be completely meaningless. After all, we can't expect a smarmy, pretentious ad for the iPhone to sell...wait, bad example.
Methodology aside, a deeper problem lies in the misuse of words like "data" and "analysis."
Objective questions, subjective answers.
For starters, everyday experience teaches us that the worst way to find out what motivates people is to ask them. The immense social pressure applied to every aspect of American life means an honest answer is unlikely or even impossible. A mind shaped by the lifetime of denial required to meet our strict social norms can't be expected to deliver objective observations.
That means any data acquired through a question/answer process—whether "cross-checked" or not—can't claim the mantle of scientific rigor. Yet as AMC's Mad Men reminds us, we've been fooling ourselves on this score for decades.
That's not to say there's no value in gathering information and trying to interpret it. What else to we have to work with, now that American society is fractured by an incredibly obtuse political discourse about its identity? But the key word here is "interpret." Qualitative or quantitative, marketing data delivers only a fuzzy snapshot of reality that can't be analyzed with scientific precision.
So given that the course of American culture is now about as predictable as the shape of molten lava, I have a hard time understanding why we continue to clamor for such specious statistical rigor. Maybe it's a measure of the anxiety this state of affairs produces—a "rage for order" that's sweeping the nation. Or maybe it's a reflection of the decades-long trend toward injecting pseudo-science into all aspects of American life. Either way, the belief that human behavior follows a predictable curve is inherently toxic.
The side-effects of a doubtful prescription.
Between those who advocate interrupting a brand narrative with the literal repetition of search terms, and those who hear the voice of God in user-testing, we're drowning in rigidity. Clearly, in the trickle-down process between valid scientific research and its assimilation by advertising culture, an essential bit of perspective has been lost.
It boils down to this: No matter how careful you are, the act of observing human behavior transforms it. Besides, in user-testing facilities we can only observe how people behave in an artificial setting, not in their "natural environment." Between the social pressure to perform—we are, after all, asking people to test something—and the social pressure on analysts to justify their paychecks, the resulting data is hardly pure and objective.
Results like this are not rigorous enough to justify multiple, panicky revision cycles until everything fresh, engaging, intriguing, mysterious, thought-provoking—human—has been erased from our work. It's time to acknowledge that the unsatisfying gruel we serve up to consumers is the direct result of this infantile longing for absolute, lifeless safety and comfort.
In spite of that, we continue to produce reams of work that mirrors the mentality of our test subjects—people in the prime of their lives with nothing better to do than lounge around in a conference room and complain. Sad to say, with our reliance on pseudo-science, we've not only failed to evolve past the era of snake-oil advertising—we've turned its harmful influences back on ourselves.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Intellectual Assets:
What Writers Need—and Need to Ask For
In many bee-busy agencies, to the extent that anyone focuses on the copy at all, they focus on output. "Is it done yet? Is it proofed? Is it approved?" Whatever the copy is, in this mindset, the only thing your colleagues want it to be is finished.
In such an environment, no one's concerned about what the copy actually says. That is, as long as its pedigree can be traced back to an approved source. That's like saying you don't care what color the paint is, as long as it comes from the right can. Not that you'd ever think of saying that to your interior decorator—let alone the guys at Liberty Painting.
One by-product of this output-focused orientation is the dreary mediocrity that greets visitors to countless Web sites, openers of innumerable envelopes and oglers of thousands of hours of TV. Another is the almost total ignorance of what a writer needs to do the job right.
This ignorance is particularly evident in the endless rounds of revisions that accrete to every project. It's a snowballing effect that can begin as early as Round One, and usually starts no later than Round Three. Often, the first sign of trouble appears in client comments. You'll find it in a scribbled marginal reference to an existing campaign.
Of course, the fact that client comments are coming to you unfiltered, unexamined, in the form of scribbled marginal notes, is a sign of a deeper process issue that's a topic for another time.
Archaic, manipulative, insulting...
Nevertheless, you'll ask to see the existing material. And when the missing "asset" arrives, I'll give you 10-to-1 odds it's a shapeless blob of marketing treacle, dolled up to look like a print ad, brochure or even a set of Web banners.
At this point, you have the unenviable task of squeezing it into your creative concept whether it fits or not—the concept the client approved without reference to existing material.
And though this development also affects the art/design team, it's the archaic rhythms and manipulative promotional style of the copy that offers the greatest "challenge"—as you struggle to edit text that would offend the intelligence of a rhesus monkey.
Nor are matters helped by the toe-tapping impatience of your Account team, who can't understand why this isn't a simple cut and paste operation. The copy is, after all, from an approved source. What's the problem? Ego? Narcissism? Oppositional defiant disorder?
Hands over your ears, you soldier on. You negotiate enough wiggle room to bring the project up to the standard of Early 21st Century Blah—even if the ensuing back and forth eats up four to five additional rounds. You now have a shot at creating a functioning messaging platform that won't bore your audience to tears.
If killing your nights and weekends for six or eight weeks at a stretch to produce something merely functional is your idea of job satisfaction, I guess we're done here. Otherwise, I'd like to offer a remedy, based on a simple realization.
Your clients are inarticulate. That's why they need you.
We need to train our account executives to know there's more to a brand message than the mechanical repetition of a tagline, benefit bullets and "a strong call to action."
They also need the expertise to dig deeper, to uncover the client's true business goals, which in this case, perhaps, involves leveraging existing material in a misguided attempt to save money. Finally, they need to realize that a typical marketing manager, by training and experience, views consumer messaging not as a narrative, but as a patchwork of comfortable buzzwords.
Equally important, creatives need to know when they have enough background information and when they don't. Sure, no one wants to be the curmudgeon who points out the flaws in the game plan. But to start tunneling into a project with no knowledge of the mandates that govern your output is a soul-crushing waste of time.
As a result, writers, you must demand not just the physical assets, but also the intellectual assets you need before you set to work—no matter how much harrumphing you get from Project Management.
Because anything you don't know now will surely erupt in Round 9, when your client's CEO returns from vacation and asks, "What's wrong with last year's campaign—the one with the Penguins?"
In such an environment, no one's concerned about what the copy actually says. That is, as long as its pedigree can be traced back to an approved source. That's like saying you don't care what color the paint is, as long as it comes from the right can. Not that you'd ever think of saying that to your interior decorator—let alone the guys at Liberty Painting.
One by-product of this output-focused orientation is the dreary mediocrity that greets visitors to countless Web sites, openers of innumerable envelopes and oglers of thousands of hours of TV. Another is the almost total ignorance of what a writer needs to do the job right.
This ignorance is particularly evident in the endless rounds of revisions that accrete to every project. It's a snowballing effect that can begin as early as Round One, and usually starts no later than Round Three. Often, the first sign of trouble appears in client comments. You'll find it in a scribbled marginal reference to an existing campaign.
Of course, the fact that client comments are coming to you unfiltered, unexamined, in the form of scribbled marginal notes, is a sign of a deeper process issue that's a topic for another time.
Archaic, manipulative, insulting...
Nevertheless, you'll ask to see the existing material. And when the missing "asset" arrives, I'll give you 10-to-1 odds it's a shapeless blob of marketing treacle, dolled up to look like a print ad, brochure or even a set of Web banners.
At this point, you have the unenviable task of squeezing it into your creative concept whether it fits or not—the concept the client approved without reference to existing material.
And though this development also affects the art/design team, it's the archaic rhythms and manipulative promotional style of the copy that offers the greatest "challenge"—as you struggle to edit text that would offend the intelligence of a rhesus monkey.
Nor are matters helped by the toe-tapping impatience of your Account team, who can't understand why this isn't a simple cut and paste operation. The copy is, after all, from an approved source. What's the problem? Ego? Narcissism? Oppositional defiant disorder?
Hands over your ears, you soldier on. You negotiate enough wiggle room to bring the project up to the standard of Early 21st Century Blah—even if the ensuing back and forth eats up four to five additional rounds. You now have a shot at creating a functioning messaging platform that won't bore your audience to tears.
If killing your nights and weekends for six or eight weeks at a stretch to produce something merely functional is your idea of job satisfaction, I guess we're done here. Otherwise, I'd like to offer a remedy, based on a simple realization.
Your clients are inarticulate. That's why they need you.
We need to train our account executives to know there's more to a brand message than the mechanical repetition of a tagline, benefit bullets and "a strong call to action."
They also need the expertise to dig deeper, to uncover the client's true business goals, which in this case, perhaps, involves leveraging existing material in a misguided attempt to save money. Finally, they need to realize that a typical marketing manager, by training and experience, views consumer messaging not as a narrative, but as a patchwork of comfortable buzzwords.
Equally important, creatives need to know when they have enough background information and when they don't. Sure, no one wants to be the curmudgeon who points out the flaws in the game plan. But to start tunneling into a project with no knowledge of the mandates that govern your output is a soul-crushing waste of time.
As a result, writers, you must demand not just the physical assets, but also the intellectual assets you need before you set to work—no matter how much harrumphing you get from Project Management.
Because anything you don't know now will surely erupt in Round 9, when your client's CEO returns from vacation and asks, "What's wrong with last year's campaign—the one with the Penguins?"
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