Though the different branches of advertising have many points of disagreement, they usually find common ground in one area. Everyone grasps that motivating an audience begins with understanding it. So whether you're meeting about branding, messaging, media strategy—or the mundane aspects of copy and design—you're liable to entertain a discussion of "tone," "voice," "identity," "persona" and, depending on the age of your CEO, "psychographics."
What a strange, disembodied way to talk about ourselves.
After all, the audience we hope to motivate is not made up of members of a different species. Maybe in some remote era of the future, marketers living on the moons of Jupiter may wonder how to sell a DustBuster® to a family of sentient crustaceans on Gilese 581g. But until that time, advertising firms and the brands they advise will be people talking to people about life on Earth.
How do you do that? It's a question the advertising-marketing subspecies of homo sapiens has been asking for over a century. Since so much of the terminology we use seeks to define character and personality, I wonder whether acting training should be added to the Communications and MBA curricula.
Get into character.
Think about the number of times a day we're enjoined to understand the mindset of The Consumer. In its evocation of behavioral psychology, this quest for understanding reminds me of the way some actors prepare for their roles. Using a kind of anthropological research, they unearth detailed clues to a character's thought processes, emotional life and environment.
Other actors, by contrast, seem to take a more physical approach, mimicking the stride, breathing patterns, speech rhythms, body language or facial tics of "typical" representatives of the character's cultural group. Still others rely on improvisation, finding the character's characteristics "in the moment," using the tightrope wire of adrenalin to tap into their deepest perception of the human condition.
No matter how they achieve the results that make us laugh, cry, rage or rejoice, they've found an entry point into the human psyche that, as I see it, is many times more definitive than anything we currently achieve, particularly in digital space.
Personality, charisma are like...you know...sales?
Despite the real difference between a Drama Team and a Marketing Team, to the extent that they both aim to evoke a predictable range of responses from everyday people, the analogy is worth exploring. Certainly, in their drive for commercial success, films in the action/adventure genre mirror our work more closely than we'd like to admit.
Like a successful director, we want the final product to be engaging, gripping, motivating and to pique enough interest to justify a sequel or two. Not, despite what we hear at award ceremonies, because it "serves the client," but because it reaches out to real people and makes their hearts race.
And yet, in countless creative presentations I've witnessed, we rarely offer our clients anything more thrilling than a flash marquee with—perhaps—a groovy swirl pattern. Certainly nothing so charismatic as a quirky adventurer or as powerfully moving as a mother searching for her lost child.
On the contrary, the theme of these presentations revolves around the surgical precision with which we've "executed against the strategy." If only. Imagine cutting edge thinking that actually included a cutting edge, an execution that actually spilled a little blood—OK, maybe ketchup instead—we might finally have a chance to rivet the attention of our audience.
Act now.
At the sober, practical level, a move in this direction might not require too big a leap or—shudder—expense. Chances are, there's a local arts education non-profit in your area that could offer a bi-weekly improv class—for less than the cost of that awful pasta salad you serve up at client meetings. Or you could postpone the purchase of another state-of-the-art-teleconferencing-center-no-one-will-ever-use and have more than enough in the budget to sponsor an annual, semi-staged play reading.
Sure, it would shake up your professional paradigm, and some of your key players would be way too cool to participate. But for the rest, the experience in delivering a message through gesture, pacing, rhythm, facial expression and voice—i.e., anything but text and graphics—would open them up to a new understanding of their role as communicators. If you think this an unnecessary exercise, ask yourself: When was the last time you waited all summer for a Web site premiere?
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Shadow Reading: Text & Subtext
in Effective Communication (3)
Before you spend six figures testing your copy in focus groups, ask yourself this: Is the bottom-line subtext "Us" or "You?" Depending on the answer, you could save a bundle in test dollars by going back to the drawing board.
For some brands, the temptation to rattle on about "our fine products" is as irresistible as it is antediluvian. Back when advertising was young, spinning your brand yarn into a pledge narrative might have seemed central to the art of persuasion. But today, this approach has a serious drawback: It's all about "Us." Take a look at an exceptionally well-preserved specimen from the fossil records, on display at Progresso.com as of 9-16-11:
Our story is all about quality.
We craft all our soups, broths and foods from authentic recipes using only the highest quality ingredients. We are dedicated to making better taste better for you. We believe that food should always be delicious, and there is no reason that delicious food can’t fit within your diet. At Progresso, we love great food. It’s been our passion for more than 50 years.
As if suspended in amber like a 30-million-year-old termite, this classic pledge message lacks only the phrase "That's our promise to you." Maybe that bit got snapped off when this copy stumbled into the tree sap. Nevertheless, it bears the stamp of its ancient origins. In one paragraph are four instances of "we" and one of "our."
Now ask yourself: What's your favorite topic?
If you answered "politics;" "fashion," "cars," "sports," "hip-hop," or "electromagnetic resonance," think again. These might be favorite topics of conversation, but I'll bet my eye teeth your favorite topic of all time is You. Sure, other topics can grab and hold your attention, but only for so long. Your first love is that sweetheart in the mirror.
Playing to the balcony.
So, what's wrong with Progresso's approach? For starters, if "we" take pride in our soup that says nothing about how it tastes to "you." The net result of such Us-centric patter is a message only tangentially related to our everyday experience. Like an ancient Roman theatrical mask, phrases like: "the highest quality ingredients" appear before us as ritualized stand-ins for emotional connection.
When brands favor You-centric messaging, the impact is more immediate—even if the copy isn't original, witty, or hip. Here's what I found at Campbells.com:
Serve up satisfaction.
Campbell’s® Chunky™ soup has the stuff you’ll love,
like big pieces of meat and hearty vegetables. It’s a
filling stand-alone soup, or can make a great dinner
when poured over mashed potatoes or rice.
Award-winning prose? No. It has the dutiful flow of language enslaved to a pixel-perfect design matrix. But the impact of You-oriented messaging lies in its intent. Campbell's strategy is to address consumers in a human voice.
This copy doesn't discuss Campbell's wish to serve "your busy lifestyle"—or recite any other duh-infested observations from Advertising's sacred Book of Wry. Yes, you hear the voice of a merchant. But at least that merchant is talking about you—and that's the crucial difference. In fact, this dichotomy between "Us-ers" and "You-ers" is played out across digital space. I'll leave it to you to compare the approaches taken by Amy's and Stouffer's.
One being, indivisible.
The debate between appealing to reason (Us) and appealing to emotion (You) is rooted in American culture. We tend to envision ourselves as having a rational side and an emotional side. And as evidenced by the either/or way brands choose to address their audiences, it's clear there's also a split between those who believe we're persuaded by logic and those who believe we're persuaded by emotion.
As I see it, the idea that the human brain is divided into "sides" is merely a comfortable delusion. As the recent discovery of a "secondary brain" in our guts suggests, we're one entity, in which rational, emotional and somatic impulses intertwine in an unfathomably dynamic dance. Appeal to a consumer's rational side? Good luck finding it. For all you know, it could reside in his or her belly, right next to yesterday's lunch. In which case, you better hope your target ate something sensible for a change.
Armed with the realization that traditional models of audience engagement are flawed, we desperately need a new voice, the "new way of walking" that the '60s promised but never quite delivered. We'll find it the moment we tear down the platitude-encrusted walls of promotional lingo that separate brand and audience. In 2011, if you want to sell me something, your logic will be suffused with emotion, your feelings will well up from a commitment to rational principles—and your subtext will be "You."
For some brands, the temptation to rattle on about "our fine products" is as irresistible as it is antediluvian. Back when advertising was young, spinning your brand yarn into a pledge narrative might have seemed central to the art of persuasion. But today, this approach has a serious drawback: It's all about "Us." Take a look at an exceptionally well-preserved specimen from the fossil records, on display at Progresso.com as of 9-16-11:
Our story is all about quality.
We craft all our soups, broths and foods from authentic recipes using only the highest quality ingredients. We are dedicated to making better taste better for you. We believe that food should always be delicious, and there is no reason that delicious food can’t fit within your diet. At Progresso, we love great food. It’s been our passion for more than 50 years.
As if suspended in amber like a 30-million-year-old termite, this classic pledge message lacks only the phrase "That's our promise to you." Maybe that bit got snapped off when this copy stumbled into the tree sap. Nevertheless, it bears the stamp of its ancient origins. In one paragraph are four instances of "we" and one of "our."
Now ask yourself: What's your favorite topic?
If you answered "politics;" "fashion," "cars," "sports," "hip-hop," or "electromagnetic resonance," think again. These might be favorite topics of conversation, but I'll bet my eye teeth your favorite topic of all time is You. Sure, other topics can grab and hold your attention, but only for so long. Your first love is that sweetheart in the mirror.
Playing to the balcony.
So, what's wrong with Progresso's approach? For starters, if "we" take pride in our soup that says nothing about how it tastes to "you." The net result of such Us-centric patter is a message only tangentially related to our everyday experience. Like an ancient Roman theatrical mask, phrases like: "the highest quality ingredients" appear before us as ritualized stand-ins for emotional connection.
When brands favor You-centric messaging, the impact is more immediate—even if the copy isn't original, witty, or hip. Here's what I found at Campbells.com:
Serve up satisfaction.
Campbell’s® Chunky™ soup has the stuff you’ll love,
like big pieces of meat and hearty vegetables. It’s a
filling stand-alone soup, or can make a great dinner
when poured over mashed potatoes or rice.
Award-winning prose? No. It has the dutiful flow of language enslaved to a pixel-perfect design matrix. But the impact of You-oriented messaging lies in its intent. Campbell's strategy is to address consumers in a human voice.
This copy doesn't discuss Campbell's wish to serve "your busy lifestyle"—or recite any other duh-infested observations from Advertising's sacred Book of Wry. Yes, you hear the voice of a merchant. But at least that merchant is talking about you—and that's the crucial difference. In fact, this dichotomy between "Us-ers" and "You-ers" is played out across digital space. I'll leave it to you to compare the approaches taken by Amy's and Stouffer's.
One being, indivisible.
The debate between appealing to reason (Us) and appealing to emotion (You) is rooted in American culture. We tend to envision ourselves as having a rational side and an emotional side. And as evidenced by the either/or way brands choose to address their audiences, it's clear there's also a split between those who believe we're persuaded by logic and those who believe we're persuaded by emotion.
As I see it, the idea that the human brain is divided into "sides" is merely a comfortable delusion. As the recent discovery of a "secondary brain" in our guts suggests, we're one entity, in which rational, emotional and somatic impulses intertwine in an unfathomably dynamic dance. Appeal to a consumer's rational side? Good luck finding it. For all you know, it could reside in his or her belly, right next to yesterday's lunch. In which case, you better hope your target ate something sensible for a change.
Armed with the realization that traditional models of audience engagement are flawed, we desperately need a new voice, the "new way of walking" that the '60s promised but never quite delivered. We'll find it the moment we tear down the platitude-encrusted walls of promotional lingo that separate brand and audience. In 2011, if you want to sell me something, your logic will be suffused with emotion, your feelings will well up from a commitment to rational principles—and your subtext will be "You."
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Shadow Reading: Text & Subtext
in Effective Communication (2)
Look at a wide enough swatch of Web site copy and you're sure to encounter one of everything. That is, if you're toting a machete sharp enough to chop through the thousands of acres of wild, uncultivated words that carpet digital space.
Most of the time, you'll also run into a fair amount of "astro-copy," the pre-fab drivel that threatens to "Welcome," "Please" and "Thank" you all the way to your grave. It's copy touting the benefits, offers, ease, convenience, confidence and peace of mind that every product from mini-biscuit waffles to "non-abrasive blast finishing" purports to provide.
What gives this copy its disposable, weed-like quality? Its utter disregard for the power of subtext to make a message memorable, moving and motivating.
At Maytag.com, as of 9-4-11, the danger of leaving subtext to chance is on display in the following follow-up lines to subheads in the main message flow:
"Count on the PowerWashTM Cycle to give you the best cleaning in the industry"
"Count on dual temperature cooking to get every bit of your biggest meals done at once."
"Count on the extra-large pantry drawer to keep all their favorites in reach."
"Count on Silverware-BlastTM jet sprays to make sure your silverware starts each meal clean."
Dolled-up like headlines, the cumulative effect of this copy is a classic list of "bene-bullets." The parallelism achieved with the repetition of "Count on" adds not a whit of aerodynamic drag to the copy's headlong descent into substandard communication.
"Our products work good."
...is all these statements aver, the one message every consumer expects to hear. So much so that, years ago, in an era when brand advertising garnered the respect it still deserves, the self-deprecating ads of Volkswagen sparked a revolution. I can't say it often enough: In 2011, Americans "get" advertising. It's no good hoping your ad placements will be interpreted as selfless purveyors of "solutions." Consumers know: if you're doing it at all, you're doing it to sell.
If it's not affective, it's not effective.
Meanwhile, Maytag's one-dimensional approach merely attests to the product's functional capacity. It conveys no emotion. With proper care of the subtext, a messaging strategy can guide consumers to arrive at a feeling about the brand. Don't look for that here. In this case, the problem runs even deeper, all the way to Maytag's self-identification with the concept of "dependability."
While this may have been a workable strategy when the Dependability campaign launched 50+ years ago, the connotations surrounding "dependable" have shifted since then. Living more than four decades after the founding of the consumer movement, we're no longer grateful if a product works. We expect it to work. Besides, in many circles," dependable" and its cousins "faithful," and "reliable" have become synonymous with "boring," "servile" and "unimaginative."
In the Maytag example, the problem is compounded by the pointless micro-branding of "PowerWash Cycle" and "Silverware-Blast jet sprays." Leaving aside the amateurish quality of this effort, (right down to the inconsistent capitalization of "Cycle" and "jet sprays") I doubt these phrases mean anything to consumers.
Even assuming "Silverware-Blast" refers to a major design innovation, such innovations are outside most consumers' direct experience. As such, these micro-brand names register only as noise—one more thing site visitors will bleep over as they struggle to parse out Maytag's meaning. Here, a poor surface realization of an intended subtext
"Check out the cool features on our advanced-design products."
…actually impedes communication.
Of course, it takes no leap of imagination to recognize that visual assets are also shadowed by subtext. You see it in action every time a department store uses attractive models to sell casual wear. At Whirlpool.com, looping videos of clean clothes, fresh foods and delicious meals hover behind still frames of a washer, refrigerator and oven, respectively. While these aren't the subtlest examples, Whirlpool's awareness of visual subtext reminds us of simple pleasures and brings the subject matter to life.
It's in this sense that a well-crafted subtext has the greatest impact on the success of any campaign. For there, in the deep recesses of the imagination, are the things that make us human. It is, after all, not the stuff we buy that we remember, but how we use it to live our lives. The more nearly your message maps onto that memory, the harder you can sell—even if you never once raise your voice to scream, "Act Now!"
Most of the time, you'll also run into a fair amount of "astro-copy," the pre-fab drivel that threatens to "Welcome," "Please" and "Thank" you all the way to your grave. It's copy touting the benefits, offers, ease, convenience, confidence and peace of mind that every product from mini-biscuit waffles to "non-abrasive blast finishing" purports to provide.
What gives this copy its disposable, weed-like quality? Its utter disregard for the power of subtext to make a message memorable, moving and motivating.
At Maytag.com, as of 9-4-11, the danger of leaving subtext to chance is on display in the following follow-up lines to subheads in the main message flow:
"Count on the PowerWashTM Cycle to give you the best cleaning in the industry"
"Count on dual temperature cooking to get every bit of your biggest meals done at once."
"Count on the extra-large pantry drawer to keep all their favorites in reach."
"Count on Silverware-BlastTM jet sprays to make sure your silverware starts each meal clean."
Dolled-up like headlines, the cumulative effect of this copy is a classic list of "bene-bullets." The parallelism achieved with the repetition of "Count on" adds not a whit of aerodynamic drag to the copy's headlong descent into substandard communication.
"Our products work good."
...is all these statements aver, the one message every consumer expects to hear. So much so that, years ago, in an era when brand advertising garnered the respect it still deserves, the self-deprecating ads of Volkswagen sparked a revolution. I can't say it often enough: In 2011, Americans "get" advertising. It's no good hoping your ad placements will be interpreted as selfless purveyors of "solutions." Consumers know: if you're doing it at all, you're doing it to sell.
If it's not affective, it's not effective.
Meanwhile, Maytag's one-dimensional approach merely attests to the product's functional capacity. It conveys no emotion. With proper care of the subtext, a messaging strategy can guide consumers to arrive at a feeling about the brand. Don't look for that here. In this case, the problem runs even deeper, all the way to Maytag's self-identification with the concept of "dependability."
While this may have been a workable strategy when the Dependability campaign launched 50+ years ago, the connotations surrounding "dependable" have shifted since then. Living more than four decades after the founding of the consumer movement, we're no longer grateful if a product works. We expect it to work. Besides, in many circles," dependable" and its cousins "faithful," and "reliable" have become synonymous with "boring," "servile" and "unimaginative."
In the Maytag example, the problem is compounded by the pointless micro-branding of "PowerWash Cycle" and "Silverware-Blast jet sprays." Leaving aside the amateurish quality of this effort, (right down to the inconsistent capitalization of "Cycle" and "jet sprays") I doubt these phrases mean anything to consumers.
Even assuming "Silverware-Blast" refers to a major design innovation, such innovations are outside most consumers' direct experience. As such, these micro-brand names register only as noise—one more thing site visitors will bleep over as they struggle to parse out Maytag's meaning. Here, a poor surface realization of an intended subtext
"Check out the cool features on our advanced-design products."
…actually impedes communication.
Of course, it takes no leap of imagination to recognize that visual assets are also shadowed by subtext. You see it in action every time a department store uses attractive models to sell casual wear. At Whirlpool.com, looping videos of clean clothes, fresh foods and delicious meals hover behind still frames of a washer, refrigerator and oven, respectively. While these aren't the subtlest examples, Whirlpool's awareness of visual subtext reminds us of simple pleasures and brings the subject matter to life.
It's in this sense that a well-crafted subtext has the greatest impact on the success of any campaign. For there, in the deep recesses of the imagination, are the things that make us human. It is, after all, not the stuff we buy that we remember, but how we use it to live our lives. The more nearly your message maps onto that memory, the harder you can sell—even if you never once raise your voice to scream, "Act Now!"
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