Achieving advertising effectiveness has never been harder.
It starts with advertising being an interruption, since most of it is experienced unsolicited. That's not too hard to overcome. After all, we engage with advertising as an implicit contract: it's an agreement to give our time and attention to an advertiser's pitch - and subject ourselves to its manipulative intent for which it has been designed - in return for a reward. That reward must have utility such as information value, or entertain us.
The biggest challenge facing advertisers stems from how literate and skeptical audiences today are about marketing practices. Communications that contain 'marketing speak' and which sound and feel like advertising are viewed as deliberate ploy, and people engage with them differently. Any openness to believe the honesty of the message diminishes quickly. People's defenses are raised and rational scrutiny is deployed, the twin fears of the folks in ad land.
This is why the wink is so important in today's marketing climate.
The wink is a tacit way the advertiser can remain connected and in allegiance with an otherwise jaded audience. It serves to affirm (through an act or gesture not a direct appeal) that "Hey, we're not taking ourselves too seriously...we're just having some fun" and so seeks to lessen the defenses and objections that lay in the way of a person's openness to believe the message.
Case in point, the current Verizon commercial in which alongside business people, the network size is personified as a huge throng of verizon employees all sitting on chairs, completely filling up a large room. At the end the commercial, as the 'network' people are shuffling out of the room, one of them turns to the Verizon "Can you hear me know?" spokesperson and says "Next time, we need more chairs". Speaking to the artifice, the suspended disbelief of the creative construct, it does much to convey an honesty and transparency on behalf of the advertiser. It makes us feel there's a good human quality to these folks, which helps to positively dispose us to the message, whatever it is.
Another example is a Dove Shampoo commercial from 2005 below. The wink at the end (which we won't spoil) does a superb job of showing the audience that the brand is not taking itself too seriously, softens us up and helps make us more amenable to the idea it is promoting. By being playful, we are more prepared to over-look the fact that the event is very evidently staged and interpret it for what it is - beautiful storytelling through an engaging metaphor.
So, consider using a little wink in the right context to raise the cut-through effectiveness of your communications.
Showing posts with label Dove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dove. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Rhetoric not authenticity in latest Dove campaign
Within days of an Ad Age article recounting the significant fall in Dove brand sales across the board (Soft Soap) a new Dove campaign has hit You Tube. It remains to be seen whether it is sufficient to reverse the declining fortunes of the business
If one is going to reinvigorate a brand, it needs be upon a solid basis that will serve the brand for years to come. Too often however, agencies fall more in love with advertising ideas and devices rather than brand ideas for long-term growth.
Take Unilever’s Dove brand.
The initial ambition was simple: connect women with the brand through shared values. This is sound: a Roper study found that this is precisely what unites the world’s top brands with their franchises.
The approach was to stir up issue value that could then be used to position the brand as an attractive ally. This too is sound: creating “issue value” is becoming increasingly needed in order to stir an often indifferent or somnambulant public and galvanize them to participate.
It is the decision to orient issue value and the brand-consumer shared belief through a moralizing stance on beauty that is not sound.
Here's the evolution of Dove brand reinvigoration
Phase 1
Communications were created to spark a debate about beauty, raising consciousness about how narrow and stereotyped the existing definition is, while introducing a more realistic, healthier, and attainable alternative. It championed beauty on ordinary women’s terms. The campaign for real beauty was the brand’s rallying cry.
Visually, the campaign was iconic. Advertising in every channel showed what had previously been taboo: amply proportioned and even large women. They beamed how good they felt in their own skin. It was empowering. It was celebratory. It was inclusive.
Phase 2
It saw the viral spread of Evolution, proclaimed it’s “no wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted” by showing the excessive retouching that transforms a women into beauty industry advertising allure.
This effort represented a subtle but significant shift. In phase II the beauty industry is being singled out as ‘the enemy’, the force against which the brand and its consumer advocates should continue to rally. The emphasis of the brand however is not on the celebration of women’s beauty in all its wonderfully diverse sizes, colors and shapes. It is focused on fighting an opposition.
Phase 3
‘Onslaught’ has just been released, depicting a young girl being bombarded with beauty industry imagery. “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” extols the brand.
Of note is the strategic emphasis. While the opposition continues to be the beauty industry, the focus is again upon children, and Dove is appointing itself as a moral guardian. Or concerned on-looker at least.
There are three ironic elements to this:
1. Telling parents to talk to kids misses two important realities. 1) Kids are influenced by example, not what they’re told. 2) If mothers continue to be so focused on their outward appearance and gaining acceptance of others, worry about their weight ro what people think of them, have 'beauty treatments' like manicures and pedicures, etc. the lack of change in the image problmem of the younger generation will speak for itself. It’s the mother’s that have to change behavior, not preach.
2. Dove encourages parents to face off against the beauty industry, and while Dove’s campaigns continues to champion the rally, unhealthy female imagery and expectations are being simultaneously reinforced by the same company. The Axe/Lynx brands which targets male teenage with fantasy is also owned by Unilever. In an age of transparency, this is ill advised.
3. The celebration of the brand’s inclusive point-of-view about beauty has been pushed aside, at least for now. Granted, there are challenges in keeping a fickle, short-attention span society engaged once they’ve become comfortable with an idea – and the rise of the reality programming genre has certainly diminished the visual distinctiveness Dove’s ‘real beauty’ imagery.
The advice for Dove: lose the faux compassion and be authentic.
If you’re serious about change, then encourage parents themselves to change and be better role models. Inspire them to be a great example for their daughters. Then perhaps there’ll be sustainable change, not hollow brand gestures.
If one is going to reinvigorate a brand, it needs be upon a solid basis that will serve the brand for years to come. Too often however, agencies fall more in love with advertising ideas and devices rather than brand ideas for long-term growth.
Take Unilever’s Dove brand.
The initial ambition was simple: connect women with the brand through shared values. This is sound: a Roper study found that this is precisely what unites the world’s top brands with their franchises.
The approach was to stir up issue value that could then be used to position the brand as an attractive ally. This too is sound: creating “issue value” is becoming increasingly needed in order to stir an often indifferent or somnambulant public and galvanize them to participate.
It is the decision to orient issue value and the brand-consumer shared belief through a moralizing stance on beauty that is not sound.
Here's the evolution of Dove brand reinvigoration
Phase 1
Communications were created to spark a debate about beauty, raising consciousness about how narrow and stereotyped the existing definition is, while introducing a more realistic, healthier, and attainable alternative. It championed beauty on ordinary women’s terms. The campaign for real beauty was the brand’s rallying cry.
Visually, the campaign was iconic. Advertising in every channel showed what had previously been taboo: amply proportioned and even large women. They beamed how good they felt in their own skin. It was empowering. It was celebratory. It was inclusive.
Phase 2
It saw the viral spread of Evolution, proclaimed it’s “no wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted” by showing the excessive retouching that transforms a women into beauty industry advertising allure.
This effort represented a subtle but significant shift. In phase II the beauty industry is being singled out as ‘the enemy’, the force against which the brand and its consumer advocates should continue to rally. The emphasis of the brand however is not on the celebration of women’s beauty in all its wonderfully diverse sizes, colors and shapes. It is focused on fighting an opposition.
Phase 3
‘Onslaught’ has just been released, depicting a young girl being bombarded with beauty industry imagery. “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does” extols the brand.
Of note is the strategic emphasis. While the opposition continues to be the beauty industry, the focus is again upon children, and Dove is appointing itself as a moral guardian. Or concerned on-looker at least.
There are three ironic elements to this:
1. Telling parents to talk to kids misses two important realities. 1) Kids are influenced by example, not what they’re told. 2) If mothers continue to be so focused on their outward appearance and gaining acceptance of others, worry about their weight ro what people think of them, have 'beauty treatments' like manicures and pedicures, etc. the lack of change in the image problmem of the younger generation will speak for itself. It’s the mother’s that have to change behavior, not preach.
2. Dove encourages parents to face off against the beauty industry, and while Dove’s campaigns continues to champion the rally, unhealthy female imagery and expectations are being simultaneously reinforced by the same company. The Axe/Lynx brands which targets male teenage with fantasy is also owned by Unilever. In an age of transparency, this is ill advised.
3. The celebration of the brand’s inclusive point-of-view about beauty has been pushed aside, at least for now. Granted, there are challenges in keeping a fickle, short-attention span society engaged once they’ve become comfortable with an idea – and the rise of the reality programming genre has certainly diminished the visual distinctiveness Dove’s ‘real beauty’ imagery.
The advice for Dove: lose the faux compassion and be authentic.
If you’re serious about change, then encourage parents themselves to change and be better role models. Inspire them to be a great example for their daughters. Then perhaps there’ll be sustainable change, not hollow brand gestures.
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