A blog about advertising and strategy.
The marketing team at Brand A delivers a campaign with an ROI of 1.6x. The team at Brand B return 2.0x. Which company has the happier CFO? This scenario I teach at AdSchool highlights the fundamental problem with ROI. The answer is, we need more information . Because these ratios, by themselves, are largely useless. In the tutorial, I then reveal Brand A invested $5m, delivered $20m in incremental…
David Ogilvy said “We sell or else.” And it’s a hard position to argue with. We make ads, not art. Clients come to agencies for commercial outcomes. But the language “sell” can be problematic. It can leads us down the wrong path to deliver on that promise. Yes, the job of advertising is to deliver a lift in sales. But it doesn’t have to sell. When you say something must sell, you play to the…
In 1870, the founder of Angostura bitters dies and passes the business onto his sons. They rebrand, with one brother designing the label and another sourcing the bottle. Without collaborating, they mistakenly end up with a print too big for the glass. But someone gives them sound advice; make the label your signature. A century and a half later, we d call it a distinctive brand asset. An error…
Years ago, I was working on Cadbury Favourites. They were coming off their hugely successful What to bring when you’re told not to bring a thing campaign. The strategic challenge was; do we double down on the BBQs moment, or do we move onto a different one? In hindsight, with the benefit of marketing science, the answer is obvious. It s classic Category Entry Point theory. And we don t spend…
We’re too scared to have this conversation. Because it s uncomfortable. I certainly feel that way writing this. Especially as a straight white cis able-bodied male. But I m happy to be a punching bag. It s a convo we need to have. In a former agency life, we were in post-production on a million-dollar ad campaign. But after months of strategy, concepting, production, even testing we got a…
We’ve been trained to fear wear out. The premise that at some point, consumers get tired of an ad so much so it becomes ineffective. Or even damaging to the brand. We spend a lot of time talking about it. And money measuring it. Wear out is not a bad thing. We know marketers get sick of things long before consumers do. When we work on it every day, of course we do. But consumers don’t get that…
I grew up poor. Three boys on a Dad s single-parent pension. In my final year of high school we didn t have car. Which sucks when you live in the country. I would have given up hockey, which was a 45-minute-drive away, if not for one of my teammate’s Mum. She offered to take me to games every Friday evening, and stay overnight at her house. I d never met her or her son before that year. She was…
Despite the fact it s our bread and butter, as an industry we don t talk enough about how advertising works. Like, how does seeing an ad actually process in your brain? And how does this ultimately influence buying behaviour? And these are important conversations. The way you think ads work will shape the concepts you turn into campaigns. Or what your clients will buy. Or what creative teams are…
Last month, Netflix released Pepsi, Where s My Jet?, a documentary series on the infamous Harrier Jet consumer-promo-gone-wrong scandal. It s a real David and Goliath story. Deep into the Cola Wars of the 90s, Pepsi launches a loyalty program, and jokingly advertises the opportunity to purchase a US$23m military aircraft for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. One enterprising young man discovers you can buy…
There s a tradie at my house. We re talking about a local bar, who have gone full QAnon. Like, anti-vax posters in the windows. I guess we ll have to hit up the other pub from now on I say. He looks at me and shrugs: Nah, as long as the beers are cold. It was a good reminder we don’t spend nearly enough time talking to real people. Desktop research and bouncing ideas around your marketing/agency…