When Bill Shankley managed Liverpool he had a very gifted young striker playing for him.
His young star worked hard, trained hard, and studied the game.
In one particular high-pressure match he found himself with the ball at his feet and only the goalkeeper to beat.
He thought about everything he’d learned.
Should he wrong-foot the keeper and go round him?
Should he bend the ball around the keeper into the top corner?
Should he try a power shot and hope the keeper can’t hold it?
Should he hold up the ball so he could lay it off to someone in a better position?
While he hesitated a defender took the ball off him and booted it upfield to the other end of the pitch.
When the young striker eventually came off the pitch, Shankley asked him what had happened.
The striker said he’d been trying to pick his best option.
Shankley said, “Look son, if you ever find yourself with the ball at your feet and just the goalie to beat, stick it in the net and we’ll discuss all your options afterwards.”
I often think advertising is like that.
We’ve got young copywriters and art director getting confused by concentrating on complicated things that aren’t their job.
So they can’t do the simple job they should be doing.
Instead they spend all their time thinking about brand theory, new media, cultural memes, and social latency.
Now maybe brand theory and the all rest has some relevance for planners.
But that’s their role in the team, not ours.
It’s our job to stick the ball in the net.
And that’s simple, or it’s nothing.
Let’s look at how it breaks down.
To be successful, all advertising has to fulfil 3 simple criteria.
- 1) IMPACT
- 2) COMMUNICATION
- 3) PERSUASION
If there is no IMPACT no one notices it, and nothing happens.
(And the numbers say 90% of advertising doesn’t get noticed.)
So that’s the single biggest job for any creative: get noticed before we do anything else.
Assuming we get noticed, the next job is COMMUNICATION.
Our ad has a lot better chance of working if people can understand what it’s about.
We’re not talking about winning awards for whacky-zany ads that no one understands here.
We’re talking about effective advertising.
So let’s assume our ad is impactful enough to be in the 10% that actually gets noticed.
And it communicates so everyone can at least understand it.
The final step is PERSUASION.
The reasons people might actually want to buy what we want to sell.
Is it brand, or product performance, or distribution, or price or what?
This is where that conversation belongs.
After we’ve done IMPACT, after we’ve got noticed, after we’re on the radar.
Not before.
Three of my heroes: Ron Greenwood, Brian Clough, and Bill Bernbach all said the same thing.
“Simplicity is genius.”
This is demonstrated by the difference between two football managers.
When Glenn Hoddle was England manager, the team were winning and Hoddle decided to change the formation.
The TV camera showed him in the dugout, briefing the substitute with pages and pages of notes and diagrams.
The substitute came on, tried to explain to the team in detail what Hoddle had said, and confused everyone so much that England lost.
In one of Harry Redknapp’s first games as manager of Spurs, the team were losing.
Harry decided to make a substitution.
The player was from Eastern Europe and couldn’t speak English.
So Harry had to keep it simple.
He said to the interpreter, “Tell him to go on the pitch and run about a bit.”
The player did just that.
He totally unsettled the opposition’s defence with his runs and movement off the ball, and Spurs won.
When we started GGT we ran a press ad about our new agency.
There was a paragraph in it that summed-up the job of creatives.
Word Of Mouth Advertising
“The best advertising you can have is word-of-mouth.
Unfortunately you can’t buy space in this medium at present.
At least not with money.
How you can buy it, is with advertising that gets noticed and talked about.
The more it gets noticed the more it gets talked about.
The more it gets talked about the more it gets noticed.
The amazing thing is, this advertising doesn’t actually cost anymore than advertising that doesn’t get noticed or talked about.”
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Which is why good simple briefs are worth their weight in Cannes gold.
True dat Rob. Bring back the single minded proposition. Dave, ‘Impact. Communication. Persuasion’ is a brilliant way to sell work to clients. Probably because it’s so simple…
Rachel et al. Coincidence or what. Bazildon Bloggers post today is brilliant. It’s called.
What does the nonexistence button mean to you? Wow that guy.
http://thebasildonbloggerstrikesagain.com/
I always liked Bill Shankly’s advice to Kevin Keegan:
“Just go out there and drop few hand grenades, son.”
How does Del Boy say it, ‘He who dares wins, he who hesitates…don’t.’
Hey Dave,
Just want to pick your brain a bit. I’ve noticied lately that you’ve taken a few snipes at the current trend of oddvertsing. Even in this post you state:
“We’re not talking about winning awards for whacky-zany ads that no one understands here.”
But then you go on to say: “The more it gets noticed the more it gets talked about.
The more it gets talked about the more it gets noticed.”
Is that not what many teams are attempting to do with this style of advertising? To try and do something that gets noticed. Now I’m not condoning it all - personally I think Gorilla is genuis, but there’s been a raft of poor imitations in this latest genre (The new Crunchy Nut Cornflakes TV for example).
So if a team produce a whacky-zany ad that some people don’t get, but it gets noticed and talked about, it is a success?
Cheers.
M.
Hi Matt, fair question.
Obviously the first job is to get noticed, so the first thing to do is be different.
I don’t think anyone’s trying to be different at present.
I think everyone’s just trying to win an award.
How you do that is to be weird and whacky like the other ads that win awards.
So everything ends up looking the same.
Totally random as if no one’s supposed to understand it.
So it doesn’t have any IMPACT (to anyone outside advertising), so it then doesn’t COMMUNICATE, so it can’t PERSUADE.
Of course it’s not enough on its own to stand out.
But as Bill Bernbach said “If no one notices your advertising everthing else is academic.”
Don’t think it’s just juniors, Dave.
Some CDs feel that ’simple answers’ don’t demonstrate thorough thinking.
To such, simplicity = ‘first ideas’.
So they make teams do 30 ideas per brief.
Is there any diff between work that is simple and work that is predictable?
Thank you.
as an outsider, the thing about cadbury’s gorilla that struck me about it was that it was such a departure from the rest of the over-planned output of uk agencies. it was just random fun. not planned. and chocolate is fun. there’s nothing to dissect there. there shouldn’t be.
any chance you can dig out that house ad you did dave?
first rule of facing a goalie either 1-on-1 or during penalty kick: decide where you want to put it and then stuff it there. even if someone moves the goal or if there’a an earthquake. no ‘what if goalie goes in the same corner?’ - just stuff it. it’s your only job.
@Matt (and Gorilla ad)
the best brand/product awareness is trial. there simply is no better. IMHO Gorilla fails to deliver trial. it only delivers brand awareness. besides, wasn’t there an article in Brand republic few months ago how Cadbury’s losing market share?
Oh Dave!
I get hoarse every season at Charlton screaming at players
dithering in front of the goal:
‘STICK IT IN THE NET!’
My daughter loves to go to football with me.
I give her permission to scream her head off.
I disown her for the whole of the match.
Agencies are exactly the same.
All that energy to get the ball up the field in front of the goal, and then:
they start playing Jane Austin in a 17th century rendition of:
Pat a cake pat a cake baker’s man.
“Oh look, you do it”. He says twirling his moustache.
“No no I insist it’s your turn for a goal old chap”
“Oh no, really, I can’t. Pass it to thingy and we’ll have tea.”
“OOh! I might get my shorts dirty, they were only washed yesterday!”
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH!’
Thierry Henri makes it look so easy because he does not think. He does.
He just trickles the ball into the goal like he’s passing it.
I sometimes wonder if there are only a handful of people left on the planet
practising advertising. Most of them on this blogsite.
@ Riki I take on board a lot of the criticism aimed at Gorilla. But it aired around the time when Cadbury didn’t have a great public persona (see link). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5112470.stm
I think it made people fall in love with the brand again. Also, a loss of market share can not be wholly associated with the advertising of a brand, there a multitude of factors.
God!
I feel so stronly about this issue you would not believe!
And I can’t get a job anywhere!
It’s as if the ad industry is turning it’s back on itself.
Like a dog rolling over with its legs in the air
aimlessly chasing balls forgetting about the dog bowl.
Dogs need feeding.
Agencies need money.
Clients need to spend money
to feed the dog that hunts their prey
or eventually the client will die of starvation.
Clients survive better if they produce advertising that sells.
It’s common sense:-even bean counters should understand.
Do they?
Everything is paralysed by cashflow, budget, purse strings.
Maurice Saatchi once told us;
Come to the edge
They were frightened.
Come to the edge.
They stood at the edge with fear.
Come to the edge and believe.
They came to the edge,
And they flew.
Birds do it every year.
They don’t think. They do it.
A bird’s brain is much smaller than a bean-counter’s.
Or so I’ve heard.
Maybe it’s just a question of faith, belief, courage, BALLS.
The business has lost its balls.
It is financially neutered.
@Matt
of course advertising is not the sole reason for share drop. but IMHO Gorilla didn’t help much to soften the drop so to speak.
but that’s just my opinion. I’m not from UK market. I’m pretty much outsider.
Dave, you read Tony Cascarino’s autobiography?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Time-Secret-Life-Cascarino/dp/074328531X
The classic one-on-one with the keeper is the strongest argument why the best footballers are the stupid ones, less stuff goes through their heads when they’ve got time to think.
Same with Creatives?
I think Gorilla definitely delivered IMPACT.
So it certainly did more than 90% of ads do.
The debate is, did it deliver COMMUNICATION, or PERSUASION.
But whatever else it was, it was different because it was the first.
For me, the bigger problem is the raft me-too imitators it spawned.
It has become the brief for, and justification of, all non-advertising.
I sat on a D&AD jury recently and heard one of the other jurors argue for an award as follows:
“It’s so random, it’s so weird, I don’t know what the hell it’s about. That’s why I love it.”
Vinnie,
I haven’t got a copy of that ad, but Gordon may have one in his book. I’ll ask him
If you think advertising is hard try promoting your stuff on this blog. Huh!
http://thebasildonbloggerstrikesagain.com/
(Very good new post entitled, What does the nonexistence button mean to you?)
Jack.
Yellow card. You’ve got to have some sort of relevance.
Great post.
But will Harry Redknapp ever become England manager?
Sometimes simplicity doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
Kevin,
Much as I admire Maurice Saatchi,
I don’t believe we should give him credit
for a poem by Christopher Logue.
Ciaran
I thought the Basildon Blogger’s subject, ‘What does the nonexistence button mean to you?’ Dovetailed rather neatly into the football analogies. For nonexistence substitute the League. And your final point about word of mouth. I was simply trying to demonstrate how true that is. But I do apologize if my relevance was not gin clear.
Shut up Kevin and stop giggling it isn’t funny.
Persuastion. That’s an almost esoteric word.
What is this really about?
Communicating a relevant, distinct benefit in a relevant, credible manner?
Because I wish advertising’s only scope were to SEDUCE, make the brand an interesting, likeable character.
When it comes to the purchasing process, evaluation of benefits and all, I generally prefer to use other sources of information. Trustworthy sources, others than commercial comms.
So…shouldn’t we add SEDUCTION to the above mentioned criteria?
Make like an owl. To wit to woo.
Hi Sebastiano,
Seduction isn’t always the job.
Like in anti drink-driving, and most COI campaigns.
Sometimes seduction may be the way to persuade.
But sometimes it could be shock, revulsion, fear, or logic.
Whichever of those sub-sets we choose they all come under the heading PERSUASION.
It may be a different form of persuasion in each case.
But without IMPACT, COMMUNICATION, and PERSUASION nothing works.
Jack,
Esse est percipi.
Robin - I hate that 30 ideas per brief thing too. First ideas can be the best if you know what you’re doing. John Hegarty used to say it took him ”Twenty minutes and twenty years’ to write Levi’s ‘Laundrette’. John w - I thought ‘too wit to woo’ was one of my lines but feel in good company. Jack - you are an incorrigible self-promoter but I like it. Dave - I hope you will be Chairmanning at The Chip Shop Awards tomorrow night as I entered them specifically so I could meet you!
Rachel,
Sorry I can’t be there tomorrow night. My big sister is flying back to New York and I’ll be seeing her off at Heathrow.
Good job I’ve already met you then, Dave. I could’ve been heartbroken.
Hi Dave,
I’ve calmed down now.
Word of mouth.
Do you think you can buy space in this medium now?
Isn’t this what Digital and Blogging is all about?
Hi Ciaran,
Thanks for clarification. I’m sure Maurice Saatchi would agree with you. It was just the way he delivered it, on the evening he delivered it, made it one of those unforgettable moments that surpasses it being read from a book. He captured the moment and gave Christopher Logue’s poem impact. If memory serves me correctly he mentioned it was something his father used to read to him. I am only too happy to stand corrected.
Hi Robin,
30 ideas for a brief? Sounds like 30 bits of clothing to throw in your washing machine to make sure it’s full. Of course the danger is you end up mixing the whites with the colours, and then you just end up with a load of bollocks. I’d rather have a few GREAT ideas than 30 ideas that started out white and ended up pink or shrunk in the wash.
Placing a number on creative ideas sounds very odd indeed even if the number is 30.
Of course it may be someone’s just looking for inspiration from others…
Jack,
You make me think of Lorimer from Leeds. “Norman bites yer leg”
Bentos,
Thierry Henri? Le monsieur pense bien.
30 ideas per brief?
here’s why: http://saatchiandsaatchi.co.uk/
btw, funny how this site got hacked
I personally don’t have any problems with being asked to come up with as many ideas as possible for a brief. Maybe I’m the exception here, but my first few ideas are rarely my best ideas. 30 ideas sounds pretty arbitrary but I can understand why a frustrated CD might pluck a figure like this out of thin air in order to get his teams to think harder.
Simplicity doesn’t come easily - or quickly. And, while it may have taken Sir John only 20 minutes to come up with ‘Laundrette’, I am sure there are plenty of occasions where he took a great deal longer and threw aside a LOT of other ideas to arrive at a satisfactory solution.
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-47.html
Is it just me but I thought that the Impact, Communicate, Persuasion model had just about been knocked out of the water by what’s becoming a near avalanche of neuroscience and psychology research?
What the footballer example here really demonstrates is that the thinking, conscious or rational(depending on how you define it) brain really interferes with processes that should be managed by the unconscious, patterned or habitual brain. A trained footballer taking a shot should be relying on that part of their neurobiology to ‘put it in the net’- the thinking part is much too slow to compute the options. What all the old models of how advertising works or should work fail to really understand is how the patterned/habitual part of humans works and therefore how to leverage that so that purchase decisions are managed by the unconscious - creating conscious attention is often times just what you dont want to do for a brand - it creates too much opportunity for thinking about the choices.
One of the reasons an ad like Cadburys Gorilla works is because it speaks directly to the pattern matching part of us which works on a ’something like this’ or metaphor basis. To make sense of the Gorilla in an ad about what should be a human experience we have to pattern match it to patterns of meaning we already hold - Gorilla = primal, instinctive, going for it, satisfying basic instincts like pleasure etc etc. Since it works metaphorically it can’t be processed rationally so our conscious mind essentialy gives up and keeps quiet and so the whole communication works at the unconscious level which is also the bit that’s going to kick in next time I want some chocolate - the ads essentially programming me to give in to my impulses. The better question for this ad would be ‘has the media attention on the ad actually worked against this process by bringing it too much into conscious awareness?’
Unfortunately we don’t yet have a cohesive model of how advertising works on the patterned brain level/s -we are getting there slowly but we certainly need to let go of some of the old models in the meantime.
Re Esse est percipi. Who was it said the first job of advertising is to be noticed?
Quite right Jack.
However.
Advertising, for me, works on the Trojan Horse principle.
If I want someone’s attention I have to wrap my message up in whatever’s relevant to them.
That’s how I pay for their attention.
As you know, I’m a big fan of whatever you can get away with.
That’s why I always like to know what the parameters are, so I can step slightly over them without it looking like I’m taking the piss.
Without rules there isn’t a game.
And without a game we can’t play.
i thought the reason gorilla worked was because it was good viewin’. would have been even better had it been revealed later to have been Phil Collins wearing the gorilla suit though. what would neuroscientists would have made of that?
Hi Janis,
I’m sure you posted your comment with the best intentions.
However, in my opinion, it is absolutely antithetical to producing good advertising.
However, I asked one of the guys I work with, who has a Master’s degree in psychology, to translate it for me.
“Neuropsychologists – the emperor’s new clothes…
The current thinking in the brain department of psychology is that there is loads going on and we have very little conscious ‘awareness/control’ over it. Things like networks or pathways in the brain exist and are fired off when stuff happens so we assume that they are very clever and important.
Football is a tricky analogy as physical motion is very obviously beyond anything but the most gross control i.e. how do you make your heart move or lungs contract? So the notion that the body takes over seems logical, but how? Hence the need for a deeper explanation of the power of the brain…
As for the pattern matching bit about Gorillas, smacks of post rationalisation to me. It is possible to argue that there is a deep level of subconscious processing going on – its equally possible to argue that unexpected events create attention from birth, when little or no patterns exist. Show a new born a face with three eyes and they will pay more attention to it.”
I appreciate the time you took to write it Janis.
But, hopefully without being rude, I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you wrote.
Hi again Janis,
I just had a very interesting conversation based on your comment.
It seems you’re referring to ‘Habitualised Heuristics’.
I found this concept really useful as a tool for what we do.
But what we do still has to tick the boxes: IMPACT, COMMUNICATION, PERSUASION.
Maybe habitualised heuristics can help us do that, but it can’t replace it.
The reason is, this is basic human communication and it’s how we interact in every area of our life.
Without those three nothing happens.
Hi Dave,
Yes I assumed you would disagree with what I wrote, though I’m not interested in intellectual ’sparring’ for the sake of it. As you say there is a need for a much deeper understanding of how we and our brains work and therefore how communications that influence us also work. It just srikes me that our industry is in some disarray at the moment, awash with theories and ideas which have little real scientific underpinning and some of the new science is and should be of interest to us. Something interesting happened recently in the psychotherapy world - which was very similar to how advertising is now - confused and awash with individuals pet theories constantly competing and laying claim to primacy. What has changed is some very clever people have put forward a new organising idea in that field which is dramatically changing the way therapy is done. Like curing phobias in one session rather than years! It seems to me like the ad world needs a new organising idea and we haven’t got one yet but we may be close and personally I’d like to be involved in that. I’m not sure about heuristics but to me where the interesting stuff is at the moment is in understanding about pattern recognition/matching, hypnosis and trance states, dream/REM sleep, imagination, expectation and need fulfilment theory, language patterns and story analysis.
It’s also looking like at birth we have lots of patterns already which form the basis for new learning. Which is where archetypal theory may fit in….
To any one whose interested I’d recommend picking up a book called ‘Human Givens’ by Joe Griffen and Ivan Tyrell which while directed to psychotherapy practice has profound implications for the communications business.