The first time I got fired was in part because I said that FedEx's "fast-talking man" commercial was the best direct spot ever created. That made my boss furious. There was no phone number! No repetition of the offer! No call to action! Boom. I was canned for what she regarded as my lack of understanding and heresy.
Since then, I've continued my private onslaught against the tyranny of didactic definitions and rigid classifications. If you read AdAged regularly you know that I believe in advertising and that all these sub-categories (like direct, interactive, health care, whatever) are so much nonsense.
Today, I'd argue that the best of Apple advertising is direct. You know what you have to do and why you have to do it. My two cents says that iPhone ads will gain an ROI "direct" ads can only envy. No wonder TBWA/Chiat/Day (or wherever the virgules lay) keeps winning Effie after Effie for their work.
And that brings me to today's advertising verbal appendage. The word "interactive." I suppose there's a complicated technical definition, but the word in its simplest for means that people get involved and participate with whatever the stimulus is. Man, if your ad doesn't stimulate some kind of response, it sucks and you should start over. Because if your work ain't interactive, it ain't advertising.
2 comments:
I want the iPhone. I'm pissed that at&t/Apple haven't gotten off their corporate asses to tell me how much the service will cost. Will it stop my purchase on Friday? No. But I won't be happy...
AbbottMeadVickers, the brilliant creative shop in London, Now part of BBDO, wasn't know for being a DM or DR agency. Still, that didn't hinder them from making one of the most successful DR ads ever seen, and wiining awards for it as well. The ad was for a book club selling smart bookd for children.
the headline read: "Give your child an unfair start."
it had a coupon. This was before internet.
another example of their out of category work was for Sainsbury's. Good food costs less. Each ad featuring a product or a product category, followed by an intriguing story why Sainsbury was the place to get it. And people did get it. Until of couse another creative agency, not a retail specialist agency, got hold of Tesco's and made that an even greater success.
either you have a brain or you don't. that's what makes great and effective advertsing great and effective advertising.
As someone said: "If the ad doesn't work today, how can it possibly have an effect long term?"
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