My Uncle Reg was a fireman.
When I was young he stopped me while I was climbing a ladder.
I was racing up it quickly holding onto the sides the way everyone does.
Uncle Reg said:
“You don’t want to climb a ladder like that son – that’s the way builders climb.
You want to climb it properly, the way firemen climb.”
I asked him what the difference was.
He said “Builders climb a ladder holding onto the sides. It’s quicker but it’s not safe.
If your foot slips your hand slides and you’ve got nothing to grab onto.
Firemen can’t take a chance on that.
Where we climb there’s lots of smoke and water, we can’t be in a hurry, we’ve got to do it the proper way.
So we don’t hold onto the sides of the ladder, we hold onto the rungs, one at a time.
That way, if your foot slips you’ve still got a firm hold on the ladder and you won’t fall.”
It made perfect sense of course.
But the amazing thing is I’ve never forgotten it after all these years.
Whenever I’m climbing a ladder, and I’m getting up really high, I still think “Like a fireman son, not like a builder.”
That’s the power of a good mnemonic, it stays in the mind.
A simple device that lodges itself in the memory.
Zenith’s Richard Shotton wrote about research that proves people remember advertising claims more when they rhyme.
He wondered why this had fallen out of favour.
Because there was a time when many of the great advertising lines rhymed.
In fact the ones that are still remembered are the ones that rhymed.
Lines like Beanz Meanz Heinz (which has just been reintroduced sixty years later in a TV campaign) or Drinka Pinta Milka Day.
IMHO the answer is simple: fashion.
A rhyme is mnemonic, just like alliteration or assonance.
The OED defines a mnemonic as “A system such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations which assists in remembering something.”
You would have thought that was a good thing for advertising, right?
“A system….which assists in remembering something.”
But apparently that’s exactly the problem: it’s too much like advertising.
Nowadays marketing people want to intellectualise what we do.
It must be: strategy, sociology, semiotics, behavioural economics.
Anything but advertising.
But FMCGs operate on a fast track (that’s what the FM stands for).
It’s the difference between a poster we drive by in the street and a page in Country Life we peruse while sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s office.
We expect the Country Life ad to look exclusive and esoteric.
Maybe we are even prepared to invest time in decoding the subtle meaning.
But that isn’t how posters work.
We drive by them and have a few seconds to get noticed and remembered.
Not only are our products fast moving, our consumers are fast moving.
So you would have thought our advertising should be fast moving, too.
Because the job of that sort of advertising isn’t about subtle seduction and allure.
It’s about “A system…which assists in remembering something.”
Which seems to be a different job to the one most people in our business actually wanted.
When the firebell rungs, it’s rungs for thee.
Most people in creative departments these days do seem to be frustrated ____________s (where the blank can be novelists, screenwriters, artists, artistes, musicians, artisanal rug-weavers, take your pick.)
As a result, I find that I’m often a frustrated copywriter. I just want to make some fucking good ads and everyone else around me is trying to backfill the umpteenth draft of their rap opera into an MPU.
J. Fuck em.
In 1840, the campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” was first used. People still know that slogan.
Try to remember Mitt Romney, John McCain or John Kerry’s slogans: Believe in America, Country First, A Stronger America. Strong language for weak messages.
The last time a major American campaign used a rhyme was Ross Perot in 1992 (‘I’m Ross, you’re the Boss’). Before that, ’72’s unofficial “They can’t lick our Dick.”
I think Dave is onto something here as American politics seems to be suffering from a lack of rhyming. Or have rhymes been replaced with something even more catchy?
The slogan we remember from the last cycle in US politics wasn’t a rhyme, it was a pun: FEEL THE BERN!
I often wonder where the yellow went, as I click the skip ad button
Great thought.
The sad truth Dave is that many brands today just don’t care. They just want to take your money and they couldn’t give a monkey’s about customer service and everyone knows it too, but people, especially the Brits are like dumb sheep. Banking call centres are the WORST ON THE PLANET. A while ago I was in London and I went down the high street to try and open an account same day. Everyone told me I had to make an appointment. I told them I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the time. Each girl smiled and replied “Soreee”. I’m not interested in “Soreee” I’m interested in service, but today they think “Soreee” and a smile is service. It’s TOTAL crap. They make massive profits out of our money and then they cut staff and leave you with someone who is powerless to act. It’s bad business. I don’t want to talk to an Algorithm or a Bot or a “Soreee” girl, so I went the only bank that did what I asked but their global call centre is worse than useless because it has people running it that do nothing for anyone. Same problem, different region. What end line can anyone put to that?
This thinking extends to the use of music, too. A tune that becomes a branding mnemonic. United Airlines’ use of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ comes to mind.
It even goes as far as the much-maligned jingle – infra-dig these days, of course, but still valuable.
That’s right Ian. We are entering an era of the internet of things. Unoriginal synthesised, digitised, botted, algorithmic CRAP. The Scientists have taken over the industry and they rationalise everything by hot air maths. Addend is to blame, because when Science knocked on the door, instead of telling them to et lost, they opened the door and let them in. Creativity has been Crucified. It is now in the depths of Hell, but the True Advertising Creative Spirit refuses to die because it is immortal. When this pseudo-bullshit reorder (because we know everything about you) Big Brother world has passed, (and it will) we will be able to advertise again with original ideas, but the whole stinking swamp has to come tumbling down first to be replace by another stinking swamp that will also have to be destroyed before the sacred values return to the industry.
If you want to know where it all stems from, watch: ‘Bernie Sanders Breaks Down America’s Rigged Tax System on You Tube.