My wife is an art director, so when she went to a Marketing Forum talk she expected to be bored rigid by the usual case histories, graphs, charts, and numbers.
But one client told an amazingly creative story about the birth of a brand.
It started when he was working in Belgium, every day he had to try to sell margarine to people who didn’t want it, it was dispiriting work. To cheer himself up, every day he went to the same pastry shop and ate a delicious chocolate pastry.
Eventually it became clear to him: I don’t like margarine, I do like chocolate, I’m in the wrong game.
Doing what you love is always the best idea, so he quit his job and began working on perfecting a delicious, rich chocolate pudding. He worked on it until he had the perfect product, now he needed marketing: he needed a positioning, a name, packaging – a brand in fact.
So he went to see an agency and asked if they could do that for him, they said, “Leave it with us”.
So he waited. And he waited.
Three weeks later they hadn’t called him, so he called them. They sounded reluctant, “You’d better come in, there’s a bit of a problem”.
So he went to their offices. They said, “We’ve got some bad news we’re afraid, it looks like someone else has already done it”. His jaw dropped.
They said, “Yes, unfortunately virtually the same product, same positioning, everything. We’ve managed to to get hold of some pictures, if you promise not to let it leave this room we’ll show you”. He nodded.
They said, “You wanted a stylish, classy chocolate pudding, deliciously gooey, yet premium? Look, their’s is called Gu.
It’s got the German umlaut (two little dots) over the letter u so it looks like a smiley face. And it rhymes with ‘goo’ so it’s fun, but classy – a bit like Haagen-Dazs”.
The client’s face fell. He said, “I can’t believe it, that’s a great name.”
They said, “Yes, and look at the packaging: it’s dark, rich, elegant, indulgent and chocolatey, but also stylish.”
The client said, “This is terrible, how advanced are they?” The agency said, “Their sales force is ready to start selling it in. We’re worried because we think it will be very successful.”
The client said, “What do you mean, you think they’ll be successful? Of course they’ll be successful: it’s a brilliant product, a brilliant name, a brilliant pack-design, it’s exactly what I wanted, dammit”.
And he sat back depressed, thinking about all the success he could have had if only he’d done the idea first.
Then the agency smiled and said, “Well, if you really mean that I may have some good news for you”. The client said, “What?”
The agency said, “I made that story up, no one has actually done anything.
That was our presentation to you: the name, the packaging, everything.
If you want it you can have it.”
The client said he felt as if the sun had just come out.
Instead of the usual shuffling and humming and hawing, he just took everything as it was and went with it. Isn’t that great?
We never want anything so much as when we can’t have it.
So instead of selling the client an idea in a way that lets him think he’s got all the time in the world to fiddle with every tiny unimportant detail, they let him see what’s really important.
How will he feel if he sees a competitor has done it first, if he’s been beaten to market?
He won’t quibble about the serif on the typeface. He won’t worry that the background colour isn’t 100% perfect. He’ll just wish to God he’d done it when he had the chance.
What a great lesson.
Show the client the idea in a situation where he’d give anything to have done it, but it’s too late, someone else has got there first. It’s like a nightmare.
Then wake him up and tell him it was just a dream and he’s still got a chance to do it himself if he’s quick.
Instead of suspicion and hesitation he’ll feel gratitude and eagerness. He’ll be concentrating on the 99% that’s right, not holding everything up for the 1% that isn’t quite perfect.
You’ll have a client who wants to move things forward not hold things back.
By the way, the name of the client who told that story was James Averdieck.
He launched the Gu brand in 2003 and sold it for £35 million a couple of years later.
Wow!!!
This is so brilliant 😍😍👏👏👏
Would try it out.
Just a very good way to sell a brand, just splendid:)
Yes! That was me when I presented Gü to Jim Averdieck. The hilarious thing is that I managed to do it to him again 17 years later with Bon Devil but that’s another story!! Thanks for sharing it. One of my better moments.
Brilliant story Perry, well done
Hi Dave,
Lovely story as ever. Subverting a client’s thinking.
Just thought I’d look you up for a bit of moral relief after being notified of the Cannes show itinerary and wanted to die when everybody is still banging on about memorable advertising after you’ve told them God knows how many times most advertising is a significant waste of money because everyone wants to make a forgettable film these days.
People live more and more in their heads all day long. Most people now spend half of their time looking down into a mobile phone before being hit by a hospital bed a wheelchair, a car, a bus, a lorry, a phonethief.
I moved out of advertising because it was rubbish, and got fed up of clients clowning around with the work as many of us do, and I have no regrets. Only the best of the best of the best remain. Some by virtue, others by insatiable greed.
I only work part time now. I call it my “charity work” and I hear so many great stories from brave people fighting to survive. It puts advertising totally in perspective because the country is now polarised by hopeless managers and nothing resonates with the general public.
NOTHING.
Id love to hear your take on the latest Oreos poster campaign. Its clean and simple, but it appears online that people are claiming the white filling is made up of all sorts of “weird ingredients” giving people Atherosclerosis?
I dont know if this is true or false, but I would imagine a few wise words from you would be far more beneficial to young creatives out there in the wilderness on how to deal with difficult brands like this than getting a memorable sunstroke fantasising in Cannes.
I would offer these poor Cannes unfortunates a wheelchair, but the hospital has just run out of them due to their increasing popularity at the local Lidls.