Ever wonder where advertising bullshit comes from?
Is it necessary, does it serve a purpose?
I always thought it was just pretentious drivel designed to dress up a lack of thinking.
I finally understood the purpose of it when we did a pitch to a big supermarket chain.
I was just sitting there listening while the account man did all the talking.
At one point he said to the client, “The problem is that, in order to increase stock-turn, you need to optimise your on-shelf margins.”
The client said “Exactly. You’ve understood my problem perfectly.”
And we walked out with the account.
When we got to the car I said to the account man, “What did you mean: in order to increase stock-turn you’ve got to optimise your on-shelf margins?”
The account man said, “It’s simple: if he can sell things cheaper people will buy more.”
I said, “Why didn’t you just say that?”
He said “Because the client would have thought I knew nothing about marketing.”
Then I got it.
He can’t just say to a client “Look squire, if you make things cheaper people will buy more.”
And I can’t say, in a TV commercial, “Ladies. In order to increase stock-turn we’ve optimised our on-shelf margins.”
Neither communication would work with our different target markets.
For creatives, our market is the consumer.
For account men, their market is clients.
We have to take complicated things and make them simple.
They have to take simple things and make them complicated.
The problem is, of course, when account men or planners have to brief creatives