4 thoughts on “Two examples. One infuriating. The other brilliant”

1. Stephen Dean February 18, 2016 at 1:52 am

   My wife’s mother is from England, and my brother-in-law informed me when we got married that I was now a Liverpool fan. (My father-in-law is a ManU fan though, go figure.)

   And you were right, Italy did beat England 2:1 🙂

   On Subway’s ad, there’s a lot of talk from direct marketers online who look down on ads without clear call to actions — or “branding” ads. Here’s how I look at it:

   Robert Collier talked about walking up to a prospect at a party, joining the conversation already happening and parlaying it to your own offer. Well, that’s how you approach a stranger at a party… someone who knows nothing about you or what you have. If you were a new sub sandwich shop, that might be the best approach.

   But when market awareness is so high, branding is like keeping in contact with an old friend. You have to stay in touch to keep the relationship going. And it’s not the same approach as you’d use with a stranger.

   So I see direct response VS branding as tools at different ends of market awareness. Is that a sound theory?

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   1. Drayton Bird March 5, 2016 at 7:40 pm

      I have worked in both areas and come to one or two conclusions.

      When you write to get a response that imposes a great discipline on you. The numbers tell you whether you have done well or badly.

      A lot of branding work imposes no such discipline.

      Th great move to online where everything is direct and measurable should in theory impose such discipline though you can be damn sure agencies will come up with all sorts of flim-flam to obscure reality.

      There is a most excellent and funny video of David Ogilvy touching on this. I have it to be honest because he was also talking about me, but that is by the by.

      If you’d like to see it, write to Kelly@draytonbird.com.

      The great JWT advertising man James Webb Young ran a test where he had two identical ads for one brand. When the logo was very small the ads were more read than when it was large and instantly visible. It seems that when people see who the ad is for they say to themselves “I don’t need to read this. I know all about this brand.”

      I’m sure this is true today of TV ads, for instance.

      If you like me had sent 50 odd years in this game you would know one thing. Most brand ads are rubbish. This can only be because an obvious discipline has not been applied. That is, nit that almost all ads mention the website, insisting that the number of visits to a website are measured.

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2. Stephen Dean March 9, 2016 at 1:02 am

   Thanks Drayton! I emailed Kelly, and I love that tidbit from Young, very interesting. I listened to Roy H. Williams talk once, he’s the “Wizard of Ads” guy, and he prefers branding over direct marketing — because direct marketing has to have some kind of scarcity or deadline, and when the deadline comes to pass he says people will erase the ad from their mind. (In the same way that the story goes of waiters remembering your order perfectly until it’s delivered, and then forgetting it.)

   What do you think?

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   1. Drayton Bird March 27, 2016 at 3:26 pm

      I think this is utter drivel.

      1, Direct marketing does not have to have a deadline. Do Amazon have a deadline?

      2. Lots of non-direct firms have deadlines. Supermarket offers for example.

      This is the sort of shallow guff that gives marketing a bad name

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