I had been looking forward to hearing Seth Godin, best selling author of Unleashing the IdeaVirus, speak at Foro Mundial in Mexico City. As it turned out, I had to leave in the middle of the presentation. But what I did hear intrigued me. Seth consistently referred to advertising as “yelling” and proposed that instead of shouting at people, marketers need to provide such a compelling brand experience that people become brand advocates. But must all brand-generated advertising be classified as yelling?
I am well aware that many marketers do still adhere to the “yelling” model. Pop-ups demand that you “click here” and mindlessly repetitive TV commercials abound. This type of advertising is truly interruptive, offering nothing in exchange for the audience’s time.
But brand-generated advertising does not have to be this way. I would suggest that there are two basic routes to engaging an audience rather than browbeating it into submission.
Some brands deliver a well-crafted explanation of how the product makes people’s lives better and leaves it up to the audience to judge whether the product is right for them. A good example of this type of approach is an ad for Accu-Check.
The presenter tells her story and engages the audience right from the start. In the process she helps deliver credible information in an emotionally uplifting manner. The shift to a male narrator sounds more like a pitch but, for diabetes sufferers, the message is a reward in itself. For the non-sufferer, the ad may be irrelevant but I doubt it seems obnoxious.
Other brands combine the power of storytelling with compelling content in order to deliver a more implicit message. There is often no narrator and the story unfolds by itself. In these cases the story itself is the reward. To my mind a classic example of this approach is Guinness’s Noitulove, which offers music, an intriguing plot, and an amusing denouement to reward people for their time.
The risk with this type of advertising is that the creativity may not be harnessed to the benefit of a brand and its objectives. I would argue that Noitulove succeeds because the story is so closely aligned to Guinness’s established positioning.
A good fit between story and brand is unfortunately not something that you can take for granted. The real challenge of storytelling is to deliver a compelling story that engages the audience while it creates the potential for sales. The impression left by the ad must create or reinforce ideas that motivate people to buy the brand. It may not seed a conscious desire, such as “That’s just what I need,” but unless the ad increases people’s predisposition to buy in some way, it remains a rewarding experience for the audience that does not benefit the brand. Advertising may not have to be yelling, but it is pointless unless it is selling.
So what do you think? Why do advertisers resort to the yelling model? And what can we do to ensure more advertising engages the audience with relevant and enjoyable stories? Please share your thoughts.
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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June 14th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Advertisers that yell are those that do not do pre-testing! Amazing as it might sound.
I have been involved in creating and testing advertising for 36 years. We have a database in South Africa of the likeability of EVERY advertisement since 1984!
I am yet to see pretest that shows consumers approve of a ‘yelling’ ad, and I am yet to see a non-story ad be highly liked by consumers.
Mostly the problem is that it is incredibly difficult to make an advertisement that tells a good story that is linked to the brand. But when it is done it is loved by research.
June 17th, 2010 at 1:11 am
I don’t think Godin is talking about creative tone when he’s referring to yelling. He’s talking about the fact that it’s monologue rather than dialogue and that inherent in much broadcast advertising is the idea that you should hit as many people as possible with the same message.
Clearly, to make his point, he’s made the term more pejorative than it perhaps ought to be and a lot of communication that sits in this space is hugely effective - but in the context he’s using it, I don’t think the characterisation is completely unfair.
June 21st, 2010 at 12:07 pm
[...] it is not just these in-your-face techniques that advertisers and marketers are using. The trend is shifting towards generating a complete positive experience around a product or brand online – telling stories, asking the audience questions, involving [...]