In the 1960s, the Pope silenced Trappist monk Thomas Merton for speaking out against the Vietnam War and going against the Church’s opinion. He began his first sermon after being allowed to speak again with the words: “As I was saying...”
I must admit, I had concerns after the first installment of my wrap-up—which also was my first piece for iMedia—that I might have to do the same after a period of penitent silence. But it seems I was preaching to the choir. The emails I’ve received and the words of other pundits and prophets share my perspective that interactive agencies are at a tipping point of their own making, and need to be very, very careful not to screw things up. (And to the writer who caught me: you’re right; I did leave checking email out of the paragraph about what people really do on the Internet. My bad.)
I know I said on Thursday that today’s column would be the last part of this wrap-up, but something occurred to me last night that I need to share. I will, as promised, give you Bob Garfield’s 10 Commandments this week. But if it’s OK with you, I’ll hold off until Thursday to wrap up the other sessions.
I’m Stepping Up On My Soapbox Now
So what the heck are agencies and publishers going to do about the tenuous state of things? How do you get out of the loop of frustration you’ve been in for the last several years? What will ensure success rather than failure? How can interactive agencies be Ford’s Mustang instead of the Edsel? Microsoft instead of Altair?
Here’s what hit me at 2:45 a.m.: One answer lies in a parallel to the entertainment industry, which is my old stomping grounds. I’ve always believed that too many people who greenlight, create and produce movies and network TV live only in Los Angeles, New York, or in the first-class cabins of planes flying between them. They spend zero time in the land of the people they’ve dubbed “the Flyovers” unless they’re on location, which doesn’t really count because that’s simply spending a few weeks in a miniature version of Hollywood with a craft service table.
As a result, too much TV programming and more than a few movies are not relevant or interesting to the majority of people who actually pay money for theater tickets and sponsors’ products. And worse, a near-criminal number of productions are insider vanity pieces that only play to the guys in your writers’ Thursday afternoon golf foursome.
The audience doesn’t live just in L.A. They live in Peoria, Pawtucket, Phoenix and even Page, North Dakota.
So here’s the parallel: Those of us in the Internet biz tend to design and create for ourselves—not for the folks who don’t live and breathe an Internet that arrives through always-on T-1 connections at the office, DSL at home, and wireless in-between.
The Flyovers use the Internet much less than we do. They connect via—gasp!—dial-up and don’t necessarily crave broadband. I spent a week with my in-laws last month in rural Florida and thought I’d die having to dial in every day.
Do you know how long it takes a rich media ad to load when you’re connected at 43,300? Or how long it takes to make that ad go away when you click “close?” The real-world folks dislike pop-ups (which they call any and every intrusive ad or extra window) for that very reason—it slows down the process and makes it undesirable. And if you’re out there, forget checking your email while checking the weather online. Choose one and wait.
But that’s the reality for most Internet users. Love it or hate it, that’s why the simplicity of AOL is so popular (full disclosure: Yes, I used to work for them and I liked it). At least for the next year or two while broadband gains traction out there in the real world, the Flyovers are the people you have to think about when you create, design and deliver ads.
If you make them mad, they won’t click on an ad. They won’t return to your client’s site. And they sure as heck won’t buy. That, as you know, leads to those nasty calls from clients who are convinced the Internet isn’t worth a slice of their marketing pie. Radio may not be measurable, but clients believe it works. TV ratings are based on fewer households than are represented in any NBA arena on any given night, but clients believe they’re accurate (for now, anyway).
What’s more, folks in the Heartland don’t distinguish Internet advertising from other advertising. Therefore, you need to stop thinking of yourselves as just Internet advertising gurus. You must be advertising, marketing and promotion wizards with a specialty, who still know how to integrate all forms of media to support each other in achieving clients’ business goals. Leave your egos at the meeting-room door, know that you bring a strong and potentially magnificent set of Internet tools to the table, and work with the traditional ad folks to find the best way to get the job done. Not necessarily the most creative way, but the most effective way.
TV’s best shows borrow liberally from movie production, even though TV people like to think they’re a totally different animal with a much bigger audience. But the best TV writers today also write movies—Aaron Sorkin, anyone? Alan Ball? The best produced shows on TV mimic movie-style production—“West Wing,” “Law and Order,” “24,” “6 Feet Under.” I personally love TV shows aired in letterbox format. You get more image area and it’s easier to step into the alternate reality the producers created. We all learned how to make that transition by watching movies.
Movies were around a long, long time before TV. Advertising was around a long, long time before the Internet. The new Internet kids have many lessons to learn—and much to offer—the old guys.
I firmly believe that anyone who creates either entertainment or Internet advertising should be forced to live the in the Midwest or the South for at least one year. You don’t understand Cincinnati until you’ve stood in a grocery line in Cincinnati. Next time you fly cross-country, schedule a layover or two in “Flyover Land” and talk to the folks milling around the airport. Take a cab into town and have a cup of coffee. You’ll not only get more frequent flyer miles, but you’ll also get a new perspective.
Then go home and create advertising that will work for them, too.
Stepping Off My Soapbox Now… and Into the World of Bob Garfield
If you don’t know Bob Garfield, you owe it to yourself to get to know his work. He’s charmingly caustic, lovably cynical and right on the money more often than not in his criticism of advertising.
His “10 Commandments to Rescue Advertising from Itself” was my favorite session at the Summit. We’ll have the transcript for you later this month, but I’d like to summarize his homily so you can think about it in those idle moments during the holidays.
Garfield has judged more ad competitions than any human should have to endure. He told the Summit that out of 7,000 ads competing at Cannes, “6,995 are unwatchable… most practitioners of your business fail. And many of them get trophies for it.”
In that spirit, here’s what he decrees. These are based on television advertising, but apply to the Internet, as well.
1. Thou shalt honor the greatest commercial ever made, then put it out of your mind forever. He’s referring, of course, to Apple’s “1984” spot for the first Mac. It crushed Big Brother, which at that time was IBM. The downside to that ad’s incredible success was that advertisers took it to mean that risk will sell anything. “Risks are not the road to greatness,” Garfield said. “Risks are the road to great suckiness.”
2. Rules are made to be observed. Garfield compared following basic advertising rules—including that oft-overlooked reminder that your only job is to sell stuff—to early child development. “Structure liberates creativity,” he said. Then he invoked Proust—Garfield swore he actually reads it. Proust once wrote, “Poets’ best lines are the result of the tyranny of rhyme.”
3. Thou shalt not steal unless it’s good for market share. “Who says originality is important?” Garfield said. “In science, yes. In art, yes. In politics, yes. But you’re not artists, you’re businesspeople. Your job is not to explore your art. It’s to sell s**t.”
4. If it’s not relevant, it’s a white elephant. If you have to ask what an ad is selling, the ad doesn’t work. Southwest Airlines did a series of amusing spots for football fans, but they didn’t once show a plane, talk about fares, or pitch travel. Even worse, Hyundai tried to convince the world that Charles Barkley—the Round Mound of Rebound—actually owned one of their cars. “Consumers can see the check being cashed,” Garfield said. Celebrities—and everything else—have to fit the product.
5. Get plenty of exercise; cut back on sex. “Sex should not be the universal solution to any advertising problem,” Garfield said. And he made his point in an irrefutable way with a spot for a gay and lesbian radio station that starred a male body part singing. One could call it the high note of his presentation. (Yes, that’s an inside joke, and the folks who were there are laughing hysterically right now.)
6. Respect your customer, even though he may be a moron. “Fifty percent of your audience is dumber than average,” Garfield said. When the laughter died down, he added, but “don’t insult them.” As an example, he played one of the incomprehensible “Miller Light by Dick” spots, in which a hapless moron creates really stupid commercials. It totally missed and insulted the audience. “If the market was 30-year-old Swedish art directors, FCB would still have the business,” Garfield said. “But the market was 24-year-old Darrell, a truck driver from Chattanooga.”
7. Take a reality check. As I said in my opening sermonette, you must spend time with your audience and view things the way they view things. Garfield said, “Get out of the screening room and see (your ad) on a TV in the living room… while eating during ‘Wheel of Fortune.’”
8. Advertising is about the client and the audience…it is not about you. Garfield compared advertising to a shotgun rather than a rifle: You can’t guarantee that your spot will be seen only by 18-34 year-old males who like Johnny Knoxville. There is a collateral audience, and often, collateral damage. “When you barge into people’s lives, you must consider how it will be perceived. If you’re in an old lady’s living room, you wouldn’t start telling dirty jokes.” He also railed against advertising agencies that convince advertisers to intentionally offend, describing them as “cowardly and selfish.”
9. Hold the sleaze, please. “Do not disserve your mortal soul [by lying],” Garfield said, after showing a Phillip Morris documentary-style spot about the company’s airlift of food to war-torn Eastern Europe. You remember it: nice middle-manager lady, refugees in the snow, a C-130 loaded with cases of Kraft mac and cheese, and the obligatory cute kid enamored with the generous Americans and the pretty lady. The original donation was $125,000. But Morris spent $1 million to recreate the event with 350 Czechoslovakian extras, then another $10 million to buy airtime.
10. Go forth, my child, advertise and seek the true path… Garfield’s benediction went on for quite some time. But even without an altar call, the message was clear: Think about what you’re doing, follow the Golden Rule, and above all, as he said, “Just do it, but for God’s sake, do it my way.”
Next up: More session wrap-ups, perhaps a bit more soapbox, and heartfelt holiday wishes for all of you.
