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The same old adverts can wear thin after a while. Consumers
‘are like roaches – you spray them and spray them and they
get immune after a while’. David Lubars, a remarkably
candid advertising executive in the Omnicom group, quoted
by Naomi Klein in No Logo, expresses a truth that demon-
strates the weakness of advertising compared to the
substance of the product or the service. We get tired of
adverts, or immune to their hold over us, however good they
might be, but we don’t get tired of a good product. It’s
another of those good problems, alerting us to the fact that
while adverts and other promotional techniques must be
recreated almost continually, genuine propositions through
the product and the service can be maintained for much
longer. Putting effort into maintaining and enhancing those
propositions will be worth every penny.
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The ‘production’ can overpower the message. ‘Advertising
at its best achieves all its commercial objectives, but also
enters the popular culture,’ says Rupert Howell, Chairman
of HCCL. This is a noble notion, but I suspect most clients
would prefer that it was the brand that entered the popular
culture, not the ad.
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Advertising is seen by many as intrusive. The argument is often
put that advertising provides us with choice, or is it more the
perception that we are making informed choices? Knowing an
ad tells us that we know something about the brand and the
product. This is powerful stuff, but must be handled with care
if we are to avoid the excesses of ‘brand advertising fluff’.
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Audiences are becoming more ‘literate’ – they see the tricks
of the trade – and in many cases more cynical. Some brands
have responded to this by lampooning themselves and their
adverts. Often the adverts so produced acquire cult status
(McDonald’s use of the Pearl & Dean format being a case in
point) but it is far from clear whether they actually build the
brand’s own status.
The cynical audience is sometimes handled by presenting a cynical
message, or a cynical personality. Egg financial services, targeted
at a younger and more cynical audience, chose to play on this by
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Understanding brands