Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1962)

from CHARLES H. BROWER, president, BBDO, New York MONDAY MEMO All form and no content is the fool's gold of advertising Yesterday's sin, in advertising, was to think that the bald, unadorned statement of fact or benefit was enough. Today's is just the opposite of confusing the techniques available to us in all media with the message we are trying to deliver. You may remember that a campaign some years back warning listeners to look out for "pink toothbrush" sold the stores out of pink toothbrushes, and the Kinsey Report increased the sale of Kinsey whiskey. The new techniques available to us today make how we will say it a lot more interesting than what we will say. We get ads and commercials that are gems by the same process we get gold and other precious things — by mining and refining. Deciding what to "tell" is mining. Working out the exact wording and techniques of delivering the message is refining. And both are vital to good advertising today. A message without brilliance will not be picked up along the way, for it will not sparkle in the sun. And brilliance without a message is but a useless piece of glass. When people admire your cute puppets, or your sophisticated cartoons, or your horse in the parlor — and do not buy your product — you are in trouble. The people who mined and mined and never refined — the masters of the hard sell, the architects of the split-level head — have apparently been listening more closely to Mark Twain. He said, "Noise proves nothing. Often the hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid." Leo Burnett (Leo Burnett Co.) suggested I be a committee of one and reply to Rosser Reeves' (Ted Bates & Co.) book, Reality in Advertising. A Little Lamb ■ But I found nothing to disagree with in Mr. Reeves' book, just as I found nothing to disagree with in "Mary Had a Little Lamb." For people with a lamb and school problem, that story is probably the definitive work. And for those who sell small pills for small ills Reality in Advertising has much to recommend it. It just does not approach the major classification of advertising problems. Most of us cannot solve our problems merely by latching onto a small clutch of magic words and then hiring a whole group of people to see that the client never drops them. Yet, when Mr. Reeves says 80% of advertising is pure puffery without any sell, I join him in spirit if not in percentage. I think our mistakes come from not understanding one simple fact: The 22 mining process — the matching of a strong consumer need to an outstanding product benefit — is not so much a creative process as it is a research process. True creativity comes in the refining process — -after someone has been out there digging in them thar hills. I believe advertising research has failed the creative man. Advertising research has improved its ability to count heads, but not its ability to see inside of them. It has spent too much time justifying what has been done and too little exploring what might be done. It has been too adroit at inventing new names for the same old games. We say the strength of advertising is its cumulative effect, yet thus far attempts to judge advertising by its total effect over a period rather than by its individual units have been abandoned. Commercial Effects ■ Nor has anyone, as far as I know, with the exception of one or two of my own restless people, even attempted a beginning at discovering when a commercial has had it: when its effect, because of accumulated boredom of witnessing the same trite scene night after night — becomes harmful rather than helpful. President Kennedy has a group of female professors and others to advise him in the field of consumer protection in an obvious belief the average woman will not bother to read a package label. Then how is this lazy and uninterested woman able to guide us in making costly advertising decisions just because we give a resounding name like "Consumer Jury" to her wandering "efforts"? Why after all these centuries should any man expect a woman to know what she will want tomorrow or what she wants right now? Her boast has ever been she is guided by intuition — and if it's true that half the items she buys in a supermarket are impulse items, is this not proof that she does not know her own mind half of the time? I may be accused of liking neither research nor women. I like both quite well. My only fear for advertising research is that our pretense of having it may keep us from getting it. Some night when you are far from home, pick up the Gideon Bible. Read just the first five words: "In the beginning, God created. . . ." Get the Facts ■ Remember two things. You do not have as much creative ability as God. So in the beginning don't rush off in all directions. Get the facts first. Do the mining. Find out who your customer, or prospective customer, is, and the facts about age, sex, location, economic group and education; what product she uses that you may be able to replace; the advantages your product has. With the fadeout of personal salesmanship, advertising has to do the selling, not just the reminding. We are growing a whole new race of creative people that will make the socalled giants of yore the pygmies of the future. I have always thought creative advertising people were the sawiest, the most talented, liveliest, most exciting people in any business. But we would do well to take better care of our creative people — not by pampering, getting them free luncheons, encouraging the temperamental nitwits or giving the phonies, hacks, timid souls and the superficial ones a place to hide — but by giving them more facts, outlining jobs clearly, separating mining from refining and giving them a hand out of the awful confusion to which we have sentenced them. There are no easy jobs in this business. I've been a writer, and I've been president — and I'd rather be president than write! Charles H. Brower joined George Batten Co. in 1928, four months before it merged with Barton, Durstine & Osborn. He has been a copywriter, copy supervisor and creative man. He was elected a vp and board member in 1940; executive vp for creative services in 1946; executive committee member in 1951; general manager in April 1957; and president and executive committee chairman in December 1957. This MONDAY MEMO is a condensed version of a speech he made last month. BROADCASTING, December 17, 1962