Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

SPONSOR WEEK Adams Lists Seven Deadly Advertising Sins MJ«S<A executive underscores toughness of competition for consumer attention before annual meeting of 4As Los Angeles — Emphasizing that "the job of getting worthwhile attention in the advertising market place is getting tougher and tougher," Charles F. Adams, executive vice president of MacManus, John & Adams, Inc., last week coupled an analysis of a recent 4As study on consumer judgment with his own listing of the "seven deadly sins of modern ad making." In an address before the annual meeting of the Western Region of the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies, Adams cited the following points drawn from the 4As consumer study: • The average consumer, presumably metropolitan, is conscious of seeing or hearing some 80 advertisements per day. • Of these, 15 percent have some perceptively positive or negative effect on him. • Of these, 71 percent are essentially pleasing or positive reactions. • Advertisements seen or heard in the evening or night get stronger reactions than during the day. • It is easier to offend people in broadcast media than it is in print. • People either ignore or are repelled by advertisements that depict unreal or unbelievable situations or circumstances. • People want first and foremost to obtain information from advertisements about the products advertised. Underscoring the increasing difficulty of winning the consumer via advertising, Adams told the admen that "instead of telling you the things to do, I would like to describe for you the things not to do. For if you can avoid doing them, you are bound to come closer to producing effective advertising." Adams then listed his "seven deadly sins": 1. Talking in ad argot. For some reason advertising seems slowly to be developing a matter of expression that exists nowhere else in Adams . . . "join the P.T.A." literature. It's that super-brisk, psuedo-naughty, sometimes sentence-less lingo that is unique to American advertising. 2. Substituting ideas about technique for ideas about products. A worthless message — adroitly stated and imaginatively presented — is still worthless. 3. Not doing your homework. The first thing a creative man must do is learn about the product and its virtues — study the market and the audience of the medium — analyze the vulnerability of the competition and generally immerse himself in knowledge about the task. 4. Relying on the new "cliches." In an attempt to move away from the "old cliches," modem advertising has developed some "new cliches" which to me are getting just as tiresome. 5. Relying on the jormida. There is a kind of "look-alike" in the ad world that has come to worry me increasingly. These are the ads that look alike — not because they are selling the same kind of product — but because they were created by the same agency. 6. Mistaking strangeness jar creativity. Too many practitioners have come to the conclusion that it is enough if advertising is startlingly different. 7. Becoming a victim of occuppational isolation. Ad writers should go to an occasional wrestling match, visit a large department store, ride an escalator, join the P.T.A., ride a bus and talk to people. i; WBNX Plans To Provide Live Coverage Of Puerto Rican Election Results New York — The city's estimated 1,200.000 Spanish-speaking residents will be able to follow results of the elections in Puerto Rico live from San Juan over WBNX Radio. With the Bank of De Ponce, the largest in Puerto Rico, picking up the tab, WBNX will present four hours of election programing tomorrow night (Nov. 3). C. Carroll Larkin, vice president and general manager of the Spanishoriented station, said arrangements had been made with WIAC San Juan, to provide coverage of the race for governor, for the Puerto Rican senate and mayoralty races in local communities. Larkin also pointed out that WBNX will be providing coverage of the mainland elections to WIAC via reverse lines, adding that the hookup would involve approximately 1275 miles of lines. The sponsor. Bank of De Ponce, has several New York branches. In still another service to minority residents, WEVD, a multilingual AM-FM station in New York, will cancel all programs on election night at 8 p.m. to bring complete returns in Yiddish. The station estimates the city's Jewish households at 25 to 30 percent of the total. The station is cooperating with the Jewish Daily Forward in its coverage. ill m \m Uu sail. '101 18 SPONSOR