Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1962)

MONDAY MEMO from PETER GODFREY, vp and marketing director, Menley & James Labs Secret of the pleasant sell: association without offense All too often one of the earliest questions raised during the spawning period of a new advertising campaign concerns the technique to be used in the presentation of the advertising message: "soft sell" or "hard sell?" Frequently, much time and energy are spent by client and agency trying to resolve the "hard" versus "soft" question. Not only is this time ill spent, but, even worse, it is responsible, in no small measure, for the ultimate creation of much of today's incredibly bad advertising. Menley & James Labs recently marketed a new cold/ hay fever preparation: "Contac" continuous action capsules. Before discussing the product advantages to be stressed in our sales message, we obtained the unqualified and enthusiastic concurrence of our agency (Foote, Cone & Belding, New York) with our conviction that advertising for Contac must conform to these fundamental principles: It must be honest in context and intent; it must not be offensive to the viewer/ listener/ reader; it must be informative and interesting and, in the case of tv, pleasing to watch. Client/ agency discussions were devoted to the creation of a basic platform to present the Contac sales story honestly, interestingly and pleasingly. No attention to "hard" or "soft" sell, but emphasis on creating a sales message capable of effective selling in an interesting and pleasing fashion. Too Much Technique ■ We are convinced that much of today's dull, irritating and ineffective advertising is the result of too much attention to technique and too little to the maxim: "tell an honest story; tell it well and the world will listen." Why is there so much attention to advertising technique? Why so much more apparent concentration on how something is presented than on what is presented? We suggest a ready answer lies in what the low-key, subtle and often uncommon sales approach called soft sell attempts to accomplish. The soft-sell school came into being because of a fundamental — and we believe, erroneous — conviction of its proponents: hard sell has an inherent basic weakness. Namely, it looks/ sounds/ reads too much like what it is — advertising. The low-key school of thought argues that the more a selling message appears to be a sales pitch the less productive the selling message actually becomes. So soft sell was created and fashioned to win over the viewer/ listener/ reader without having the sales pitch appear too much like advertis 24 ing, because, the soft sellers reason, advertising per se is offensive. In its pursuit of the inoffensive selling message, the soft-sell school frequently loses sight of — and falls far short of — advertising's fundamental goal: to sell. The awards have been garnered, but the product is floundering or has even disappeared from the marketplace. Soon after the appearance of the introductory Contac commercial, we received considerable comment along these lines: "good but too low pressure"; "commercial lacks punch"; "interesting use of the 'soft sell' approach." A consumer publication said: "Visually, Contac is showing good taste in its urging. There are no hammers, no nerve endings, janglings, no stomachs churning." We were encouraged by this, but disheartened by most of the other remarks. A Misconception ■ What do these remarks really mean? We feel they are evidence of another basic misconception and error in much of today's advertising: unless you use the hardsell approach and "hit the consumer over the head" with the selling message, maximum promotion productivity will not be realized. It is regrettable that the preachers and practitioners of this approach do not realize that hard sell has become semantically synonymous with advertising which is loud, replete with repetition ad nauseam, insultingly condescending, vociferous in half-truths, often in bad taste and, above all, emotionally disturbing to the unfortunate person who is its target. At the opposite end of the spectrum, these comments also imply a certain reservation about the use of the socalled soft-sell technique in advertising for self medications. They suggest that Contac may be pleasant advertising but is perhaps not as productive as it could be if a more traditional approach were employed. Historically, the hardsell technique is particularly prevalent in advertising for self medications and health aids. To this "belly-and-bowel school," the very thought of soft sell is anathema. Tough Subject ■ Self medication is a most difficult subject for advertising. To identify the viewer with the selling message and thus "personalize" the product benefits to follow, it is often necessary to illustrate the physical complaint or suffering that product X will alleviate. Suffering and pleasure are incompatible. Thus the very great difficulty in producting advertising for self medication that is "pleasing to watch." Our agency was faced with a real creative challenge: to depict physical discomfort or minor "suffering" (the runny nose, sneezing and blocked nasal passages of the common cold) in such a manner that the viewer association is achieved without concomitant offense. Viewer association without viewer offense — this is one of the goals of our tv commercials. The pursuit of the soft sell is not. We believe both hard sell and soft sell often result in "no sell." We are pursuing a more vital goal, unhampered by a textbook mandate to use one school or the other. Our advertising goal is to bring to the public an honest message, told with interest and conviction in an inoffensive manner. If our approach must have a tag, we prefer to call it "pleasant sell." And we believe the public is sufficiently discriminating to respond to "pleasant sell" in a gratifying fashion in the marketplace. Peter Godfrey joined Smith, Klein & French Labs, Philadelphia, parent company of Menley & James Labs, as a copywriter upon his graduation from Harvard U. in 1948. He became a copywriter at N. W. Ayer & Son in 1952, but the next year rejoined SK&F. After holding key advertising and marketing positions, he was assigned in 1960 to investigate the possible entry of SK&F into the proprietary drug field. This led to the formation of M&J in 1961 and to his present appointment. BROADCASTING, February 12, 1962