Your wife, husband, mother and YOU are idiots when it comes to understanding advertising! What should you do?

Your wife, husband, mother, partner and you are all idiots!


That is, at least, what many marketers seem to think when it comes to creating and evaluating communication and ads targeted at you. It is so much easier to assume that your consumer is an idiot, and then to develop and use ads that are basically your copy strategy set to some images. The more explicit and basic the better? This will help the poor idiots who see them to get your message. Be explicit and spell it out to them - in detail.


However, this is also probably the dumbest way to approach advertising and communication. I am sure people can give examples of ads that work by treating their target as an idiot (incapable of understanding anything other than the most explicit and basic approach). It is, though, unlikely to engage your target. It is unlikely to build something more significant in their minds about the brand.


Through my career, I have tried to an approach that I first came across in one of my most favourite books on advertising when assessing advertising proposals from the agency. The book is "Ogilvy on Advertising" by the inspiring David Ogilvy. In this book he spoke about how "the consumer is not an idiot, she is your wife". This thought really made an impression on me.


I realised that I needed to force myself, and my teams, from always buying the comfortable, which is going for ads that spells out my strategy in a linear fashion. But instead to force myself to look at what the out-take of the ad was:

• Is the ad is engaging people? 
• Intriguing people? 
• Getting them to think about the brand in a new and fresh way? 
• Have a better and more lasting impact and effect?

I try to look and approach ads with my consumer eyes. The ads I like are always the ones that engage, intrigue, impress or make me think. They interest me. They are not the ones that have the strategy spelt out with some pictures added. People are attracted to ads that stop them first, involve them and make them think and get engaged.


These are also the ads that people talk about, both physically but also through social media - thereby increasing the spread and awareness of your message.


Why is it when we are presented with copy we think as a marketer, are are more comfortable treating our consumers as idiots? Why don't we try and evaluate and choose copy with more of our consumer filter on?


This is why when I see copy for the first time from the agency, the first thing I always note and feedback on is "my gut feelings". How the copy made me FEEL. Then I go into thinking with a more rational hat on (is there an idea? Is it on brief? Is it talking to the right target?)


This is really important. We need to try and not leave the consumer at the front door of the office when we walk into it. We need to bring them with us, and think about how we can stand out and engage them more and better. 


The recent Guardian newspaper ad is an interesting example of this. They took the story of the "Three Little Pigs", and the wolf that blew their house down - and imagined how it may play out in the modern world of media and social media interactions. This is a long version of the ad if you have not seen it:

On another note, David Ogilvy had many great quotes and sound bites about how to approach communication and advertising in general. On the ProBlogger.com site there is a great article where he discusses 10 of the very best that is worth reviewing. They are inspiring and clever at the same time. To read the posting: click here

What do you think? Please use the links at the bottom of this blog post to tweet, comment, share and get your thought across!