Advertising - impact of pitch on your buying decisions?

[D18]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Marketing has levels of theory and implementation just like any other craft, and that there are many thousands or even millions of those who work at prosaic, everyday levels has nothing to do with the way the industry works at higher levels. Thousands of people formulate Coke every day, and many thousands distribute it, without knowing secret formula 7X.

I have indeed spoken with industry figures who are candid about this alternate focus for major advertising campaigns, and seen white papers and internal memos discussing the connections between ads and an overall marketing plan, all quite baldly putting it much as I put it above.

No one who’s taken a few marketing classes and maybe worked around the low level implementation departments has much of a basis for an opinion, any more than an undergrad poli-sci student is ready for the rough and tumble of the state capitol. And I know many who have a decade or two under their belt in the trenches of marketing, and still view it all much the way it’s taught in those early classes. It’s all about what viewpoint and understanding you need to get your job done.

It’s not until you start asking the next level of questions that the real reasons for making, say, Flo an irritating presence become more clear than verities about getting and holding viewer attention and building a company image.
ETA: Make no mistake - this is almost 100% about major, national product campaigns at the highest levels, mostly in fields where deflecting the consumer from thinking about the product and presence too much is a good thing. It doesn’t really apply to anything smaller, or to the legion of fairly straightforward, “honest” ads for products that… don’t have perceptual problems. You can find traces of the thinking down to, say, regional food campaigns, but in no way read this that your local car dealer’s ads are working this way. No matter how much like “Cal Worthington” they may try to be.

OK - you’ve talked to people and seen documents that are at a higher level than I’ve been privy to. Fair enough. Just genuinely curious - in what capacity were you given access to these people and documents?

At any rate, can you point us to a publicly accessible case history where “deflecting the consumer from thinking about the product and presence too much is a good thing” or a cite that discusses the theory behind this. I’d genuinely like to understand it better.

Don’t get me wrong - I understand fully that there are a variety of ways to achieve the client’s goals in advertising and there are times to irritate the consumer, to create an ad that is - on the face of it - stupid, or to do one of a multitude of things that the general audience may not understand the rationale behind. But this whole idea of deflection is new to me, and I would like to know where it’s coming from.