I’ve been in marketing research for 20 years, tested a tonne of ads, and never once had heard this as being a motivation for creating an advertisement. Quite the opposite - ad agencies and the client develop a set of objectives for the ad/campaign/whatever, then craft the effort to meet those objectives. Never once have I seen an objective of the ad to be “deflect attention from the rest of the marketing effort and take heat from the market audience”.
So, I ask this from a true desire to learn, and I love counter-intuition as much as the next guy, but is this conjecture, or do you have reason to know what you’re talking about?
Slight nitpick - there are only two countries that permit DTC pharma ads to make claims about the product. Canada allows DTC pharma ads that don’t communicate what the product is for.
Well, depends on who “us” is. If by “us” you mean, the general population, then they don’t care whether we hate her or not. If by “us” you mean the target they are directing the ad toward, then yes, they care greatly.
Ads are a way for me to learn about the existence of a product or service. Further research and review is required before I will consider purchase of said product or service.
Ads for products I already know exist have zero impact on me.
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I have some experience in this area, and also have never heard anyone talk about “deflecting attention.” Every meeting I’ve been in has centered around unaided awareness, brand recognition, and - the holy grail - how to get into the consumer consideration set.
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.
Let me see if I’m following you: some people are silly enough to buy insurance because they like Flo or the gecko; and some are a little smarter, (a) thinking about how irritating and irrelevant Flo and the gecko are while (b) basing their purchase on who gives them the best return on investment; but truly sharp folks would realize they shouldn’t buy insurance at all?
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.
I’m pretty sure someone as important as Amateur Barbarian can’t disclose the super-secret stuff he’s privy to. We should consider ourselves lucky that he deigned to coyly hint at it.
This is utter, Illuminati-quality nonsense. Flo has nearly 5 million likes on Facebook, and *more than *5 million friends. That’s because Progressive has spent a fantastic amount of money to create brand engagement around Flo, not to make her unlikeable.
Or, more succinctly: “Imagine the number of Facebook likes if they’d tried to make her likeable!”
The irony is that in Canada, pharma companies that make products that everyone knows what they’re for has it better off than the US. They can advertise the product by name, build a brand identity and all that good stuff, but don’t have to list all the nasty side effects like they do in the States.
Of course, this only works for a very small number of products and doesn’t do any good for drug brands that aren’t well known.
That is a kick butt commercial, the lighting, grainy film, locker room feel, the delivery. My favorite go with the Flo moment. Like TriPolar it’s probably going to take a lot more than an amusing commercial to sway me in an insurance purchase (my agent and I discuss a number of factors in the bundle) but I am planning on going to a Fiesta supermarket to buy some homemade tamale fixins just because it’s got a sharp dressed Billy Gibbons as pitchman. Have mercy.
Trouble is, I used to BE a salesman, and if a pitch isn’t working and the salesman just keeps pushing it, this is a sure way to get me to leave. Then again, the hard sell has never been my favorite approach.
I also do NOT respond well to the Opportunity Pitch. Every time I shop at Target, the clerk at the till asks some variation of the phrase, “I have to try to get you to sign up for a Target card, therefore we must have this little exchange whether you want one or not, although I will drop the subject like a hot rock if you say no,” and I refrain from screaming in the checker’s face because her bosses make her do it and it’s not her fault.
It has, however, kept me out of Target except when it’s necessary to avoid Wal-Mart.
