Bob Hoffman - 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising: The Strange World of Advertising in 101 Delicious Bite-Sized Pieces

The Strange World Of Advertising in 101 Delicious Bite-Size Pieces

by Bob Hoffman

2011 by Bob Hoffman. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact lgordon@hoffmanlewis.com.

ISBN: 978-0-9796885-3-9

Ebook conversion by Fowler Digital Services
Formatted by Ray Fowler

First of all, you owe me two contrarian ideas. I promised 101 but there are actually 103 in this book.

Im not going to be a dick about this, so if you dont have two ideas to send me, you can send me two bucks or something. How about two bottles of Ketel One ? Whatever seems fair.

Now that weve gotten your obligations out of the way, lets talk about the book.

Its mostly stuff I wrote for my blog The Ad Contrarian . In over four years of writing The Ad Contrarian blog, Ive published over 1,000 pieces. Most of them were pretty stinky, but there were a few good ones and I think theyre nicely represented in this collection.

The difficult part of writing the blog was that I toiled mercilessly and received not a penny. Its payback time. You want to read something about advertising that isnt the usual brain-liquefying drivel? This time youre going to pay.

There are some pieces in the book that are not about advertising. Theyre about things like fish and cosmology and singing our national anthem. I have called it 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising because I thought 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising And Fish And Cosmology And Singing Our National Anthem sounded stupid. I think youll agree.

I have spent more time than is healthy in the ad business. During my unbecoming longevity, I have developed a deep and abiding cynicism -- not so much for the ads themselves but for the way in which the ad business is conducted. It has been my experience that bad advertising gets punished by the market, but bad advertising business practices are thriving as never before.

One advertising blog called my last book (also called The Ad Contrarian ) the best ad book of the last 10 years. They have since, on several occasions, tried to take it back, but I have it in writing, so they cant. Ha!

I like to think of this new book as the best ad book of the last 10 minutes. I realize its not a great accolade, but at least its something.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it. And if you dont, write your own damn book.

By the way, the three funniest words in the English language are nympho, homo, and Kotex.

Author's Notes

A handful of these pieces first appeared in Adweek magazine. The rest come from my blog,The Ad Contrarian. In order to avoid repetition and make the book more readable, in some cases I have combined pieces. In others I have done some surgery. The pieces were written over a period of over four years. Since the material first appeared some of the data cited have changed. For the sake of accuracy I have left most of the data as they were at the time the pieces were first published.

The phone rings:

ROBBIE: Hello.

RUTHIE: Robert, it's your Aunt Ruthie.

ROBBIE: Hi Ruthie.

RUTHIE: Hello, darling.

ROBBIE: What's up?

RUTHIE: I'm calling to ask a favor.

ROBBIE: Sure.

RUTHIE: My pickles are selling very well, and Big Save says they'll put them in their supermarkets all across the country, but I have to do some advertising. So I thought as long as my nephew is a big shot advertising man, maybe your company could make an ad for me.

ROBBIE: Sure.

RUTHIE: So here's what I want the ad to say... Aunt Ruthie's Pickles are homemade, they taste wonderful and we use fresh ingredients.

ROBBIE: Well, okay, but we really need to think a little more about this.

RUTHIE: Um...okay...what?

ROBBIE: Well, first we need to understand the consumer.

RUTHIE: The consumer?

ROBBIE: It's a...a person who buys things.

RUTHIE: Everyone buys things.

ROBBIE: Right...

RUTHIE: So how is a consumer different from a person?

ROBBIE: Um...it's not

RUTHIE: So why don't you just call it a person?

ROBBIE: Okay, so it's a person.

RUTHIE: Okay so you have to understand this...person. Why?

ROBBIE: So we can know how they use your product.

RUTHIE: They eat it. How else do you use a pickle?

ROBBIE: Well, yeah...but why do they eat it?

RUTHIE: Because it tastes good. (PAUSE) Robbie, are you okay?

ROBBIE: I'm fine. You see, we have to analyze who we should be talking to in our advertising. We call that a target audience. Should we talk to women 18-49 or men 25-34 or...?

RUTHIE: Why don't we just talk to people who like pickles?

ROBBIE: Well you see, the perception of your brand has to resonate...

RUTHIE: My what?

ROBBIE: Your brand...it's the personality of your product...

RUTHIE: My pickles have a personality?

ROBBIE: Well, it's not the pickles that have the personality, it's you, it's Aunt Ruthie's Pickles...

RUTHIE: My personality? I'm a pain in the ass. Why the hell does anyone care about my personality?

ROBBIE: But Aunt Ruthie's is your brand.

RUTHIE: I thought Aunt Ruthie's was my name.

ROBBIE: And your name is your brand!

RUTHIE: So why don't you just call it my name? (PAUSE) Robert, are you having that problem you had back in college?

ROBBIE: You know I've committed to never doing that again...

RUTHIE: So why are you talking like this? Is this how you talk in your company?

ROBBIE: Well, yes. You see, Aunt Ruthie, we believe advertising isn't really about selling your pickles. It's about developing a relationship between the consumer and your brand through integrated communications that create brand advocates by over-delivering on relevant brand expectations and engaging brand conversations...

RUTHIE: You know, honey, your cousin Stanley majored in English. Maybe I'll just ask him to write the ad

ROBBIE: No, no....I'll

RUTHIE: Robbie, darling, you know I love you, right? And I would never say anything to hurt you. But listen to me, darling. You people are crazy.

Click

Good news!

We no longer need creative people in advertising.

We can finally get rid of those annoying, whiney, pains-in-the-ass.

According to The New York Times there's a new software program developed by an agency called BETC Euro RSCG that can generate advertising by itself.

But before we get to the software, let's talk about the agency for a minute.

Does an agency really need 8 initials? I mean, the whole name is only twelve letters long -- BETC Euro RSCG . And eight of them are initials. Maybe they should have used their software program to generate a better name.

Well, anyway, according to the Times , this program can create up to 200,000 "perfectly acceptable" ads for print, billboards, or banners. This sounds to me like an improvement because, honestly, I've seen a lot of banner ads that were perfectly awful, but I don't think I've seen many that were perfectly acceptable.

Now that computers can write and design ads, we can get down to the real business of advertising -- you know, meetings and downloads and uploads and briefings and off-sites and Powerpoints and metrics and brand audits and deep dives.