Don’t Be Afraid of Long-Form Ads

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There was a time when people actually read, and read a great deal. Now brands, marketers and advertisers, have catered to and hastened ever-shortening attention spans. Videos run in seconds, online ads pop up over-and-over again in seizure inducing ways, radio screams irrelevant call-to-actions.

We have robbed consumers of their intellect by dumbing down both message and medium. Yet, people still read and watch in longer amounts. So many documentaries on Netflix are long ads for different sides of the same debate. Reality shows espouse different ways of life and people eat them up. So, why are brand ads increasingly short and, arguably, simpler (if not, dumb)?

It is great to come across long-form ads in print as they are both endangered species. Check out this beauts that take the time to compel and tell a story. Make sure to read the last one!

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My Tenuous Connection to Spy Magazine

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It takes a certain vintage, I am speaking of human age, not a red wine or long-packaged Twinkie, to recall the magazine called, Spy. It was, to use an expression oft-used, fucking awesome. It ran from 1986 to 1998. Those were formative years for me. Actually, every year has been formative for me. I expect future ones to be equally or even more formative.

The publication was founded by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter, who served as its first editors. Their pedigrees are well-pedigreed. Andersen graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he edited the Harvard Lampoon. He has been a writer and columnist for New York, The New Yorker, and Time. What an under-achiever. Carter is Canadian (enough said) who served as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1992 until 2017. Such a light-weight.

Before their real accomplishments, they focused on Spy, which bathed in irreverence and was doused in satire. The content loved to skewer the American media and entertainment industries while mocking “high” society (which in America is vacuous celebrity). To say it was ‘ahead of its time’, is an evaluation they would skewer and mock if still in print.

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Excited to Introduce a New Service!

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Who reads books anymore? 

Umm, people. Millions and millions of people. When it comes to business books, you know who reads them? Decision-makers. Most CEOs and executives read 4-5 books per month.

It is not inaccurate to refer to a business book as a thick brochure. One that demonstrates the depth and originality of your thinking, showcases your differentiation and, when done right, drives people to action. The kind of action that grows your awareness and business.

That is why we have introduced a new service that assists leaders and brands get their business book written, published and into the hands of desired readers. Check out more in our brochure.

#WMW 3rd Quarter Newsletter

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Read a few excerpts from Why Marketing Works. Pabst Blue Ribbon refuses to market and Lacoste had to get fancy when it broke into America. Plus much more…WMW.

How a Metaphor Can Trip Up Your Life

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We use metaphors, quotes, and analogies in writing and books all the time, but what about metaphors, quotes, and analogies about writing and books that apply to life? No surprise, there are tons.

Novelist Brian Faulkner wrote one that has tons of variants but shares the same lesson, “Life is like a book. There are good chapters, and there are bad chapters. But when you get to a bad chapter, you don’t stop reading the book! If you do… then you never get to find out what happens next!”

Colson Whitehead gave us this deep quote about the act of writing and life, “What isn’t said is as important as what is said.” Graphic Novelist Alan Moore provided levity in this writing-as-life metaphor, “My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.”

I love metaphors, quotes and analogies. They capture an idea or lesson concisely and with effect. However, they can trip you up. While many are truisms, they are not absolutes. Every situation is different, so to try to apply them over and over is a risk to relevancy or just plain wrong. Many of us, me included, use them as rigid guideposts and that is dangerous.

Another reason I enjoy, employ and have been guided by metaphors, quotes and analogies, is that they are mini-stories. As Umberto Eco says, “To survive, you must tell stories.” I am in marketing and becoming more and more a writer. At my core is storytelling but I am also a hiker, a recreation replete with well-meaning metaphors.

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How’s this for Storytelling?

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McCann Paris cleverly tells three different tales using business cards. The campaign is for The Good Life, a business and lifestyle magazine. The three ads tell stories of trips, shopping and work. Fun stuff, especially the trip gone wrong a la The Hangover.

#WMW 2nd Quarter Newsletter

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Why should a book have a newsletter? Because it is so chock full of good stuff worthy of sharing! Get the 2nd Quarter, 2019 Why Marketing Works Newsletter here.

The Back of a Napkin

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Marketers and ad professionals are attracted to shiny new toys. They look to technology as a panacea for reaching and influencing buyer behaviour. Newspapers, radio, tv, the Internet, big data, social media, AI, and whatever is next. There is one thing missing in this equation.

The fact is all great ads regardless of medium or platform start out on a whiteboard, a flip chart, a notebook, or the back of a napkin.

Print ads are therefore the gold standard. If an ad or campaign cannot compel from a single sheet of paper, no algorithm will save it. Technology will just irritate consumers with irrelevant and poorly timed ads. In other words, why make something flawed more efficient?

Recently, I came across two sets of print ads that share characteristics. They draw you in visually. They create allure and make a promise. They know their audience. Someone sweated over them and were proud in the end. In a time when more means more, these were designed to cut through the clutter that advertising and converging technologies have created.

Great ads start with a Bic pen not an algorithm. Look ahead and see if you agree.

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How Advertising Can Defeat Extremism

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During the 1964 Presidential election, Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign approached the ad agency DDB for a particular type of television ad. The result was “Daisy”, sometimes known as “Daisy Girl” or “Peace, Little Girl”. It aired just once and is credited with tarnishing Barry Goldwater’s run for the oval office. It never mentioned him by name but got the message across that, if elected, Goldwater would push America into nuclear war.

Fast-forward a few decades and we now live in world of extremes, extremists, and extremism. An extremist, by definition, “is a person who holds extreme views, especially one who advocates illegal, violent, or other extreme action”. These are polarizing times full of overwhelming debate among ever-more tribes. These fractious groups are both new and long-standing.

The Proud Boys are an example of the new. A group labelled extreme by the FBI because of misogyny, glorification of violence, and ties to White Nationalism. The growing delta between America’s Republican Party and the Democratic party represent the long-standing but deepening extremism in mainstream politics.

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Bauhaus Ha

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Spoiler alert…this may be for design nerds only. Imagine extremely recognizable and memorable logos. What comes to mind? An Apple. A Golden Arch. A Swoosh.

What comes to mind when you hear Bauhaus? No, it is not an Oktoberfest pop-up beer hall. The Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known as the Bauhaus, was a German art school that ran from 1919 to 1933, It combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught.[

So, some talented folks smooshed, or swooshed, modern logos into the Bauhaus style. Here is the result and they would look awesome on a t-shirt (or a New Wave retrospective music collection).