Shouldn’t the ad stop mucking about and just tell people the brief?
I’ve often heard that sentiment from clients.
Here’s one direct quote ‘You need to stop trying to be clever. This doesn’t have to be creative’. Imagine my face after hearing that.
The public say the same thing. I’ve been in research when the panel have said they don’t care about anything but the price or deal. It makes sense at a surface level, but it’s not the reality of how ads work.
Following the Credit Crisis in 2007, trust in the banks was incredibly low. Deservedly so.
To combat this one bank ran work where the main headline was just the word ‘Trust’, backed with numbers and stats. Another bank, Barclays, ran work focusing on helping people. Including getting the less-tech savvy older generation online and helping young people find jobs.
Basically, one bank was said ‘trust us’ and the other showed it by doing things that helped people through difficult times.
Who would you trust more?
The salesmen who keeps saying trust me? Or the one who’s genuinely trying to help you.
That's where clever creativity comes in.
Don’t draw a box around the brief and call it an ad.
Thank about how to demonstrate the message. Show people you mean it, that you’re not just trying to sell to them. It’s not about being unclear. That’s not the role of creative.
Some work I created for Swinton Insurance had the same problem of not wanting to say ‘trust’ directly, despite that being the brief. Post-campaign, the number one research take-out was ‘I feel like I can trust them’. The message had come through with absolute clarity, despite never saying it outright at any point in the campaign.
We had brought the proposition to life by mucking about and being creative.
Trust me.
