No one remembers boring ads. But they never forget how boring your brand is.
Credit: Lee Clow’s beard
Why is this a great quote?
There are far too many clients out there who want advertising and digital interaction that is safe, familiar and predictable. What they are missing is the big picture: the impact it will have on their overall brand. The best argument for creativity lies in it’s ability to get noticed and attract attention. You don’t get hundreds or thousands of Social Media “shares” for boring content. And you don’t motivate consumers to make the effort to buy your product if they don’t remember you. Once a consumer makes a positive or negative decision about what your brand stands for, undoing that opinion can be darned next to impossible … and you’ll find yourself hiring a creative agency known for it’s breakthrough work to save your failing brand anyway.
Great quote Jill! Who wants to deal with a boring company? I read a survey recently about brands that we either loved or hated. Interestingly, the same brands appeared on both lists – KFC, McDonalds, Coke, Tesco… the brands that no one cared about, (the boring ones), were companies like AON, AIG, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and many other “beige” brands. I know that those brands are financial institutions and they’re not ‘supposed’ to be exciting, but who said that they had to be boring? There’s a bank called ING advertising heavily on the London Underground – they sell insurance, investment, mortgages etc and their ads are funny. No wonder they are standing out, getting new customers and turning profits – while banks around them are struggling for positive PR.
Hi JeremyThanks for your comment. It’s surprising how many clients miss the bigger branding picture … when you produce safe “seen it before” advertising … digitally or traditionally, they’re setting themselves up for failure. Clients that really get brand understand that they need to find new, never before seen ways to interact with the consumer, let alone message them. Traditional or digital, the end result is the same. Boredom = medocrity. A state no brand wants to exist in.