Shampooing in the Aircraft Lavatory

Having managed an advertising agency, I'm always amused when the creative team is allowed to run amok.  I've only worked at agencies that (usually) adhered to the old Benton & Bowles dictate:  It's not creative unless it sells.

Unfortunately, sometimes creative groups stray from the creative into the realm of the bizarre.  They believe they need to prove their "creativity" by producing something shocking.  Their reason is often unstated, but I believe it stems from the feeling that the product itself isn't interesting enough. 

I just saw a commercial in which a beautiful woman (clearly a fashion model) is on an airplane.  She marches down the aisle in the typical fashion model way, enters the lavatory ... and washes her hair with the advertised shampoo product (Herbal Essence).  She has what sounds like a totally orgasmic experience washing her hair.  And, of course, she emerges oh-so-very-beautiful.

The ad caught my attention ... but for all the wrong reasons.  "What in the world??"  "You can't have that much liquid shampoo on a flight ...."  "Huh?"  Now, admittedly, I'm not in the target audience, but I have to wonder if there isn't some better way to sell the product.

The Burnett Logo: Reach for the Stars 

Leo Burnett, the founder of the Burnett Agency (where I started my career) built his very successful brand of advertising around something he called "inherent product drama."  Find something inherently dramatic about the product ... and feature that in the ad.  It isn't always easy, but Burnett's approach led to the Pillsbury Doughboys, the Keebler Elves, and down-home slice-of-life advertising that the reader or viewer could relate to.

I once saw a bumper sticker with the phrase "Bizarre is easy.  Creative is hard."  How true. 

Talking to ourselves ...

Too many marketers suffer from "the curse of knowledge."  We know so much about our products and services that we speak in a language all our own.  We know what we're talking about, but does anyone else? 

Jargon.  Buzz words.  Marketing speak.  Weasel words.  No matter what you call them, these words and phrases can get in the way of communication.

I just viewed a television commercial for a loan company that used the term "re-fi."  Now, many (or even most) people may know that re-fi means refinance.  But does everybody?  There are times when you trim copy in order to cut time out of a script, but the difference between "refi" and "refinance" is one syllable.  Hardly worth the trouble to cut. 

Privacy Is A Priority

My daughter's family is flying to Hawaii for a visit.  For her birthday, I wanted to buy an airline gift certificate for them to use to get into a "premier" section of the plane with a little more legroom. 

When I contacted the airline, I was told that you couldn't use gift certificates for that kind of purchase.  (First imponderable here ... why not??). 

The helpful agent, however, said that I could do it myself by going into my daughter's reservation record. 

Really?  I didn't know the record locator.  The ever helpful agent said just give me her name and when you think she's traveling.  Voila.  She found and gave me the reservation record number ... and I purchased the better seats.

You might think that this is all well and good.  But, I'm afraid that in this day and age I worry about agents handing out private information like reservation records to just anyone.  (My daughter's married name is different from mine ... so there was no way for the agent to know that we were really related).

Companies need to be taking privacy concerns seriously - or they'll be finding the government at their door with a lot of troublesome regulations to make them take it seriously. 

A Product You Didn't Know You Needed ... Or, Did You?

I'm a sucker for retail.  When I travel I love to go into stores to see what people are buying.  It's especially interesting to do this in tourist areas, because tourists buy the darnedest things.

Recently we were visiting Hawaii Island and in the souvenir shops - among the standard trinkets and trash - I found a display of ... Spam flavored macadamia nuts.  Bizarre?  Well, yes and no.  I certainly don't think it's a mainstream product.  I certainly wouldn't put it out for guests.  But one thing that visitors are looking for when they buy things on vacation is the offbeat ... the unconventional ... the demonstration that they have been someplace surprising or different.

It so happens that Hawaii probably has the highest per capita consumption of Spam of any state.  The reasons are lost in history, but probably relate to the difficulty of acquiring fresh meat in a set of islands isolated from the rest of the world.  This was probably especially true during WWII when Spam became part of the fabric of Hawaii.  Our kids it Spam musubi (Spam wrapped in rice and nori).  And there's even a spam festival in Waikiki called the "Spam Jam," featuring Spam recipe contests and even Spam carving.

So a visitor to Hawaii that wants to demonstrate that he/she is "in the know" about the islands might buy Spam Mac Nuts as a novelty item.  It's certainly a conversation-starter. 

Think of the other products that you may have seen in tourist shops around the world.

I distinctly remember doing a fueling stop on the island of Biak on the way to Indonesia.  The island is known for primitive tribes that you may have seen in National Geographic magazine.  In the shop at the airport, they were selling penis sheaths.  Yes, penis sheaths.  These are gourds that the native men tie onto the penis for some cultural reason.  I looked at this display in the airport shop and wondered who ever would buy such a thing as a souvenir.  But when I boarded the plane, I saw quite a number being taken home as a remembrance of Biak.  I'm wondering if some of these are hanging over someone's mantel.

Moral of the story:  when selling remembrances, the unusual can be a selling feature.