myadmin – GREENFLARE IDEAHAUS

Good marketing vs bad marketing

August 27, 2018 myadmin

Saw a great post today from legendary Seth Godin. Seth talks briefly about intrusive roadblock marketing that annoys the crap out of people, versus marketing that’s genuinely engaging and takes the brand forward.

Most marketing assumes the audience is a flat homogeneous mass, just desperate to be stopped in its tracks and shouted at. Seriously. This is how it’s been since the 1950s – the big launch 30 sec TVC across channels 9, 10 and 7 on a Sunday night in Australia was literally called a ‘roadblock’ campaign.

Of course these days with so much comms rubbish flying around (and dropping into your inbox), being ‘roadblocked’ is about as exciting as having your website taken over by hackers.

Anyway, here’s Seth’s post, reproduced below as well. Enjoy:

Two kinds of marketing

There’s the kind that no one can possibly like. The popups, popunders, high-pressure, track-your-private-data, scammy, spammy, interruptive, overpriced, overhyped, under-designed selfish nonsense that some people engage in.

And then there’s the kind that inspires us, delights us and brings us something we truly want.

We call them both marketing, but they couldn’t be more different.

The selfish marketer is marketing at us, trading money for attention to sell average (or below average) products to disinterested people. The excuse is that money needs to be made, or that the boss insists, or that we have no choice…

The successful marketer is marketing with us and for us. And she doesn’t need an excuse.

From boring shot to brand ambassador

August 20, 2015 myadmin

Ever wished you could get that flat, unimaginative but suddenly really necessary shot out of nowhere land, and into interesting communication? We do lots of Photoshop retouching for our clients which usually involves:

Fixing glaring issues like bad backgrounds and poor contrast
Improving/dramatizing colour balance
Sharpening where necessary
Blurring unwanted elements

More importantly, it can be all about giving a ‘feel’ to the shot that looks more interesting and demands attention.

If you need this sort of work done, ask us for a quick estimate now.

And watch boring shots morph into brand ambassadors.

The Al Pacino guide to great copy

March 10, 2015 myadmin

I’ve always thought screen legend Al Pacino gives some great advice on creative. Here’s my take on some of his famous quotes.

I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse. Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather

Copy on your ad or DM piece or in those 7 words on your banner isn’t window dressing for cute design or icing on a strategic cake.

It’s KPI-laced poetry, and it needs to be lively, friendly and informative if it’s to be acted upon. Forget pseudo-power phrases like “quality performance” and “excellence personified” and “exceeding your needs and expectations” and “a world of experience”. The news is in – every one of these expressions is cliched and flaccid (or as Paul Keating says, is “like being flogged with a warm lettuce leaf.”) Seriously, here in 2015, who really thinks this facile language helps sell stuff? We’ve all heard and read it so many times it’s laughable to expect a result from such banalities. This sort of writing pulls leaders back into the mediocre pack, cuts off spikes of interest and snatches brand defeat from the jaws of victory.

My advice: let’s forget such nonsense and talk to clients/customers as though they’re sitting opposite you in the best Italian cafe you’ve ever visited. The coffee’s superb, there’s lots of warm wood, there’s golden morning sunlight, you’re able to open up honestly and you’re feeling optimistic about the world. In short, you’re in a good place to start talking in a friendly, trustworthy and engaging way about things that matter to whoever’s sitting opposite. Now that’s the sort of copy that makes friends…and gets results.

Don’t get high on your own supply. Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface

Don’t disappear up your own…well, avoid that place where the sun doesn’t shine.

When I was a Creative Director in Wellington, New Zealand, we ran all the demand generation for Westpac. Our senior marketing client Shelley was a superb motivator for both my agency at the time and Saatchis, the other rostered ad agency. She drummed into us the following simple philosophy: “NO CHEST BEATING!” She was right of course. Listening to a showoff at a party is boring. You soon move away to talk with someone more interesting. Besides – if you’re always shouting about how big your gear is, chances are people will think it’s tiny and you’re trying to compensate for it. Brands that constantly scream about how good they are soon find the message falling on deaf ears. It’s all about your customers and clients, not about you. What’s in it for them? How is your feature a benefit for them? How are you making their lives simpler? How are you really saving them money? How are you making their children safer? How is this release genuinely better than the last one?

It’s easy to fool the eye but it’s hard to fool the heart. Pacino as himself

Copy in marketing material, both offline and online, needs to be friendly. It needs emotional warmth, not just a clinical list of “features”.

This is the single most ignored tenet of great advertising. Some think lawyers and financial people need to be addressed in quite stiff, official ways. Nope. If a lawyer uses an iPad, he or she has bought friendly, engaging messaging. If an orthodontist flies Virgin Upper Class, he or she knows the thrill of copy that’s communication, speech that’s real talk, imagery that’s telling a story, not newly arrived from cliche-land. So, in summary – calling all brands: Be friendly. Be informative. Be honest. Be liked. Be successful.

Storytelling. It’s more important than ever