Straight Talk

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Monday, July 24, 2017

Dear Facebook, let me sound off

I value Facebook. It provides me a way to stay in contact with friends and colleagues and, truthfully, maybe show off once in a while. However, this benefit is being eroded by intrusive and now noisy advertising. No, Facebook, you don’t have to copy Snapchat. And, no, you do not have to acquiesce to the demands of misguided advertisers.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Ads needs to be interesting, specific and human

Erik DuPlessis sent me a link to this post titled 'The Wisdom of Taxi Drivers' by Damon Stapleton. Thank you, Erik, like you said, “very, very good”. Why? Because it reminds us that the power of stories lies in being interesting, specific and human. It reminds us that we need to keep people – the target audience if you must – at the heart of the creative development process.

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Monday, July 17, 2017

When it comes to politics brands must choose wisely

We all know that brands become iconic by addressing a societal tension, so perhaps it is not surprising that the controversy swirling around President Trump and his actions should attract the attention of marketers. Whether that is a good thing, or not, depends on the brand and its target audience.

#Brands

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Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Facebook video tips only half the story

A couple of weeks ago Mark Rabkin, VP, Core Ads at Facebook, posted ‘New Medium, New Rules: video in the mobile age’. It is a good summary of the challenges facing advertisers when it comes to engaging people in the mobile age and supports what Kantar Millward Brown has been saying for years: mobile is not a tiny TV.

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Monday, July 10, 2017

Will Pre-Suasion highlight how advertising works?

After reading the award-winning essays for the Admap Prize 2017 (inspired by Kantar, I should note) my eye was caught by the title Pre-Suasion toward the end of the same issue. Pre-Suasion turns out to be the title of a new book by Professor Robert Cialdini and the review suggests that the central theme fits well with the need to make a lasting impression.

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Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Once-iconic Sears struggles to survive

Sears was founded as Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1886. Its catalogs offered an attractive alternative to rural town stores by offering a wider selection of goods at attractive prices. Unfortunately, the once-iconic brand is now struggling to survive and its potential demise has a lot to do with a company that is doing to Sears what Sears once did to the general store.

#Brands

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Monday, July 3, 2017

Short-term advertising effects can weaken long-term

I want to return to this post by Faris Yakob in which he replies to an email from Andrew Willshire and tries to explain why advertising can have a short-term effect while still undermining longer-term effects. It is a really important question and while I agree that metrics are the solution, I want to offer a slightly different spin on the issue.

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Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Advertising scripts that sell to the lazy brain

Our end-goal as marketers should be to influence purchase decisions. One way is to hector people at the point of purchase, another is to shortcut the decision process and get people to pick your brand without conscious deliberation. But how best to do that? We need to provide people’s lazy brains with a script; one that guides their purchase decision.

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Straight Talk with Nigel Hollis

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