6 Lessons learned from advertising (recent edition)

One of my final year modules for my degree was “Behavioural aspects of Marketing”. This was, without doubt, my favourite module in my entire degree. It provided an interesting insight into the minds of consumers- and more often than not a rather more disturbing insight into the minds of advertisers- and basically revolved around using psychology to make people buy your stuff.
Usually, you can see the thought processes of the marketers at work in adverts, you can see how they use attractive models- whom you wish to associate with- eating a KFC or other equally unattractive meal, and it makes you want to buy it. In theory.
However, some of the adverts seem to be making a fairly concerted effort to dissuade you from purchasing their product, by clearly aiming their advert at the wrong audience, or just by being so odd or useless that you sort of forget what the advert is actually for. There are some absolute classics from the past (The Flintstone’s flogging cigarettes anyone?) but I’m going to attempt to write only about adverts you’re likely to see in an ad break this evening. I'm also going to try and avoid going into great (and often rather boring) psychological detail.
6 Lessons learned from advertising (recent edition)…


1: The Lesson: People can’t tell the difference between an actual sporting hero and a terrible 128-bit rendering of them

Learned From: Gillette Fusion



There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with this advert. I think Gillette’s strength of branding- and frequent use of Tiger Woods, Thierry Henry and Roger Federer- is good enough to overcome this utterly bizarre change of direction.
The previous Gillette adverts featuring the sports equivalent of the super friends (assuming that the super friends was based around Superman and company mildly inconveniencing people until they ditched their old razors) were not bad. They showed a particularly mercenary side of Woods, Henry and Federer as, in the pay of the Gillette corporation, they used their not inconsiderable collective sporting talents to force one poor bloke into ditching his razor- completely ignoring the risks of hitting balls at a guy with a razor sharp, er, razor to his face. But, after their initial success getting this man to adopt the Fusion (having confronted him in a public restroom), something odd happened.
Perhaps it was a member of the Wilkinson Sword faction enacting some devious plan (straight out of a terrible comic book from the mid-60s), but all of a sudden Tiger Woods and Roger Federer were both replaced with what appears to be Playstation 2 generated doppelgangers. And there seems to be a bitter rivalry in the place of the co-operative (albeit slightly malicious) spirit of the former advert.
As I said at the beginning, there is nothing wrong with this advert; it’s just that it makes absolutely no sense considering the previous advert. And in the English version (it’s the American ad featured above) they aren’t even shown jumping out of the television, so there is no clear reason why two of the best loved sporting heroes of this generation are suddenly rendered in awful 128-bit shadows of their former selves.


2: The Lesson: Clearasil: May cause confidence, also rape.

Learned From: Clearasil



Ok, admittedly this sounds like an extreme and irrational conclusion to make- largely because it is. But I'll stick with it anyway. In this advert, having used his daily cleansing solution, this teenager has come over all ‘confident’ and ‘capable of talking to women’. It’s sickening to see.
In order to show off his newfound confidence and his lack of spots he approaches a girl putting on lipstick before going into the cinema and asks if he can borrow some. Being a generous and kind hearted soul, she obliges, albeit whilst wearing a quizzical expression.
But as she hands the lipstick to him he lunges towards her, in an attempt to place his lips upon hers. Now I’m not a fancy big city lawyer (nor am I above quoting the Simpsons), but I’m fairly certain that there is a law against forcing yourself upon someone without their prior consent. I was genuinely hoping to see him dragged off her by cinema security and delivered to a police station.
Then, as the scene cuts to a judge, he is sentenced to a couple of years in juvenile detention. And then 2 months into his 2-year sentence, covered in spots having been cut off from his precious supply of Clearasil he is shivved by a 12-year old arsonist for taking the last of the Apricot Munch Bunch. Fade to black. Admittedly this probably wouldn’t have sold any more Clearasil, but at least it would have been gritty and realistic.
Hell, disregarding the sexual assault, it’s not even a very good line.


3: The Lesson: The internet is a good place to find romance.

Learned From: eHarmony, Match.com

Good news! eHarmony, the website responsible for setting up 2% of marriages in America is coming to the UK! eHarmony is a business (I find that it sounds much more romantic if you put it that way) responsible for matching people together using some sort of complicated algorithm which compares their interests and beliefs and stuff like that.
Admittedly, if I were the sort of person who would be tempted by some sort of online dating service- which I’m really definitely not- I would probably appreciate the use of “science” (or at least someone’s ability to match up favourite films or books) to find me a match.
In fact, I am actually quite tempted to sign up on there. Posing as a staunch anti-Semite whose favourite film is Bambi, and who passionately loves Belle and Sebastian. Also enjoys weekends away on his 42-ft yaught, during which he throws kittens in bags overboard. Loves dogs. Go on eHarmony, find a woman with flexible enough morals for this fictitious man.
Also worth a mention is match.com, with their brilliant(ly lazy) approach to tv advertisements. Every few weeks they flip between having too many men, and having too many women. To be fair, this probably is the case; after all, if there are more fish in the sea and less anglers attempting to catch them, you have a better chance of hooking a really hot fish even if your rod is useless. So there will be more people going out attempting to be fishermen, so the fact that they're suffering from stock problems (I find it more romantic if you think of people as 'stock') shouldn't really come as a surprise.
Crumbling metaphors aside, I just think this is a fairly lame approach to marketing, surely match.com wants to be showing off the vibrancy of its clientele? Focusing on how wonderful they are, rather than just repeating an identical advert every 4-6 weeks and drawing attention to the fact that they’re not particularly discerning when it comes to screening. I wonder if they’d happily accept my neo-nazi-kitten-drowning profile.
Perhaps in both of these cases I’m just being rather petty because I’m fundamentally opposed to dating websites. I actually enjoy getting to know someone though conversation, and if every minutia of someone’s interests and beliefs is clearly spelled out in their profile, then that experience is lost. Nevertheless, it seems to be an increasing trend in America, where 1 in 8 marriages are between people who met online (and 4 in 8 marriages result in divorce), so the UK will no doubt be close behind. But yeah, I'd still prefer to date someone the traditional way...


4: The Lesson: ED is the most uncomfortable thing on television

Learned From: 40over40.com



Whilst on the subject of uncomfortable social situations involving love, let’s talk about erectile dysfunction in over 40s. Sure, it may be a prevalent problem, but if you’re wishing to show someone being a formerly-impotent-person-who-suddenly-has-a-new-lease-of-life, surely it would be better to have someone more, well, attractive.
If 40over40 had come to me to design this advert, I would have got George Clooney in (sure he can impregnate a woman just by exhaling within 30 feet of her, but that doesn’t matter. He's an actor. He can act impotent), doing some sort of car chase- driving into a tunnel, diving into some water, perhaps kissing in front of a fountain. Basically I'd fill it full of rich, disgusting imagery. Perhaps have Julia Roberts in there somewhere in a bikini. I'd more or less just be condensing the 3 ‘Oceans’ films into a 30 second spot.
As it is, there is still some sort of imagery- only in this event it involves some unattractive 40-something bloke shuffling around uncomfortably with his wife in a manner akin to dancing, whilst bolero plays in the background.
Actually thinking about it, I think this advert is brilliant. So many people are going to be permanently turned off by it, sales of whatever they’re selling will rocket.


5: The Lesson: Actually…

Learned From: Bird’s eye salmon fingers



First of all I’d like to doff my cap to Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy. Secondly I would like to severely chastise Birdseye for trying to make fish fingers sexy.
I first saw this advert a couple of weeks ago, whilst my parents were in the room. Its 30-second duration was so heavilly laced with innuendo that I found it very difficult not to burst out with laughter at how plain horrible it was. About fish fingers.
It was frequently touched upon in the marketing units of my degree that humour is a good way to convince people to buy things. Typically with things like chocolate bars, or alcohol (where strict guidelines mean that they can’t actually sell the beer on its own merit as encourages alcoholism, so they have to focus on the brand) this works well.
I’d say this doesn’t work so well with fish fingers, to be honest I was mainly disturbed by the fact that they were a) animate and b) possessing some sort of libido. This advert caused me to yearn for the days when Captain Birdseye would roam around his little boat, looking like John Peel after a few years at sea. Then he'd give frozen goods to children, without being hideously unpleasant.


6: The Lesson: It sounds scientific, it looks scientific, so it must be scientific.

Learned From: Any cosmetic product







Cosmetics adverts are possibly the most transparent of all advertisements when it comes to using psychology to make people buy things. They use celebrities on the grounds that people want to emulate them and have hair just like Davina, or a face just like Andie MacDowell’s when they’re 50 (although its probably easier to look prettier when you’re 50 if you’re a famously attractive person who used to earn millions of dollars for her film roles). Then they use make up science to substantiate their claims.
This is possibly the best known of all of the sneaky tricks that businesses use to sell products, they use long words which the average layman won’t understand (pentapeptides anyone?), then they show diagrams of blue dots melting into the hair follicles and making them stand up, or showing little white orbs filling up gaping crevices in an elderly woman’s face.
Then they bring in studies that have shown (usually quite inconclusively if you read the small white text, using a very small sample group) that 82% of people agree that their wrinkles ‘appear’ to have been reduced. This rather ambiguous language allows them to get away with boasts which otherwise wouldn’t be allowed through the Advertising Standards Authority.
All of this gives a façade of the product being good (according to science, no less), despite the fact that typically it’s not hugely different from the regular Tesco shampoo or conditioner. Except, of course, for the price tag.
Still, I can’t complain too much about cosmetics products. Were it not for Pantene, there wouldn’t be this advert: