What makes great advertising work?
Whether you're watching a panel discussion at the Cannes Lion or reading an article in AdWeek, the majority of the discourse revolves around three things:
Sure, there are nuances. Some agencies will talk about the brand's ability to truly allow the agency to spread their wings, then there's the heated discussion over important details like the casting and time spent on the copy.
I was walking through the shopping mall and came across a perfume store. The main advertising in the window was Chanel No 5. It was a massive headshot of Brad Pitt with a small Chanel bottle in the bottom right corner. I just laughed.
Much has been written about the TV commercials and advertising following Chanel's decision to use Brad Pitt as their spokesperson (the first male to be chosen for this particular perfume brand). Even more has been written and created surrounding the somewhat laughable debut commercial featuring Brad Pitt.
Is it true that the ultimate insult was delivered by Saturday Night Live, when the late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show decided to parody the commercial by actually running it as is? They figured, nothing could be funnier that what Chanel No. 5 considered to be a legitimate form of advertising.
The point of laughing.
This isn't about being overly critical of a brand or a choice of spokesperson or advertising creative and more. I laughed as I passed this point-of-purchase advertisement, because it occurred to me that what makes great advertising -- in it's entirety -- is the right fit. That's what makes advertising so hard, so random and so challenging.
The right fit isn't just about the right face for the right product, it's about everything. From the start: is the brand and agency the right fit? Are the team members the right fit? Is the strategy the right fit for the brand? Is the creative the right fit for the strategy? Does the media buy fit? You get the idea.
How often do you think about the right fit?
Media professionals have a million excuses when a campaign fails. "Fit" is sometimes mentioned in the excuses, but not frequently enough. As we all head off into the holidays, take a break, regroup and come back in January with a new zeal to do better and more remarkable work in marketing. It would be well-advised to spend some time during this break to think about whether or not you have the right fit -- in each and every thing that you are doing.
This doesn't mean to start from scratch, and it also doesn't mean that you can't, through the power of effective conversation, stir things into a more productive relationship. What it does mean is that great ideas, luck and managing a budget become somewhat arbitrary when you have the right fit.
Chanel No. 5 probably has some thinking to do about whether this deal with Brad Pitt produced the results that they anticipated. My guess is that your brand probably has some thinking to do as well, in terms of drilling down into the work to make sure that you have the right fit across the board.
Now, over to you: is there anything more important than the right fit when it comes to your marketing?
Mitch Joel is president of Twist Image -- an award-winning digital marketing agency. HIs first book, Six Pixels of Separation, named after his highly-successful blog and podcast of the same name is a business and marketing bestseller. His next book, CTRL ALT Delete, will be in stores on May 21st, 2013.
Watch Brad evolve through the years...
Follow Mitch Joel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mitchjoel
Was never a fan of this so called queen of scent, it seemed old fashioned when I was a kid, and it seems old fashioned today. All I ever seem to smell in this so called "balanced" fragrance is bergamot, and that reminds me of grannies. I'm old now too, but it don't mean I need to smell like the biddies at church. I'm gonna go by a bottle of that cotton candy smelling garbage in the cat bottle that nice young singer is selling for a tenth of the price, and remember Brad for what he did best, beating the crap out of other people shirtless.
I worked for Chanel in Atlanta and have worn the make-up for over forty years (OMG!). As my 60th birthday present to myself, jetted to Paris and went into Chanel on Rue Cambon ... handbag and scarf flew home with me to Chicago.
The family that bought it from Gabrielle still own it and are screamingly private ... nothing can touch the ambiance of Chanel ... nothing.
As the largest selling fragrance in the world, who the hell is the target market? Every single woman on the planet ... age is irrelevant ... it is one brand that transcends the number. Find me a grandmother that hasn't a bottle of Chanel on her dresser or wished she had one ... you can't.
Albeit, Brad Pitt in "Ocean's Eleven" was a dish, how is someone that doesn't look like he has had his hair combed since Prohibition attractive? How is a man that cheated on his wife and had children with a woman so so many loathe a good pick?
Ryan Reynolds ... George Clooney ... Ryan Gosling ... someone elegant and classy please.
Ms. Chanel sued anyone that tried to purloin her logo or her brand ... don't think she would be tres jolie about this one.
All of the women I've talked to about the ad campaign say they think it's interesting and love looking at Brad Pitt. This campaign is courageous and, most likely, not doing anything negative for their sales. The core customers for No5 (women over 40) aren't listening to this web blather about the campaign and aren't watching SNL. Younger women are becoming more aware of a fragrance that's associated with their grandmothers and putting it in their consideration set. I suspect more new young customers are flooding Chanel counters to sniff No5 for the first time.
So annoyed by people that bash campaigns because they personally think they're usual. We should be considering the marketing goals of the brand and what impact campaigns have their customers.
Maybe the campaign not perfect, but, at this point, months after the campaign has launched, it's inane to just say you don't like the campaign and say we should use this opportunity to think about "fit," whatever that means. I'm very curious to see how it actually impacts their sales.