The Case Against "Brand" Advertising
In my lifetime (and that's a VERY long time) I have rarely if ever seen as much interest in television as I've seen in the past few years. I have never seen as much high quality programming. And I've never heard as much talk among average people about television series.
And yet, if we are to believe the numbers, advertising spending on social media is kicking TV's ass. The question is, why? It is my belief that there's no problem with the medium of television, there's a problem with what the advertising industry is feeding the medium.
When I first got interested in writing about advertising, I wrote about the significance of brands. At the time, and ever since, I have written that the value of a strong brand should be self-evident. Any controversy should not be about the value of a strong brand, but about how a strong brand is built.
At the time I wrote..."Some things can only be achieved indirectly. Sometimes, the more directly you address a problem, the worse it gets...You can’t be happy by trying to be happy. If you want to be happy you have to go fishing, or eat a pizza... It’s the same in marketing. You want to have a strong brand? Quit branding. A strong brand is a byproduct. It comes from doing a lot of other things right."
When it came to advertising, I wrote...The best way to build a brand is not directly with "brand" advertising. It is indirectly with excellent product advertising.
This is truer today than ever. Much of what we call "brand" advertising has become squishy and free of discipline. We’ve become flabby and self-indulgent. Brand advertising has come to mean pretty much anything we can put a logo on.
Unfortunately for TV, it has become the go-to medium for advertisers who want to do "brand" advertising, but have nothing to say. When the TV spot appears, it won't actually be about the product.?It will be about the user, her lifestyle, or the brand "meaning." In other words, mostly horseshit.
Successful brand building is difficult work and requires advertising that says something. Ads that build brands best are those that have a clear and specific message about a product and deliver it in a distinctive way.
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My instinctual belief in the superiority of product advertising to "brand" advertising was bolstered when the New Yorker magazine ran a piece several years ago about the period of inflationary growth at Apple. In it, they quoted Steve Jobs and Jony Ive...
Steve Jobs: "If I had a spiritual partner at Apple, it's Jony. Jony and I think up most of the products together and then pull the others in and say 'Hey, what do you think about this?' He gets the big picture as well as the most infinitesimal details about each product. And he understands that Apple is a product company."
Jony Ive: "I can't emphasize enough: I think there's something really very special?about how practical we are. And you could, depending on your vantage point, describe it as old school and traditional, or you could describe it as very effective....We put the product ahead of everything else."
Allison Johnson, Apple's VP of Worldwide Marketing at the time, said that at Apple "brand" was a "dirty word" and Steve "dreaded, hated" the word branding.
Now let's go back to the question of why social media advertising is growing at such a rapid pace compared to TV advertising. There are clearly a number of reasons, including the growth of the medium itself. But I am convinced that one of the reasons is that advertisers are using these two media differently.
It has been my observation that social media advertising is generally focused on the product. Marketers tend to create ads that place more emphasis on the product when they advertise on social media than they do when they advertise on television. This may be one reason that they believe social media advertising is producing better results for them.
If advertisers believe that social media is the place to promote the "product" and television is the place to promote the "brand," television will continue to lose. There has never been a better medium than television to do distinctive product advertising. But there has also never been a better medium than television to piss away money on fatuous "brand" advertising.
As a marketer, building a strong brand should be your number one priority. And the most effective way to do it is with product-focused advertising.
Bob Hoffman is the author of Advertising For Skeptics and The Ad Contrarian newsletter.
General Manager Client Strategy and Solutions VIC SA & WA
1 年I agreed on this until we started comparing TV with social media as a way to prove out the thesis. The fact is that they offer advertisers different things. TV is more adept at telling a story because spots can occupy 30", where in social the tolerance for advertising is much sorter, hence the creation of the 6" bumper ad. In other words, where we have control to skip ads, we mostly take it. Additionally, social - like most digital media - can act as an immediate gateway to purchase in a way that TV cannot, therefore product and price based calls-to-action are more effective. Finally, cost. Social is cheap and advertisers can afford to spray conversion-focussed spots very wide and assess results as they relate to conversion pretty immediately. TV costs and the results are less immediate. The likely story here is that both approaches are needed and are determined by the channels role in the overall plan. None of this is to say that the general idea is not right, that good brand building is more the result of good product than it is of fluffy advertising. But comparing the channels in the way they have been feels a little off the mark.
Head of Client Management & Marketing
2 年"A strong brand is a byproduct. It comes from doing a lot of other things right." I couldn't have said it better myself. ??
Marketing/Sales strategy and execution - +50 Interim Management Projects in Europe and Brasil - StoryBrand Guide
2 年It′s difficult to deliver a compelling message about a product in just 20 or 30 seconds of a TV Ad. The idea in TV is to showcase the brand, build its credibility (not everyone is on TV) and from there promote the products in more flexible mediums (social media).
Inventor Reebok PUMP, Entrepreneur, CEO/Founder, Speaker, Advisor, Technologist, Harvard Mentor, Podcast host, Consumer Product Expert
2 年When you say “Television” what does that mean and who even watches TV anymore? If you mean that big flat thing on my wall, yes I have one but haven’t seen an advertisement in years on it. While it might be hard, I believe an amazing embodiment of a brand can be incredibly impactful. My guess is the ads on TV you refer to either are terrible or no one is even seeing them.