Marketing Lessons from a 5-Year-Old

Most advertisers will try to connect a positive feeling or emotion with the product or service they are trying to sell. For example, “dating this cereal bar* will make you feel better about yourself”, or “driving this car will make you more attractive to the opposite sex” (that’s not a homophobic thing, it’s just how many car adverts are designed).

Now, none of us are stupid. We know what the advertisers are trying to suggest. But all the same, advertisers don’t normally come right out and say “this product creates this feeling”, because most of the time it’s simply not true… and saying it so blatantly would make the audience shout things like “you must think I’m stupid!” at the television screen.

But as long as it’s subtle enough, nobody really minds having their subconscious softly caressed by gentle lies. We simply relax, and let the slimy undertones wash over us while we try to enjoy the advert (unless it’s a sofa advert – nobody enjoys those).

Sometimes, though, we can be snapped very suddenly back to reality.

How Subtle is Your Marketing?

Over the Christmas break, I was sat with my 5-year-old son who was watching cartoons, when the Coca-Cola advert made its way onto the telly screen. It was the same advert they’d used in 2014, and although I wasn’t really watching the telly, I was vaguely aware of the fat bearded fellow sipping evil black liquid from a glass bottle in front of a warm fire, and I was humming along quietly to Jimmy Durante’s “Make Someone Happy”, which was playing in the background. I thought nothing else of it, until my son hit the ‘pause’ button (yes, you can pause adverts on tellies these days).

I looked up, and saw him staring at the television with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Coca-Cola doesn’t make you happy!” he exclaimed. “I don’t need Coca-Cola to make me happy…”.

He shook his head at the screen, then hit play once more.

Now, nothing in that advert explicitly says “drinking Coca-Cola will make you happy”. In fact, on the surface they’re saying that you should be trying to make other people happy at Christmas…

But “drinking Coca-Cola will make you happy” is a connection their marketing team is definitely happy for you to make. And if a 5-year-old can see through the advert’s lip service, then I’m pretty sure other people can, too.

@Coca-Cola: My son isn’t old enough to work yet, but I’ll happily bill you and sub-contract it out to him if you’re interested (I’ll even throw in a bonus with his next lot of pocket money).

Footnote

*The line “dating this cereal bar” was meant to say "eating this cereal bar", but it was such a funny typo that I didn't want to correct it.