A show business: your audience is sick of being sold to

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The advertising industry might be in the midst of an effectiveness crisis. Clients are spending more than ever on campaigns, but the impact is being called into question. This week in The Business of Creativity newsletter our issue leads with an opinion article by Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System1 Group, a research consultancy that helps improve and track the efficacy of advertising.

Orlando highlights an issue that’s so entrenched, it’s become hard to notice. Digital technology has put emphasis on salesmanship rather than showmanship. That means brands have forgotten how to entertain and enthral audiences. The absence of the latter has been quietly hampering performance of those that have neglected it.

Here’s what he wrote...

“There have long been two schools of advertising – showmanship and salesmanship. The first is the art of turning a broad audience into a future customer. The second is about seeking a sale from the already half-interested. Both are important, and each supports the other. Both are needed if you want to build a profitable business. But a quick glance at the past shows that at certain points in history, companies suddenly abandon the art of showmanship in favour of the ‘hard sell’. For most in the world of marketing, this will sound familiar – it’s what we’ve been doing for the last twenty years.

A lurch towards salesmanship can happen at a time of rapid technological change and can be accelerated by economic adversity. Electronic point of sale data has shortened sales reporting timeframes. The digital revolution has enabled companies to target, making us creatively lazy. And successive economic shocks have motivated CEOs to hustle, rather than charm, consumers.

This is a mistake. Because of the two schools, showmanship is more important for driving profit and growth. It is about capturing attention, charming through an emotional appeal, lodging a brand in memory, inserting yourself into culture, all to create preference. Showmanship works straightaway but also creates future earnings because its effects are lasting. It strengthens the business fundamentals. It is the foundation for your salesmanship advertising. Why use the term ‘showmanship’? Because it is suggestive of what’s needed to enthral an audience: narrative, characters, dialogue, tension, music, humour, metaphor – and an understanding of the human condition. The type of advertising that entertains. When the industry gets stuck in a salesmanship rut – when it bores its audience – its reputation falls, it struggles to recruit talent, trust disappears.

David Ogilvy once said, ‘Don’t be a bore. You cannot bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them in buying it.’

Audiences are bored of being sold to, it’s time the advertising industry remembered how to put on a show for them instead.”

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Orlando hosts a.p.e. – Advertising Principles Explained, our latest course designed to supercharge the impact of your communications. Join us for the first cohort launching 23rd September or find out more here.