But alas…you get it home and that super cool gadget that the screaming dude was selling – which really worked well on the commercial - doesn’t work nearly as well in my house. Could it be me? Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Or was I…oh crap…duped. Damnit!
Something interesting is happening, though. Social media and an overall higher level of product knowledge made possible by the availability of information is making us all smarter consumers. Or at least it should be.
Now, when someone is dissatisfied with a product, instead of stopping at “Damnit!”, they hit the internet. They write product reviews. They tweet about it. They tell their friends and family on Facebook. Hell, they may even create a blog about it and invite others to chime in. The result? Bad publicity and readily-available information so the next time a savvy consumer goes online to do their research BEFORE opening that wallet, the same mistake won’t be made again. And no matter what your brand or advertising budget, enough of those and you’re out of business.
This phenomenon is forcing companies to re-examine their products and their brands and find the honest attributes that will make them sell. Or at least it should be. Sex may still serve us well to spike sales temporarily (hello Old Spice ads!) but without quality and customer satisfaction to back it up, that spike will be short-lived.
An honest approach to branding and brand advertising is called brand transparency. What you see is what you get. Are agencies ready for it? Are the companies that create the products we use ready for it? They’d better be. Because trying to pull a fast one on the internet-savvy, social media toting consumers of today is dangerous business.
It reminds me of the movie from the 80’s where Dudley Moore was an ad exec and spent some time in a mental hospital after a breakdown. Remember that? It was called Crazy People, I think. He had this epiphany that truth in advertising just may work. “Volvo. They’re Boxy, but They’re Good!”
I recently caught a campaign that is a perfect example of brand transparency. It's a Miracle Whip television spot where people actually said they hated Miracle Whip. What was that agency thinking?! Well, I believe they were thinking pretty clearly. I envision the brainstorming session going something like this… "Ok team, so what is it about Miracle Whip that will sell?" "Well, it’s creamy and tastes good with ham." "Are you kidding me? That stuff is awful!" "Well I like it." "Well I don’t." And so the “Miracle Whip -love or you hate it” campaign was born.
We see Domino’s Pizza doing the same thing. They were getting a bad reputation and sales were slipping. So what did they do? They hit the airwaves with an in-your-face, ‘We suck, but we’re fixing it!’ campaign that is quite refreshing.
Can you imagine if every brand was forced to either make their numbers by being honest, or change their product so they could be?
It’s the Crazy People approach, and personally, I love it.
Will this approach sell? I think the jury is still out on both of the campaigns above. But as consumers, we should appreciate the transparency, and insist on more of it.
