#131 Kantar Excellence Awards

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2021/06/131-kantar-excellence-awards.html

#131 Blog Post — Thursday, June17, 2017

Posted by Denny Hatch

 

A Scheme to Give Awards to the Worst
TV, Internet & Digital Commercials of 2020

    The World's Most Creative and Effective Ads
"Great advertising needs to drive short term sales and build your brand in the long term. We analysed over 10,000 ads we tested in 2020 to identify the best ads.
     "Kantar's Creative Effectiveness Awards are the only advertising awards judged by consumers. They celebrate winning ads that are both creative and effective: advertising that is distinctive and helps drive sales in the short term and creates meaningful impressions to build brands in the long term."
—Kanter Intro

Below Are the 20 Winning Kantar
"Creative Effectiveness Awards 2021"

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD6r53DWxwk

 

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemoQhysUH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAFL7J2WPAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTdwHRf28zY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVwirX7Nom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAC2Q-FMMns

 

 

 

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/ZFut/google-find-your-scene-song-by-hall-and-oates

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y71F7wUyyPk

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SqcViUYeZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-eYXLMe_9E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6pKyIY41Yjw&feature=youtu.be

 

UNAVAILABLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KChk_DDgzKg

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXKB3aISYYY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2ju7lSc_RM

 

UNAVAILABLE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3730gNVAN0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGDWMTtBzgk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_mp960ayzs

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxtxrNs7dFU

                            Takeaways to Consider
• I have 60 years' experience in direct marketing—a.k.a. accountable advertising and precise arithmetic. These ads are all manic and as unfocused as a giant Social Media cocktail party.

• All these ads are not judged on sales success. They were chosen by consumers who voted on their likeability.

• There is absolutely no way in hell to track the amount of product moved as a result of these ads. Not one of 'em can be judged on ROI.

• These are emphatically NOT "effective" ads.

• "Your job is to sell, not entertain."
   —Jack Maxson

• "I can't judge good marketing. It judges me. If can be shown to generate revenue and good ROI, it's good Advertising." —DH

• "Every time we get creative, we lose money."
   —Ed McCabe, President, RCA Record Club

• A personal aside.  As editor and publisher of the WHO'S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service, I was invited to be a judge of the Direct Marketing Association's ECHO Awards. This was heady stuff for me—a little industry squirt hobnobbing with the world's top agency executives and creative directors. We gathered at DMA headquarters in the Sour Apple to study and vote our choices for the best direct mail efforts of the year.
     I knew the most successful direct mail every year. My business was analyzing 1,800+ mailings a month and highlighting for my readers those that kept coming in over and over again—year after year. These repeats were the big winners—generating buckets of loot for the mailers (and for the copywriters if they were working on royalty basis).
     My great friend and mentor, guru Axel Andersson—was an equally avid student of direct mail as I. One day he called me from Florida with an amazing discovery. He had analyzed the prior year's ECHO winners and discovered only two percent of them were ever mailed a second time. That meant 98% of all the ECHO winners were failures—simply flash and filigree. It turned out ECHO was a sad-sack scheme among industry creatives to give each other awards for the trophy cases in their corporate waiting rooms. The object: to impress gullible prospective clients.
     I resigned from the committee. I was a nitwit to have become involved.

• "Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every old asshole gets one."
   —Charlotte Rampling, "The Swimming Pool," 2003.

  

                        Now What?
First off, I urge you to sign up for Kantar's fat, fascinating PDF report on the 2021 Awards. It's free. No cost. No obligation.
https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/creative-effective

 

What do you think about these ads and this business model? I believe readers of this cranky blog would love to have your take on the program—and awards in general.

I invite you to share your thoughts. Am I nuts—an ancient curmudgeon who believes advertising should make money? Do take a moment. Scroll down to the Comment Section below and have at me!

 

If you find getting into the Comment Section too onerous, send me your thoughts and I will enter them for you. I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com.

Thank you.

Cheers.

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#130 Car Insurance TV Idiocy

 http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2021/06/130-car-insurance-tv-idiocy.html

 

#130 Blog Post — Wednesday, June 9, 2021

 Posted by Denny Hatch

 

Absurd Automobile Insurance TV Ads:
Spewing Silly, Smarty-pants Gibberish 

 

 

 

 

Continually, I am dumbfounded by the daily and nightly TV assault of cutesy-poo, smart-ass buffoonery in a feeble attempt to focus on the very serious business of auto insurance.

 

A Sampling of the Craziness
We All Must Endure on TV

Liberty Mutual: "Get your wet teddy bears! One hundred percent guaranteed."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44YYT0mmjSo

 

Liberty Mutual: "LIMU EMU!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgEJyRk45vo

 

Nationwide: "What did I just get into?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAcRwxWmSX4

State Farm: "Hey, Drake. Stand-ins don't have lines."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvpq2OjmJvg&list=PLZdmq0GV_dGD6pLlUE8ZMJcuf89i1yY_q

Progressive: "Shouldn't something, y'know wacky, be happening right now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5H_a2nYOxs

Geico: "I'm a gecko. Not Geico. So stop calling me!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkxjzWLjFLE

Allstate: "C'mon. I saw you eating poop earlier."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhXzBsHAEPk

 

Why Buy Auto Insurance?
Three reasons—and three reasons only:
1. It's the law.
2. If your car is damaged, you want it fixed.
3. If you get sued, you want to come out whole.

 

The Obvious Message to Drivers and Car Owners
It was Rosser Reeves (1910-1984), senior copywriter for Ted Bates & Co. In 1961 Rosser wrote "Reality in Advertising." It details the basic six points for successful ads and his famous USP concept—Unique Selling Proposition.

1. The USP is the one reason 'why' the product is needed to be bought or was better than is competitors. (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.)

2.  Rosser says, 'The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer.' (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.)

 

3. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising. (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.)

 

4. The proposition simply states, 'Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.'  (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.)

 

 5. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions. (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.) 

6. Reeves believes that the consumer tends to remember just one thing from advertising—one strong claim, or one strong comment. (Not one of the above wackadoodle TV commercials mentions this.)
—Posted by May-Ann, http://cskills.blogspot.com

 

 Amazingly, one of the 16 greatest USPs—Unique Selling Propositions—is owned by Allstate:
     "You're in good hands with Allstate."
     —David W. Ellis, General Sales Manager, 1950 

 

Alas, in the Allstate commercial—where Tiny Fey accuses her companion of eating poop—flashes the world famous "good hands" USP for 1/4th of a second at the very end.

              A Fascinating Aside is the huge heaps of
        money spent in 2019 on these appalling ads:
     Geico                  $1.618 billion
     Progressive.        $1.067 billion
     State Farm          $  802 million
     Allstate               $  437 million
     Liberty Mutual.    $  435 million
     USAA                  $  264 million

 

                USAA: A Serious Player in Insurance
USAA—United Services Automobile Associations—has positioned itself as the all-purpose insurer and friend of active, former and retired members of the American military establishment.

I was drafted into the U.S. Army for two years' service in 1958-1960. The country was at piece between two wars—Korea and Vietnam. I came away with a deep love and reverence for the American military. I reported for duty as a yardbird/buck private in a polo shirt, khaki pants and sneakers. Five days later we were summoned to the quartermaster warehouse and outfitted from top to bottom, inside and out, summer and winter uniforms, two pair each of dress shoes and combat boots. Never in my life—before or since—have I received so much stuff in the course of two hours. I was dazzled!

From the start I was mentored—told what to do, shown how to do it and came away with a lot of skills and knowhow that were useful throughout my entire career. Working in the Army Public Information Office, I was taught how to write press releases and wrote a ton of them. I was assigned to write, direct and narrate a documentary film on a National Guard training camp. I programmed and wrote the script for a radio series of recordings by the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in Germany that ran on WQXR in New York. Oh, yeah, did my share of KP and oversaw prisoners from the brig doing their menial jobs. And, of course, marched in a slew of parades (which I loved, especially when the band played Sousa). And served on the Armed Forces Day committee. For me the Army was a life changing experience.

Protecting the country is serious—life-and-death stuff—to our military branches. And protecting our military men and women during and after their service is equally serious business to USAA. That said, compare these two thoroughly professional, classic TV commercials to the fatuous crap above.

USAA Auto Insurance
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Z7CD/usaa-made-for-martin 

USAA Membership
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/tJoK/usaa-i-switched-free-tumbler

 

Takeaways to Consider

• "People do not buy from clowns." —David Ogilvy

• "Your job is to sell, not entertain." —Jack Maxson

• "Every time we get creative, we lose money."
—Ed McCabe, President, RCA Record Club

• "Learn the current rules so you'll know when you are violating them. All real breakthroughs have been made by people who went outside the so-called rules of their time. In retrospect, these breakthroughs seem logical—because they have now become the new rules."
—John J. Flieder

 • Three Rules for Braking the Rules
— Play by the rules until you have solid controls; you have a higher chance of success and less risk
— Break the rules after you have solid controls, because in breaking rules, the risk—and sometimes the cost—is much higher.
— There are two ways to find a breakthrough: Play the rules better than anybody else. Break the rules better than anybody else. —Bob Hacker

 

• Note: USAA is a membership organization. Circulation consultant Dick Benson said if you can turn a magazine into membership organization, you'll raise response 15%. Plus it's a reason to expand and offer members great deals on add-on goods and services. This may be testing in the insurance business à la USAA.

• Check out one of my favorite blog posts: Your Toughest Copywriting Challenge: the USP
http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/10/26-your-toughest-copywriting-challenge.html

 

 

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#129 Blog Post Ad Copy Challenge

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2021/06/129-blog-post-ad-copy-challenge.html

#129 Blog Post - Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Posted by Denny Hatch
(with special thanks to Tia Dobi)

  

The Tia Dobi/Denny Hatch Challenge
To All Direct Marketing Copy Mavens

Above is an ad I wrote and designed to illustrate an early blog post three years ago. Here's the link:

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/05/7-getting-your-prospects-to-say-yes.html

 

From Long-time Subscriber Tia Dobi to Denny Hatch
Hi Denny, I love your Harry's Razor and other mock ads. Has any company actually used your ad(s)? How would that work exactly... would you want monetary compensation or? I remember when Tom Collins wrote his Makeover Maven column for Direct. Then he bundled/wrote more and packed the first chunk of them into the book: "How I Would Have Done These Ads to Attract, Persuade, and Cultivate More Prospects." For 20 years I've wondered: Has any company ever snagged one of these gems? Thanks,
—Tia Dobi, The Word Alchemist.

 

DH to Tia Dobi
Hey Tia, Always great to hear from you. I vaguely remember doing the Harry's Razor ad, but am not sure where it was. No, nobody used it to my knowledge.

I well remember Tom Collins' Makeover column in Direct. It was terrific. Delighted you reminded me of it. Went looking for some of those columns on Google. Could not find them. The search was made impossible since his name, Tom Collins, is a splendid summer gin drink. Damn shame. Hate to lose all that thinking.

Tom's columns pissed off a legion of agency copywriters, designers, account execs and clients. His free ads were so much better than what the advertisers were paying big bucks for. A fascinating public shaming.

Do Keep in touch.

 

             The Tia Dobi/Denny Hatch Copy Challenge
You are invited to submit an ad—direct response or general advertising—for a product or service—an ad you passionately believe you could beat if you only had the chance. Send me the original ad plus your improved version plus your thinking in 100 words (or more). I will run both ads plus your commentary and open the blog post to readers' discussions and votes (1 to 5 stars).  

 

                        More Than One Entry?
Serious players deserve serious attention. Will give coverage to all comers. Welcome! 

 

Grand Prize
Copy #1 of Denny's Soon-to-be
Self-published Anthology
(It's currently being copy edited at
Archway/Simon & Schuster)

 

                    FOUND! DIRECT MARKETING GOLD!
It turns out Tia Dobi has a cache of actual tear sheets from DIRECT featuring the Tom Collins' Makeover Maven columns. Tia chose the gem that follows:

 

Barry Bonds Wouldn't Think
An Asterisk Makes Him Special
by
Thomas L. Collins, The Makeover Maven

I did a makeover of an IBM ad some four years ago in this space. That one featured an out-of-focus photo of a reindeer and a headline in white letters: "Finnair Sees It" (The Makeover Maven, Oct. 15, 2003). I guess the same creative team is still around. And I guess they didn't read my column and decide to mend their ways. So I guess I'll have to tackle them again.

Not that it matters, of course. IBM still has $90 billion in annual revenue and 350,000 employees around the world. So why do they bother to advertise at all? I will forgo my usual sarcastic speculations and leave that to wiser heads.

 

But it will take a pretty wise head to figure out the thinking, if any, behind this ad for the Pay by Touch technology they've helped develop. Part of the puzzle is that I stumbled on the ad in Working Mother magazine.

 

OK, so working mothers who shop frequently at the supermarket should enjoy the convenience of simply laying a finger on a sensor pad at the checkout counter instead of having to fumble around for a credit card or a fistful of cash. But do working mothers really want to take time out from their busy day to fight their way through copy about "open architecture that seamlessly integrates the Pay by Touch system with retailers' existing IT infrastructures"?

And when I say "fight their way" through the copy, I'm not kidding. Nobody in my household, including me, could decipher that text in extra-tiny white type on yellow without a magnifying glass, and even then it was tough. I don't mean to seem condescending to working mothers. A certain percentage of the magazine's readers may indeed be working moms who are employed at sophisticated IT jobs.

But how significant a number? In the ad we see a bleed photo of a woman shopping in a supermarket's frozen food aisle. Near her hand that's opening a freezer door is a giant asterisk. The asterisked footnote is a tiny headline in white type: "This finger is legal tender." Followed by that totally unreadable extra-tiny white text.

So nine-tenths or more of the bleed page is devoted to a striking photo of a shopper in a frozen food aisle. But the ad is not selling frozen foods or frozen food lockers. It's announcing the progress made in a revolutionary new way of paying for purchases. But the ad doesn't convey the excitement of important news.

When I was a copy chief I had some wonderful writers. But I was always on guard against a sloppy word or phrase which merely conveyed approximately what the writer intended.

In this case, "The finger is legal tender" is only approximately true. Sorry to be picky, but a homeless person with no assets would have a hard time trying to buy groceries with no legal tender other than his or her fingerprint.

My larger complaint about the ad, however, is that its purpose is not clear. You can't deliver a message if you don't know who it's intended for. So who is the ad primarily addressing? And what is the message it's trying to deliver?

I finally decided that it was designed to influence not one audience of readers but three, with three different messages. If you're a consumer, the aim is to make you and thousands of other readers want and demand Pay by Touch service at your favorite local retailers.

If you're a store owner or manager, it's to get you to start thinking about or giving more thought to installing Pay by Touch in your store. And if your office job demands wrestling with information technology challenges, it's good to be reminded that IBM is there to help you, just as they did with Pay by Touch. Even if poorly executed, the ad is a kind of IBM case history. And if it brings new business to IBM's client Pay by Touch, that's also good for IBM.

It could be argued that the original ad does deliver these three messages to these three audiences. But it does so indirectly and unreadably that the intended reader would not be inclined to stop right there and say, "This means me."

In my makeover, the headline and illustrations convey exciting news to both consumers and retailers, and at the same time fulfill the requirement of Point No. 7 from my Makeover Maven Measuring Stick: “Does the ad build brand recognition and trust?”

The illustrations I chose do what illustrations are supposed to do — illustrate. The pictures of a sensor pad and a fingerprint convey what the ad is talking about far better than a picture of a shopper laying her finger on a frozen-food locker's door handle.

Next I set about rescuing the original ad's text by displaying it in larger, infinitely more readable type — using boldface leadoffs to pull the eye through more easily — starting off with the classic problem/solution copy formulation and keeping in mind all three audiences along the way. So the reader who is only a consumer and who is bored by talk of “open architecture” can skim quickly through the ad and still come away wanting the convenience of Pay by Touch.

If you'd like to compare the original copy with my rewrite, here's what their unreadable fine print says:

Biometrics pays — literally. [Editor's note: To whom? for whom? No “you” in the copy.] Pay by Touch, a leading transactions technology company, [has? — Ed.] developed a point-of-sale service that allows customers to pay just by placing their fingers on a sensor. Easy, right? The challenge: to make it just as easy for retailers to integrate the device into the payment processing systems they've already got up and running. IBM and business partner Silicon Valley Systech Inc. collaborated to create an open architecture that seamlessly integrates the Pay by Touch system with retailers' existing IT infrastructures. Keeping millions of transactions moving smoothly. And as many customers happy. Want innovation for integration? Talk to the innovator's innovator. Call on IBM. To learn more, visit ibm.com/special.

 

"What makes you special?"

 

I certainly omitted that puzzling last line. To me it seemed almost sarcastic, as in, "What makes you so special, wise guy?"

 

And I didn't make any special effort to steer business prospects to IBM's Web site because I found it so disappointing. But that's not my department.

 

THOMAS L. COLLINS (1919-2013) was a direct marketing copywriter, ad maker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing including the legendary MaxiMarketing with his longtime partner Stan Rapp, co-founder of the agency Rapp & Collins.

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