The “Like” button, it’s everywhere these days. From news sites to blogs and even brand sites, the World Wide Web is littered with these things. Although it feels like these little sky blue buttons have been around for ages, they were actually only launched in April… yes, April 2010!
Even Facebook itself is infested with Likes. Back in the day (barely few months ago) you could only like someone’s status update or post. Now you can even Like comments on a particular post. I’m just waiting for the day they allow us to Like a Like on a comment. Or maybe they should introduce a Double Like button. You know? Like two thumbs up.
Like it or not, the word Like has become synonymous with Facebook. Nowadays, if you happen to Like something, you have to be specific. Is it a normal Like as in you find something enjoyable or interesting? Or is it a Facebook Like, which is an oh-by-the-way, yeah-sorta, it’s-kinda-funny, I-better-click-on-something-or-people-are-gonna-think-I’m-dead type?
Everybody likes Facebook? Not quite. As at post date that is.
Even for Brand Pages, where it once was “Become a Fan” has now been replaced with Like. Do you see a problem here? Say you’re pissed about a particular brand and want to give it a good piece of your mind. But remember, you have to Like the page/brand before you post anything juicy… what irony! Or you can click on the Unlike button that appears after you’ve liked a page… in your face sucker!
So what’s the most Liked thing on Facebook? Going by all the Like-fest from Facebook within Facebook and around the web, it seems natural that Facebook is the royal Like-ness. Not quite. That honour goes to Texas Hold’em Poker and only then followed by Facebook. And check out Michael in a close third!
Now can Texas Hold Em’ keep Facebook at bay? There’s nothing like some good ol’ competition… I like!
Could a piece of advertising communication really kill? I am not interested in ads that have made a killing in the creative circle or anything like that. I’m thinking about ads that could really land someone in ICU or worse, 6 feet deep.
Yes, I am talking about ads that can literally kill. We all know how bad advertising can be sometimes: misleading, over-promising, irrelevant, annoying, irritating, in-your-face, and the list goes on. But those kinds of ads can be easily ignored, and wouldn’t cause more than an inconvenience.
Excuse my morbidity, but I have been fascinated by this subject matter for quite a while now. Simply because I am quite certain that the act of creating ads can be seriously injurious to health, to the extent of being fatal. Surely many of those who make ads have given their lives to the rumble and tumble of the industry, and continue to do so to this very day.
If an ad can kill the makers, it should be able to take down an audience or two. Could someone – while taking in the aesthetic beauty of an ad, made by the very people who literally give up their lives for it – actually meet their maker?
I think I have found an answer in this wonderful billboard for Wonderbra:
Errrrr... excuse me, but the full effect could be deadly.
You see, it’s a 3D billboard that depicts a very ecstatic model decked out in a Wonderbra . The thing is, if you put on a pair of 3D glasses and view the billboard, it actually accentuates the model’s boobs. I must give the guys who created this visually pleasing billboard the thumbs up… well done!
But then they go and place this billboard at a busy intersection in central London. Now, all it needs is some idiot to drive pass, clumsily trying to put on a pair of 3D glasses, and then crash into oncoming traffic. The full effect will indeed be experienced.
Advertising is the war. Copy is the weapon. Words are the ammunition.
Although copywriters are equipped with an arsenal of words to use as he or she pleases, there are quite a number that are ever-popular in ads. These are usually everyday words, mindless superlatives and hard sell calls-to-acts. I must add that I have been a chronic repeat offender myself. But then again, not all the words you see or hear in an ad are from the writers; if you know what I mean.
Ad words are sometimes nothing but empty promises
Here’s the top 5 words used in ads and what they actually mean, in no particular order:
1. Exclusive
If you think you’re going to get special, preferential or any form of private privileges, you’re wrong. The word exclusive is added to make things look more desirable than they actually are. I mean, if you really want to be exclusive, would you advertise in a website that gets like 1 million hits a day?
2. Enjoy
This one’s an evergreen favourite and probably the all-time, most used ad word. “Enjoy the experience. Enjoy the offer. Enjoy the freedom. Enjoy the splendour”… I could like go on forever. It’s a word used to get you thinking about enjoying yourself, hopefully with the product somewhere in the picture.
3. Free
This word is a dirty little fellow. One rule of thumb to keep in mind when you see this word is that there’s never such a thing as a free lunch. Nothing is free, period! The cost of whatever is “free” has already been added to the amount you are going to pay. So unless the ad is referring to air, be wary.
4. Amazing
This is probably the easiest superlative to use for a writer, simply because anything can be amazing. This post could be amazing, or maybe your internet connection or that client who’s an amazing pain in the ass. See? Something amazing need not be advertised if it truly is.
5. Hurry
Hurry! Offer ends XX Month 2010. So you are supposed to call, click or visit to purchase this exclusively enjoyable and amazing product that comes with a free gift before a particular date. Hurry means they aren’t selling enough as it is or think you are a sucker to fall for such a cheap trick.
Man that was fun. I think I’ll do it again sometime.
You know why, after all these years, some advertising don’t change?
A smiling family promotes a Home Loan as the camera swoops over a mesmerizing lakefront property.
A frowning, headache-afflicted executive on his office desk reaching for a bottle of Cure-all Pills. He is instantly relieved in the next scene.
A couple eagerly downs a can of Soft Drink, for a slight moment savours the beverage and finally gives it the thumbs up.
The Subconscious is in here somewhere...
These are all very clichéd visuals or concepts, but you still see them more often than you would want to. And you will continue to see them for as long as humans rule the earth. Why?
While our learned mind may dismiss these visuals as childish, unbelievable and overdone, there’s another part of our brain that’s intently taking note. It’s the part of the brain that always has an open channel to the outside world. It never filters, it doesn’t judge and neither does it rationalise. You can’t control it nor turn it off. And this is your subconscious.
Your subconscious is smart (yes, it’s smarter than you). While it may find everything entertaining, its convincing skills are subtle and eloquent. It never makes direct references nor employs hard-sell tactics. It taps into your deep emotional needs and gently places hints so as to help influence your future decisions.
The subconscious is not being a jerk by trying to convince you to buy badly advertised products. It’s just being itself, or being human to be precise. We all have needs throughout our lives and we all want it to be fulfilled. So the subconscious constantly sifts through its memory banks and suggests things that may satisfy our needs.
This was why tobacco advertising was so effective back in the day. They knew they had a product that killed people, so they used healthy, good-looking and most importantly happy people in their ads. Visuals of beautiful people looking content and relaxed were enough to ‘sell’ cigarettes, despite smokers being aware of the well-known ill effects of smoking. They got their cravings satisfied and the added bonus of assurance that they look cool, happy and content.
Remember that time that you bought something and then realised you hated the product’s ad? Well, now you know it’s no accident.
That’s it isn’t it? The full circle of making a sale, and perhaps earn a few more leads at the end of it. No complicated marketing or advertising mumbo jumbo; just plain clear and simple.
It's a deal!
Whether you’re selling a product, writing copy, pitching for a new client or looking for a girl/boyfriend (minus Refer of course), these steps could help you close the deal or at least put you in the right path:
Know You
I remember in college when A.I.D.A. was drummed into my skull. Getting Attention, then creating Interest, which leads to Desire and ultimately Action in the form of a purchase. But for AIDA to work, the prospect must Know You or better still Like You. Would you pay attention to someone you don’t know, no matter how hard he’s trying to get your attention? Even of you do, would you actually buy from him? So for a sale to happen, you must take the effort to introduce yourself to your prospects. And if they want to Know You more, then you begin to work on the next step.
Like You
Okay. Now your prospects know who you are. It’s time to develop the relationship and get them to Like You. Freebies are good, but not a great way as most prospects can see through your gimmick. You should instead begin to persuade them in a compelling manner with hard facts thrown in. Anticipate a problem that requires solving or a need that has to be filled. If a prospect likes what she’s hearing, she’ll most probably begin to Like You as well.
Trust You
Trust is a powerful influencing factor. You can get people to join a cause, divulge their innermost feelings, get into bed with you and of course, spend their money buying your product or service. But just because someone Likes You, doesn’t mean he or she Trusts You. Here’s where the saying “Seeing is Believing” comes into play. Any form of visual representation of your product or service in action could do wonders to alter your prospects perception. Testimonials or endorsements are also good, as others’ trusting behavior could lead your prospects by example.
Contact You
When someone, on their own accord gets in touch with you, then you’ve pretty much done the job. Your prospects may Contact You for a number of reasons: to enquire, take up an offer and hopefully to purchase. The ball is now at your court to live up to their expectation: either by solving a problem or fulfilling a need. No hard-sell is required at this stage (or any of the previous steps for that matter) as your prospect – believe it or not – Knows You, Likes You and Trusts You. Now, it’s all about turning your prospects into customers by giving them exactly what they want.
Refer You
This is the bonus round so to speak. You can do without it, but it will be such a waste. Because referrals are great for building trust. More often than not, you can skip the Know You, Like You and sometimes Trust You steps through referrals. If a satisfied customer passes the word to his friends about your wonderful product or service, then your job becomes so much easier. Peer to peer “word of mouth” is still the most effective form of advertising, nothing beats it, nothing ever will.
I don’t watch many movies, especially in the cinema. There’s just nothing like watching a good DVD at the comfort of your home. No whispered conversation from the couple next to you who couldn’t get a room. No irritating noise from the act of gently opening a plastic snack pack. No cell phones going off in a mind-numbing Canto pop tune during a dramatic scene. And most important of all, no kids wailing at the top of their lungs begging to be fed (or smacked!)
So, against my tradition, I went to the movies with a couple of friends to catch Inception. I must admit I got suckered in by one of the coolest trailers I’ve watched in recent times. And the fact that it was directed by Christopher Nolan, who created a masterpiece in Memento. Hmmm… this is turning into a review of sorts, I must get to the point.
I interrupt this post to bring you a trailer:
The premise of this movie is quite fascinating:
That an idea is the most resilient parasite. That an idea from the human mind can build cities, transform the world and rewrite the rules. That an idea is also contagious and unstoppable once incepted.
From an advertising context, here’s how it goes:
That no matter how resilient your idea may seem at first, it will most probably get shot down; so prepare backups. That a creative idea from your mind will go through many days of building, transforming and rewriting before it can see the light of day. That your idea may be infected by crappier sub-ideas, which you can do nothing to stop.
So an ad idea that you conjure – be it for a print ad, TVC, jingle, website, billboard or the like – will become fragmented, distorted, skewed and maligned by the time it’s ‘on the air’. After about 12 years in the advertising, direct marketing and interactive industries, I have pretty much gotten used to this. Let’s just hope I don’t get tired of it.
It’s time for a nap… and possibly pleasant dreams.
Is there such a thing as an original creative idea anymore? Or are all the world’s creative concepts these days are just re-hashes of what’s been done before? How can one be sure that an idea – whether for a print ad, website or TVC – has not been thought of previously by someone on the other side of the world?
Hmmm… I think I’ve never written a whole paragraph consisting of only questions. That’s unquestionably (pun intended) a first.
Check out these videos and share your thoughts:
Actually, this reminds me of the music industry as well. Search for “I Miss You Song” in Google and you get like a gazillion of tracks with the same title.
The same concept, but different execution. Is originality dead?
P.S. Both ads however are brilliant to say the least. The kind of ads that make you want to work in advertising, hoping one day you would conceive such ads.
You know, back in the day, friends used to ask “What the hell is Facebook?”. Now they ask “Are those all of your Facebook friends?”. How times have changed. Truth be told, I don’t have many Facebook friends. Reading all my 126 friends’ status updates is already a chore, even after blocking the feeds of quite a few (Sorry, I’m really not bothered about what you had for dinner last night).
Well not all of my Facebook friends are my actual friends. Out of the 126, I probably hang out with 5 and another 15 are my colleagues. So the remaining are acquaintances of acquaintances, long lost classmates, hi-bye pals and the like. So the term ‘Friend’ in Facebook is very vague indeed.
This is also true for Facebook Brand Pages. 1,000 ‘Likes’ or ‘Fans’ doesn’t mean that the brand is adored by 1,000 people. There will be many genuine fans, but there will also be the disgruntled, the avenger, the unhappy, the dissatisfied, the curious and the competitor’s spy. Hence, it’s very possible that a Facebook Brand page will be decorated by negative comments sooner or later.
A Facebook Brand Page can turn out to be hell for your brand
And since I promised a guide of sorts in my previous post, here’s what I call the Rough Facebook Brand Page Guidelines or RFBPG in short:
1. How much power?
Right from the start, you have to decide how much power you want to put in the hands of your fans in terms of voicing their opinions. As a default, bar fans from making wall posts so that dissenting comments (if any) are less obvious. They will however be able to comment on your posts, but it will be buried within the particular post’s thread and not appear in the main wall.
2. It’s OK, let them post on the wall
If you feel barring people from making wall posts defeats the purpose of having a Facebook page, then go ahead. The pro of this is that positive wall posts by fans will be very obvious. But once the negative comments starts pouring in, you’d wish you never went with this option. However, once you allow fans to post on your wall, NEVER EVER bar them should the going get tough. The repercussions will be challenging.
3. I’ve got a negative comment, now what?
Well first of all… congrats! Not for the negative comment, but the fact that you’ve only got 1 negative comment. Now here’s where the real work begins. Negative comments are tricky and often unique to the person posting them. Find a solution and respond as soon as possible, remember to thank them for their valuable feedback. If it’s a comment you can’t handle – like a product defect – respond with the number of your customer service hotline.
4. Nah! I’ll just ignore, the comments will go away.
Do this at your own peril. Just one product complaint will – I REPEAT, WILL – attract other fans to join the upheaval. Negative comments must be nipped in the bud. Even if you can’t offer an immediate solution, engage the fans to show that you are listening. If a complaint has snowballed, contact the complainants in person and try to work out the problem. Never ignore negative comments, you’d be asking for trouble.
5. I thought Facebook Brand Pages are for fans to share brand experiences?
But your fans don’t know that. Disgruntled consumers think all brand channels are game to voice their opinions. Instead of bringing up the matter to customer service, Facebook allows for the ease and relative anonymity to make product complaints. So make it clear that the page is created for sharing product experience and that all product complaints should be directed to customer service. Remember to display customer service contact details up front. This may not eliminate negative comments altogether, but at least the majority of fans will think twice before posting brand-bashing comments.
The 5 steps above are just general guides, and I do not guarantee its effectiveness. The most important of all is to respond sensibly and fairly quickly, and please never leave negative comments unattended. Do remember to never sound accusatory or defensive when responding. After all, the consumer is always (supposed to be) right.
If I remember correctly, I registered for a Facebook account in end 2006. Back then I had just a few friends to ‘poke’ and even fewer who commented on my status updates. We raced cars and bikes, fed our vampires and played a very 2D-looking Texas Hold Em’.
Fast forward 3 odd years or so, my online playground has mutated into a sort of an institution. You don’t just keep up with your friends’ updates, you keep yourself entertained. You don’t just join the discussion, you join sub communities. And you don’t just play what everyone’s playing, you play games that represent almost every niche possible.
The intuitiveness of the interface, the ease of use and the fact that pretty much everyone you know is on Facebook have attracted almost 6 million Malaysian users. And that figure is only said to grow with more and more Malaysians above the age of 30 begin to set up Facebook accounts.
Facebook or time to FaceHell?
Now, when there are 6 millions living, breathing, socializing, interacting, poking people under a neatly contained, active system; it doesn’t take long to attract marketers to sell their wares. Hence you see the mushrooming of Brand Facebook pages in the past year or so. This is supposedly to show that these brands have embraced the digital age and are in-tune with the digital natives.
The sole objective of these pages is to get as many ‘Fans’ or ‘Likes’ to justify the marketing money being poured into the effort. So if Brand A has more fans the Brand B, it’s an achievement – or so you’d think. Marketers tend to forget that the number of people who ‘Like’ their page are more than mere numbers. These are real people who either are consumers or have some kind of affinity towards the brand. And like most consumers, they have lots to say.
When we have a vocal group of people/consumers with the power to comment on a brands’ activities, all hell tend to break loose. Just visit a Facebook brand page and study the wall posts and comments. You are sure to find disgruntled, opinionated and sometimes verbally explicit customers who’ve left their mark. These Facebook brand pages have become a channel to voice concerns (acceptable enough) to a plain free-for-all, angry venting area (not ideal). The worst part, everyone can see these comments and it will be hard wired in the Facebook ecosystem until it begins appearing in Goggle searches (Bad, really bad).
Deleting unfavourable comments will only add to the fire with comments coming in spicier and in greater numbers. Try to respond to a delicate customer dissatisfaction comment is tricky as a brand’s every move is being watched. Ignore a negative comment and you lose the respect of the community you’ve painstakingly built.
Facebook brand pages are now starting to put brands in a spot. While the ‘you can’t satisfy everyone’ adage holds true in a less social environment, Facebook pages has put the power into consumers’ hands. One disgruntled consumer can wreak havoc and invite a barrage of other consumers to share the limelight. Do this: wrong. Do that: wrong. Don’t do anything: wrong!
How do I know all these? I manage quite a few Facebook brand pages, so believe me, I know. And maybe in the next post I’ll reveal some pointers on how to manage Facebook brand pages. In the meantime, I have to deploy some evasive manoeuvres to counter another freaking, useless, totally effed up comment!
The revolution will not make the account manager choose the clients over his colleagues. It will not make him say ‘yes’ to pretty much everything concluded by the client. It will not make him add a few more slides just to make the presentation look more credible. It will not make him do contact reports that will not hold the client accountable anyway. It will not make him sell ideas he does not believe in. It will not make him resort to MLM just to make ends meet.
The revolution will not make the designers become overworked drones. It will not make them take in the comments of art directors, copywriters and account managers, and then listen to none. It will not make them wish they’d listened to their parents and study accounting instead. It will not make them do freelance in the little time they have because they’re severely underpaid. It will not make them choose a competitor’s product just to spite the client when making a purchase.
The revolution will not make the advertising or direct marketing or interactive agency a marketing errand firm. It will not allow clients to judge creative work based on personal preference instead of the common marketing good. It will not make agencies spoil the market with ridiculously low prices just to get the job. It will not make the agency to pitch for a job without a pitch fee as prescribed by AAAA. It will not make advertising professionals among the least trusted professions in the world.
The revolution will not be advertised, because the revolution is alive. And it will not end with this post, as the revolution is in you.
