Advertising 101

Going back to my college days, i took up Marketing Major in Advertising before i landed in Business Administration. I'm tackling this issue because i feel that not too many people have the intimate understanding of modern advertising like i do.

Todays topic is: Understanding Modern Advertising.

Of course i say this in light of the Ulu Pandan bear, here in Singapore about two weeks ago. That was one heck of a mis-understood guerrilla marketing campaign.

All anybody wanted for was for people to watch a video of a wild, potentially man-eating animal scavenging for food at a bus stop near their home and their defenceless children and then go out and buy a whole bunch of electric shavers. Instead, they went and reported the bear to the authorities. The next thing you knew, there were people with tranquilizer guns looking around looking to shoot the bear.

Needless to say, very few potential shaver-buyers were amused when they found out the bear was actually just an advertising guy in a bear costume. In fact, many were furious. Those behind it were investigated by the cops.

In advertising circles, the whole thing was just a demonstation of how straight-laced we as human beings always take threats to their lives too seriously. Anyone else would have laughed at the prospect of getting mauled by a bear while waiting for the bus. It wasn't like it was a bomb hoax. It's a bear hoax. A bear can only kill one person at a time. Nevertheless, even with the public nuisance charge, the subsequent public apology, the waste of resources and the unnecessary panic, many marketing experts would still say this campaign was a resounding success. In fact, its something like a coup. The advertisers gets a lot of attention and got it for a relatively cheap price. And that's the principle of of modern advertising : it's all about attention.

It doesn't even matter if the attention comes in form of people cursing you for the destruction you caused or if you get to sell any shavers. Whats important is they've heard of you. Of course advertising did not start out this way. The early days in the trade were rather different:

In the beginning advertising simply meant telling people what was good about your product so that they would buy it. For instance, if you were a caveman with a rock to sell, you would tell your your customers what was good about the rock.

Caveman Juan: "this rock many good for pound on head of mighty dinosaur."
Caveman Pedro: "do you have it in blue?

And that was it. If someone wanted a rock to hunt dinosaurs with, they'd just pick one on the ground because there were lots of rocks in prehistoric times.
They'd be silly to buy one. Also Commerce had not yet been invented. Early advertising was not very effective.

Then one day, a marketing pioneer came up with a novel concept that would forever change the industry: Lying. Cavemen were no longer limited to telling people what their rocks did, they could just make up stuff about it to make it more attractive:

Caveman Juan: "this rock not just good for pound dinosaur. Also good for hips, thighs and abs."

Lying was quickly followed up by Lifestyle Advertising. Instead of just lying to you about the features of the product, they could lie to you about the kind of lifestyle you might lead if you used the product. Cigarette and alcohol companies loved it. They started putting out a great many advertisements implying that if you smoke and drank heavily, you would be slim, have a healthy glow and live on a yacht.

While these developments were great, they had drawbacks. For one thing, it was a lot of work for advertising firms to brainstorm concepts, pitch them and then rent yachts. Thats when they up with the advertising we have today: Guerrilla Marketing

By far the greatest benefit of this approach is that many older businessmen don't understand it. The advertising firm tells them they need to get "hits" , go "viral" and "leverage on social media" and they just lap it up. They no idea what it means. That free's up ad firms to do- well- whatever they feel like.

Suppose they felt like posting a suggestive Facebook message about liking it "on the desk in the office" . They'd do it and then pretend later it has something to do with breast cancer. Suppose they felt like vandalizing postboxes. They'd just go out there, spray paint some postboxes and pretend it is a good way to get publicity for a postal company. That's right, advertisers get paid to vandalizes postboxes. I know a whole bunch of people who would do it for free.

Still, the campaign was so successful that when real vandals spray painted real graffiti on a train, people thought it was advertising. And im not saying this is exactly how it happened, but suppose it was the night before the pitch for the electric shaver campaign was due and ad people are out drinking instead of coming up with a campaign. Suddenly someone has an idea:

Drunk Ad Person 1: "hey, i have this bear costume i'm saving for haloween. Wouldn't it be fun to put it on and scare some of my neighbors on the way home to Ulu Pandan?"