An ad that makes you laugh beats the others hand down

“Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad,” American adman Howard Gossage said back in the halcyon days. They don’t make ads like they used to, do they?

It’s a topic that almost everyone in adland enjoys discussing at length. The conversations are inevitably peppered with supportive quotes from industry pioneers such as Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy.

The first so-called creative revolution emerged in New York in the late 1950s. In 1959, copywriter Bernbach, a copywriter, formed a new agency on Madison Avenue with Ned Doyle and Maxwell Dane called Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). It is no exaggeration to describe DDB’s Volkswagen ad – “Think Small” – as a daring campaign that transformed advertising.

Out went the mechanical, formulaic ads which had characterised the Mad Men era and in came a more sophisticated, witty, self-referential and at times self-deprecating tone that inspired creatives the world over. Bernbach disliked the ad industry and was hell-bent on influencing change, not just in dollar terms but philosophically too.

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He espoused the need to be different in creating ads that made the brand stand out on supermarket shelves and in car salesrooms. “In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal,” he insisted.

He didn’t stop there, suggesting that adland could influence society: “We who engage in advertising can have an effect on the society in which we operate; we can vulgarise that society, we can brutalise it or we can lift it to a new level.”

The number of ads that people are bombarded with every day is alarming and continues to rise

Ogilvy took a different stance from Bernbach. His was a conservative, value-for money creative strategy with ads squeezing in as much information about Dove soap or a Hathaway shirt as possible. It’s not to say that Ogilvy’s work wasn’t inventive, stylish and impactful – it was all three – it’s just that his approach was more phlegmatic.

Notwithstanding his own abilities, Ogilvy wasn’t shy of borrowing ideas from elsewhere. He admitted that his most famous header, “At 60 miles-an-hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”, was swiped from a quote he read in a British motor magazine.

John Fanning, lecturer on branding and marketing communications at the UCD Smurfit School of Business, said artists, writers and musicians are familiar with the great masters, and it was a practice people in Irish advertising should follow.

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Ireland has boasted star performers down the years whose creations remain timeless and inspiring. Catherine Donnelly’s campaigns for Jameson and Barry’s Tea compare with any work produced on the international front.

Students of advertising could only be inspired by work created by the likes of Frank Sheerin, Declan Hogan, Mal Stevenson, Gai Griffin, Eoghan Nolan, Alan Kelly, Ger Roe and Nick Kelly.

With just five seconds to make an impact with a TV ad, the pressure on brand owners to win over consumers was daunting

The number of ads that people are bombarded with every day is alarming and continues to rise. Back in 2007, research agency Yankelovich interviewed 4,110 people and learned that an average person sees up to 5,000 ads daily. By 2023, the number had doubled to 10,000 ads per day, with less than one in four relevant.

With just five seconds to make an impact with a TV ad, the pressure on brand owners to win over consumers was daunting. Busier lives and distractions from attention-seeking social media platforms, multiple screens and YouTube’s growing popularity among young consumers created a new buzz from which traditional media are increasingly excluded.

As part of his studies, British analyst Peter Field focuses on creative advertising as a revenue generator. He says most marketers understand the need to balance brand and tactical, but with boardroom pressures and an industry that focuses on short-term gains, the need to build brands long-term with engaging ads must be re-enforced.

The temptation to fall back and over-invest in tactical campaigns in preference to more emotive messaging lurks around the corner – a bad habit ready to pounce. Like a crash diet; it will work, but only in the short term. Let’s be honest, Field said, which type of advertising is more memorable? The ads that make you laugh, like Maltesers or Specsavers, or those that list three reasons to purchase?

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“In 100 years from now, the idea is still going to be more important than all the technology in the world,” Bernbach argued.

The inactions of many advertisers today would contradict his assertion. Author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter (2017) Michael Farmer wrote that Bernbach’s influence was “unquestionably immense”, but it sowed the seeds for problems that germinated with digitisation and have flourished since.

The role of data in shaping campaigns has been transformative. In tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) and the many new inventions coming our way, tech’s grip can only strengthen. John Fanning said investing everything in algorithms is like walking into a forest in the dark with only a compass: chances are you’ll bump into a tree.

Michael Cullen is editor of Marketing.ie