Don't Assume People Care

It has been said that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it is an ad. Of course this was professed by a 1960’s advertising man in a time when it was still possible to evade advertising messages every once in awhile.

Now we are bombarded with advertising messages nearly every second of every day. Billboards block out our view of nature. Radio spots interrupt our music. Sidewalk writing, signs on dogs, TVs in our bathroom stalls, trivia questions on potato chips, temporary tattoos on people’s foreheads, magazines with more ads than editorial, reality TV programs that are really season-long branding campaigns, mailboxes full of crap nobody reads, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

Just because you’ve paid money for an ad doesn’t mean anyone is going to care. You’ve paid for the space, not the audience. And today’s audience is a hostile one when it comes to advertising.

It’s no wonder people are increasingly cynical about advertising. Who can blame them? There are so many ad messages that no sane person could possibly pay attention to them all, let alone process their messages and remember what product they were selling.

So most people have learned to tune out the advertising. It’s an automatic response, part of our ingrained fight-or-flight instincts. Then factor in the fact that the two-income family is the rule, not the exception. Single-parent households are on the rise, work hours are getting longer, leisure time is shrinking each year.

People are busy. So out of the hundreds of ad messages that reach them on a daily basis, most of them go unnoticed because they fail to get past the barrier we have all developed against lame, useless, ignorant, arrogant and otherwise annoying advertisements.

And even if they weren’t busy, why should consumers care when it is obvious by the schlock put out by a majority of advertisers that the advertisers don’t care about their consumers.

Inside jokes and sentences filled with technical jargon don’t impress consumers. Metaphors and bad puns don’t make them laugh. These cheap gimmicks and products of laziness turn the consumer off before they can even learn about you and your product.

Yes, most ads fail because their creators make one critical error—they assume the audience cares; yet they don’t give them a reason to.•

This article introduced the sixth of twelve steps. Challenge yourself, your staff and your advertising agency to revolutionize your ad program. If you missed a previous step, contact the author for a complimentary copy. And, remember, every revolution begins with just one step.


© 2006

After more than a decade in the business, Jeff Berney offers more than a passion for prose. Above all, he is a strategic thinker, an idealist, a brand evangelist. The articles posted here are from his collection entitled, "Twelve Steps to Creating Breakthrough Advertising Campaigns: A creative philosophy to help companies recover from years of playing it safe." You can view his work or read his blog at www.jberney.com Jeff Berney is a freelance idealist, brand evangelist and writer. He can be reached at jeff@jberney.com.

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