The other day I saw a commercial on TV and I thought: “I can see what the original idea was and what they intended to do, but how have they failed at it so badly?”. Obviously, making advertising isn’t that easy as it sometimes looks and quite often also not that hard as some make it out to be. What I have come to notice is that in the process of making an ad, enthusiasm, naivety or even laziness take over and you end up with a result that leaves you wondering what happened to that original idea everyone was so fond of.

A marketer briefs his or her agency and after some back and forths – in some cases coupled with the consumption of sugar rich delightful cappuccinos and deep conversations that have the allure of making the client think they’re on the verge of heralding a new era of strategy, the agency showcases their idea. Big smiles all around, and high on lactose from said coffees one rushes off to the office to impress peers and management with the idea and brilliant strategic thinking behind it. The agency has already made a slick looking storyboard and the marketer convinces her/himself and everyone around to move forward and go into production. The excitement of the attention and empathy got during the casting, PPM and even on set are mind-blowing. You are flying high. Nothing can stop you now. First edit comes around, everything you see basically will look different after the magic word “post”, so the mind is still seeing the idea it fell in love with.

The final edit is presented with a 15-minute strategic PowerPoint from the top seller at the agency. It all makes sense. How brilliant a marketer are you for embarking on this? All the ingredients for success are there, so what could go wrong? There is production value, a high budget director, all the strategic elements listed in the brief have managed to find their way into the film. It’s all there, you can tick off the boxes.

Then it sucks big time. Consumers don’t get it, can’t relate to the story, zap away, it has an almost immediate wear out factor and internally there is grumpiness all around, especially from people in sales or forward market functions. The sugar rush quickly fades, alike the available budget.

Sounds familiar? It’s those marketers who make advertising look like they’re going to make you a chocolate cake. They go out and buy eggs, cake mix, chocolate and sprinkles and dump it on a table and point at it saying: “look, look, a chocolate cake, it’s all there”, ticking off their strategic box template. And it all made sense, or kinda if you look back. The 15-minute intellectual strategic feel good intro is not there to support it.

It is all because it just doesn’t work that way. The moment you hear a peer or an agency person saying that “they” (the consumers) aren’t picking up the subtle stuff and it’s staggering that “they” don’t get it, get up from your seat and walk out. Stupidity may be infectious like Corona these days, so better be sure.  There is no person to stand next to a household TV set to explain what that consumer is going to see in the next 30 seconds. I have never seen that happen, and otherwise it would have scared the living daylights out of me.

Ever have had that experience and want your marketing team not to walk into the same pitfall again? If you want to rephrase your approach to advertising or want a sounding board, let’s do coffee. I’ll bring the cake.