The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

First of all welcome back, I won’t say any more but know Sarah and I are thinking of you all.
This is a classic Campbell post because you’ve taken something small and seemingly innocuous and demonstrated why it has the power to undermine the value of advertising and marketing on a much bigger scale. Whether it is because of arrogance, laziness or being cheap is open to question and maybe Marcus will have a viewpoint which blows this post out the water, but if I was working for these brands in markets outside the US, I’d be calling my colleagues a few choice names at the next phone conference we had.

Yes, “International Premiumness” … I can see the brief now. Funny how ‘premiumness’ isn’t something I naturally assoicate with America – I know that’s a massive generalisation and that there are some great examples of truly premium brands – but in my mind, they all seem to be overshadowed by the low-rent rubbish that conspires to engulf my brain day in and day out.

As regards the Audi line … that’s a great point Freddie … the funny thing is that while I would hasten to guess most people don’t actually know its specific meaning, it links perfectly with their perception of German culture … experts in engineering craftsmanship, reliability and clinical delivery thus it works almost despite itself, ha.

Of course Audi is an example of BBH at it’s best which is why I laugh when other agencies and car manufactuers try to do the same – most recently Renault.

Not only do they end up looking a poor second but the ‘culture code’ of their country [which in Renault’s case is obviously France] tends not to have the same ‘car engineering’ characteristcs as Germany, hence the potency of the idea/line is severly diluted and the desirability gets undermined. But that could be me.

At least it answers that age old advertising question: “Which half of my advertising isn’t working”.

The half thats not in the right bloody language!!

“…it does seem incredibly stupid to run ads that don’t use the native language of the country…”

Well, I think the real problem is not a question of language, but sticking to pointless guidelines or just being lazy. In the end, the only question that matters is: Does it work?

So I’d avoid coming up with pointless rules, and would recommend to simply add: “…for the wrong reasons…” to the what was said above.

The Audi tagline Fred mentioned seems already one case, where it made sense. And in stuff I worked on there have been rare cases where foreign language has been involved in some way (not as headlines though), and I don’t see that we did the wrong thing.

What’s the point of translating “I’m loving it.” into German (“Ich liebe es.”), when it simply does sound awful.

Can’t follow you.
You think “men” too narrow as a target?

Foreign language can work… but its very difficult to make it do so.

Vorsprung Durch Technik is probably the best example ever, I cant think of any other great ones right now.

Hi Michael – I agree that product guidelines are in many cases a massive hindernce to communication development [especially when the client treats the ‘template’ as if it’s the brand] however I wasn’t talking about the translation of a brand idea into a cultural relevant expression [though being so tired, I can see why my ramblings may of come out that way], it was more to do with it being fucking stupid if you write body copy in a language other than that of the country the ad is appearing in.

Ok, John, I get your point, but remember those are ads for Germany, where Bourbon is by no means a “mainstream drink”.
Also you want to be clear who you target, just look at bud light ads in the US. Mainstream drink, and still they are going clearly after men.

Thats right, but its hard to clearly target everyone. Its much easier to be specific about a specific target.

In the end you don’t want to be everything to everybody, and sometimes that involves making clear who you are used by. As Rob pointed out that does not necessarily alienate all others. In fact, it can be even attractive. Exactly, think of women riding Harleys, smoking Marlboro and probably drinking Jim Beam….

You can target consumers in so many more ways than the usual bollocks of MALE vs FEMALE or age segmentation.

OK … so the MALE vs FEMALE split can be effective in certain situations for certain brands however the age thing [unless the product is absolutely created for a specific circumstance] drives me fucking mental.

I once worked on Sunsilk [yes I know, I’m a bald bloke] and they wanted communication targeted at “WOMEN 25-54”.

I mean, that’s a fucking big difference in attitudes and life stage – almost as massive as Organics “WOMEN 18-39”! It was total bollocks and led to the wank advertising they got.

From my perspective, the most powerful way to target consumers is by particular values / beliefs / attitude … because not only does it open the gender/age issue, it also allows communication with inherent ’emotion’ rather than the overtly rational rubbish we see on our screens far too often.

Oh absolutely. Sometimes there are inherent gender and age segments within a brand. But there are far better ways to target.

i’m knackered and have to get up early in the morning, so thankfully i don’t have much to add either, except to say yay. nice post, great comments. would love to talk about the posibilities of developing a brand through good design that is consistent, yet flexible, but no time. lovely to have you back, rob.

You cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon Seb?

And of course, the fact that the ads were in one of Rob’s sleazy mags would suggest that this is where the real targetting is occurring, so that renders the male angle superfluous.

For a thick-skinned cynic, you’re very easy to rile!

I am a thick skinned bastard Mr Dodd’s, but as you well know, I’m rather emotionally ‘scarred’ at the moment. Cheap shot … but not as cheap as that attempt by me to make you feel guilty.

As I explained at the time, yours wasn’t a cheap shot at all. Far from it. But my comment above wasn’t meant as one either. Sorry.

That was some serious guilt tripping there.