So recently I saw the above scoreline posted by a sports platform.
8-0 is a pretty emphatic win.
But then I saw the sports platform in question had stated FCB had won.
No shit sherlock, even the amazing Stevie Wonder could see that!
And it’s this sort of state-the-obvious statement that reveals so much about the state of research, clients and agencies.
Because somewhere along the line, a bad research company has told a bad client that they need to order their poor agency to put a state-the-obvious fact within their carefully crafted piece of communication because there’s a 0.000001% chance the message they want to convey is not quite clear enough.
That, or because the client wants to ‘own’ a particular word in their category – and it will be evaluated by post campaign research – they want to make sure they say it as many times as possible to increase the odds … regardless of the fact that in the real world. no one ever uses the words ‘vitality’ or ‘efficacy’.
ARGHHHHHH!
Years ago I watched a documentary called Z-Channel about the early days of cable television.
One of the networks, Z-Channel, was very avant-garde … playing programs featuring all manner of obscure content.
When asked why, they said this:
“Too many play to the lowest common denominator. We want to play to the highest”.
If only more research, clients and agencies remembered that, then maybe we would make more work that respected the audience and aimed to enthral, inform and entertain them rather than bore them into submission via work that treats them like village idiots.