Dr Robert Heath and Televisual Advertisements
The Good Doctor (he loves that handle…) did a great paper at MRS modestly titled “50 years of using the wrong advertising model” or some such.
A really good case which echoes what he’s been saying for some time (eg see the downloadable IJAR paper from the end of last year below) but went further:
1. Advertising doesn’t seem to create it’s effect through messaging but rather through the emotional ‘affective’ elements
2. Curiously the more aware folk are of this (the more consciously they process the ad), the less the effect (hence why recall is such a poor indicator)
As the great Bullmore pointed out in chat afterwords, the only thing to challenge was the summary: “it’s not what you say but how you say it”
I agree with JB that it’s not about “saying” at all. Advertising is something you do – a behaviour – and not a ‘speech-act’ as the philosophers have it.
I also happen to think that it’s therefore best understood as a behaviour that happens between people NOT something that communicates bits of data to individuals.
(Also, can I just say, Dr R, the beard/parka combo is just a little bit scary….)
In passing, Paul and Robert showed some interesting video which showed clearly how television advertising isn’t ‘watched’ actively as our American chums (and anyone with TV airtime to sell) would have you believe: people have the telly on.
The current article over at Adage.com is typical of this kind of wishful thinking that presumes the centrality of advertising and marketing in folk’s lives.
“Marketers all along have said what they really want to know is how their particular ads did in drawing eyeballs” Drawing eyeballs? WHAT? Even real telly (the best of programmes) isn’t all that…
Yet in the same place Bob Garfield reveals (somewhat later than expected) that people “don’t like ads” (NSS!). This is only shocking if you thought otherwise, I reckon.
The same strand of nonsense runs through the ARF/AAAA Emotional Engagement project from last year: assuming that advertising is that interesting or important to anyone (even the client). Assuming that the key relationship is betweent the brand/medium/ad and the consumer, etc etc.
When will they learn? Advertising and Marketingare just background noise to real lives. Effective and influential background noise, but background noise nonetheless.
It’s what happens between the programmes…..
And if it’s really a/effective it becomes that we interact around…or something that effects how we interact together…
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