Sacred or sacrificed? How to deal with pesky cows.
They’re often unspoken and always unchallenged. The excuse is either “That’s the way we do things” or “We tested with and without” or “I’m not prepared to risk leaving them out.”
They’re cows. Specifically, sacred cows.
Every area of Adland has its own red lines. Its own untouchable. But, in a world moving this fast, is it time to put them out to pasture? Or ship them to the abattoir? Or just put them (and us) out of their misery?
Let me give you half a dozen examples.
Cow 1: Card art in financial services
For some reason credit card providers still insist on highlighting their card design on every ad. It made sense when handing a card across the counter was you making a statement about yourself. Gold card. Platinum card. Black card. It said something about the owner. But now? As long as the machine beeps, no one cares.
Cow 2: Before/after in body change ads
It’s such a tired technique. The ‘real person’ bursting through the old photo of themselves to show their svelte new shape. It’s fat v thin. It’s bald v hairy. It’s wrinkled v smooth. Always justified by the credibility it gives an audience. But in a world where everything is manipulated every time, how much longer will buyers trust what they see?
Cow 3: Shouting in retail ads
In the days of the six 30-sec ad break this made sense. Zig when everyone else is zagging, right? The show the audience was enjoying was well written and produced. The audio was subtly mixed. Then BANG. Someone screaming about cut price whitegoods. The slumbering audience is now wide awake. They have the retailer’s name burnt into their eardrums. But when everyone is shouting, all the time, in every medium, the ‘shouty’ has laryngitis.
Cow 4: Obsessing over email open rates
I get it. Open rates are easy to measure. It’s a hygiene measure. But it’s like measuring the number of people who opened the envelope without reading further. Surely the success of any communication is how we move the needle. Click-thrus. Visits. Leads. Sales. They’re all far more important.
Cow 5: Measuring reach in media
The scattergun approach to media should go the way of the Dodo and the Tassie Tiger. Why? Because pure reach includes people who will never buy your product. Men who see feminine hygiene ads. Women who see to pattern baldness prevention. Retirees included in ad reach for job sites. When we have more data than we know what to do with, why is this still a thing?
Cow 6: Trusting research focus groups
Regular readers of my rants know this has been on my shit list forever. Why are we still trusting the input of focus groups? They’re people with nothing better to do on a Thursday night, who are happy to sit in a room with strangers looking at ads. Eating chips and drinking Fanta. In a world where you can test with a precise audience, on a small scale and super-fast on digital and mobile, it simply makes no sense.
Of course, there are millions more sacred cows who need to find the butchers:
- Awards are the true measure of creativity. Nope.
- Purpose matters more than selling benefits. Never.
- Culture comes from pizza and ping pong. Idiotic.
- Creatives are always in the pub. Sigh.
None were true when the respective cliché began. None are true now. When it comes to sacred cows, make mine medium-well done. Maybe hold the salt.
Rob Morrison is a rarity in advertising – a grey-haired working creative. His consultancy, ‘morro’, is dedicated to curing businesses laryngitis. Giving companies back their human voice.
Here are two more opinion pieces from Rob Morrison:
