Comments

In my opinion, a lot of advertisement does'nt work because it is very general in nature. Only a handful of people are interested whereas the majority are either 1. irritated because it disrupts their normal lives(eg. an ad in the middle of a football game etc.) or 2. blissfully ignorant of the product/services importance intheir lives.
Hence, to make ads more effective, they should be targetted and personalized to the recepient. And technology sure has the potential to do that!

Posted by Aman Johar at December 3, 2006 4:26 PM

Good luck to anyone trying to capture attention in an ever more crowded and noisy world. AFLAC is an interesting case: I dislike the ads, but I am now aware of AFLAC's existence - and what they do. If I ever decide I want supplemental insurance, I'd check them out. Despite my opinion of their ads, they would be on my list to look at. The ad wouldn't hurt or help. In the case of a tie, it would probably go against them. Maybe this is the best that mass advertisers can hope for. (As for the targeted and personalized ads that Aman advocates for: THANKS BUT NO, THANKS. The only personalizing advertiser I'd consider is one that left me the hell alone.)

Posted by Maureen Rogers at December 3, 2006 5:19 PM

Good stuff Steve. Every day - like millions of other people I receive hard copy mail that goes straight in the waste bin. Every day in my inbox I receive e-mails that I - like millions of other people - immediately delete. If I worked in a company trying to sell something my question would be; 'What is it that will prevent this guy throwing away the junk mail or deleting the e-mail?' – My own answer is ‘We need to make an emotional connection with the individual’ – this is surely a no brainer

I remember a friend of mine over 20 years ago who saved all his junk mail for three months – then sent the whole lot to ‘Readers Digest’ with a note on the envelope ‘postage to be paid by recipient’. Inside the parcel he wrote a note saying – ‘now you know how it feels.’ In my experience the most effective connections and relationships are made on an individual basis where the customer is made to feel special.

Mass marketing is a complete turn off to me and reminds me of the ‘Happy Christmas’ E-mail that was sent a few years ago by the Secretary of State for Health to the 1.3 million staff working in the National Health Service – all those staff with ability to breathe immediately recognised this was not genuine or from the heart. One hand written note from him to one front line worker would have been much more effective and would have had more impact throughout the entire service. That sort of gesture of authenticity travels faster in organisations than the speed of light.

Posted by Trevor Gay at December 3, 2006 6:09 PM

>> We need to recognize that these visible
successes don't give us any more reason to invest
heavily in advertising than does George Clooney's
success tell me I should move to Hollywood and try
to make it in the movies. <<

i love it. great analogy. wrong, but it paints
a great mental image.

the success of the AFLAC duck must be measured
against the goal: "make my company and our product
known in the marketplace" (as i understand the
original charge). oh yea, we don't have any real
budget, so do it on the cheap!

what the campaign does provide, is the proof
that missions can be accomplished. it is not
impossible (as it seems seth godin suggests)
to produce effective advertising by the
interruption of peoples' attention.

the duck shows us that hard work can pay off
in advertising, just like roger bannister's
4 minute mile proved it is possible to break
that barrier. and if he can, i might.

-ski

Posted by SKI at December 3, 2006 9:18 PM

Fun one Steve - to me AFLAC & Vonage are obnoxious sounding sound bites - and to avoid at all costs.

Geico though with the Caveman and Therapist captivate [Cavepeople are so amusing]...

Same with Southwest Airlines & needing to pay $.25 to move your arm rest - $1 for a blanket.

A fun story & remind me of your business name or logo [Nike simply does this] - that is about all I need ... loyal to Wal$Mart, Nike, Nordstrom, Costco, Lexus, Rolex

Posted by sean_therapist at December 4, 2006 8:43 AM

Folks who deal in disaster planning might add something to your definition of "Black Swan" and that is that Black Swans are unpredictable, that's where the connection with Hume comes in.

What that means is that we cannot predict how a particular campaign or ad will do. But we can predict that there will be campaigns that work. Ski's dead right on that.

So, let's go one step further. What kind of campaigns might work? Well, in a multiple-impression branding environment like TV, entertaining and funny campaigns have a shot. Thank you Doyle Dane, those campaigns can build both awareness and recognition, though they don't sell a thing.

Obnoxious and tacky seems to work in some environments as well. Think direct response mail. Think, "Head On, applied directly to the forehead."

In the technical products area, lots of specs seem to work. Bob Bly has made a living writing heavy-duty technical copy. On the web, big promise ads look like at least one of the tickets.

Posted by Wally Bock at December 4, 2006 12:03 PM

Some other thoughts:

Define "success" for these advertising campaigns. OK, the AFLAC duck has got the name AFLAC out there in the public eye. But - the bottom line is - did it affect the bottom line? Although cause and effect can get a bit muddled, can we at least look at AFLAC sales before and after implementation of the duck and see a difference?

A way to tell if the AFLAC duck and the GEICO gecko are "black swans" is to see if we can identify a theory as to why they were successful and why the "others" were "not". Then we run a test of the theory.

One comment on animal commercials - Rolling Rock beer now has an apology for a non-commercial. The apology is for a supposed commercial with an ape and a pool party. They even show a chart that says that apes are more connected with pool parties than otters, dogs or rats.

Posted by Steve Prevette at December 4, 2006 3:02 PM

The Rolling Rock ad reminds me of the situation with Piel's Beer in NY years ago. The Piel brewery hired Bob Consodine and Ray Goulding, the Bob and Ray of radio fame, to do the ads as the voices of cartoon characters Bert & Harry Piel. The ads were great, funny and memorable. The only problem was that they got you to try the beer. One sip and you knew there would never be an ad good enough to get you to make that mistake again. I suspect that those ads got lots of folks to try the beer, with the result that there are cases of Piel's beer in basements all over the east, every one with a single bottle missing.

Posted by Wally Bock at December 4, 2006 4:10 PM

From "Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World" (I just happened to have a copy nearby)
---------------

On December 31, 1999 the commercial aired for the first time. Within six days, AFLAC had received more hits on its website than in the entire previous year....

... AFLAC's annual sales increase, which historically had hovered around 12 to 15 percent, was up 28 percent for the year 2000, 29 percent for 2001. Since the campaign began, the company experienced a 55 percent increase in sales in three years.
---------------

I think some of the AFLAC ads are brilliant (especially the original park bench ad and the Yogi Berra spot). In 30 seconds you understand what supplemental insurance is and automatically equate it to AFLAC.

By the way, the book was a surprisingly better read than I expected. I figured it would be the same agency diatribe of creating "entertaining" ads. It actually gave great insight into developing a creative workplace that equally emphasizes execution. A powerful combination.

Posted by DUST!N at December 5, 2006 10:46 AM

I certainly know about AFLAC more because of the commercials, but unlike Dustin, I don't pay full attention to the messaging, as I suspect most casual consumers don't. So I don't know much about their product.

However, I suspect that if I were already in the market for their product, I'd pay more attention to the ad.

So, with no interest in the product, I know the brand name. Presumably if I were interested in insurance products, I would at least have some sense of them from their ads.

Given that another poster posinted out the numbers, I would consider it a successful campaign.

Posted by Dante at December 5, 2006 12:13 PM

this might be to late for anyone to read it . The problem with most advertizing.Is not just that it is bad. is that it's shown to many people who arn't interested.

I Have studied advertizingand marketing for the past few years on my own. Books and course written by the guys who make millions of dollers doing it. THe pros will happiliy tell you most of their ads are bombs. But the one that take pay for the others in spades.

Myself .i am only 28 and i avoid waching comercial tv as much as possible. I am disgusted by the number of medication ads on tv. The heavy advertising done for medications is the real reason healthcare cost are out of control.

Posted by Kenneth oneill at December 6, 2006 11:57 AM

It seems that the point here is not that one ad will work, but predicting which one?

Taleb's point is that you can neither predict nor reconstuct events complex systems, like advertising.

The ad had to be sufficient, but suffient is not enough and the missing data that would tell the rest of the story as to why it was the tournament winner is, well, missing.

Posted by jim at November 11, 2007 1:21 PM