As I read in Dagens Nyheter about “virals” being the advertising trend of the decade, I feel a slight jolt of motion sickness as I sit on the train from Stockholm to Gothenburg. I can’t tell if it’s the tilting of the high speed X2000 train or if it’s actually a jolt of worry for our future recruitment to Honesty and the reputation of our business.
The clownvertising virus has truly spread like the swineflu across the board now that viral marketing has reached the radar of the mainstream advertising agencies and creatives are celebrated across the board for creating highly irrelevant YouTube hits instead of boosting their client’s bottom line. This in turn creates “heroes” among young creatives for precisely the wrong reasons, and has them filling their portfolios with “fun”. I don’t want to get a bunch of people here banging on my door wanting to create films with the sole purpose of grabbing YouTube-views by use of humor, and where every strategic positioning is going to be the “fun”-position to excuse the use of humor as a shortcut to major traffic. This is wrong.
The challenge is not in creating the maximum number of views on YouTube. It’s to build brands and move goods out the door, while ALSO creating real value (can in some cases be humor) that can be the vehicle for these goals. It’s a non-zero-sum-game where everybody wins, where value is created and where efficiency is increased. Much like the evolutionary origins of social psychology and trade. Some of these creatives would really need to get a book on business and one on evolutionary psychology for christmas. Maybe we can do a viral fund raiser on Facebook?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree and I’m very pleased that you mention that it’s all about offering value to the customer. I also must say it makes me happy that you also notice that humor CAN be this value, but not per see. But rather than putting the advantages of the product in focus with the help of humor, the humor often steals the attention from the product and its benefits.
The two most common mistakes when using humor in advertising according to me, viral or not, is that it 1.) steals attention from the advantages of the product instead of highlighting them or 2.) is simply not funny enough. Because using humor in the right manor isn’t good enough, it also have to be funny enough to compete with other humor out there.
The is a very difficult balance act in this to be performed. Often when the humor is good enough it’s hard to get the benefits of the product to fit in the humor. And if it does there is the problem of making the humor fun enough. It is not an impossible equation, but it’s often hard to solve and demands self awareness on your own humor and a healthy distance to your products without distancing away from what is worth communicating about the product.
Simple, eh?
I believe this is the other side of the coin from where I come from. As a marketer first and advertiser second, I’m being primed with what is called effective advertising. The stuff that sells the product, no matter what (think Rossiter/Percy rules). What I call good advertising rather than effective advertising is something that provides value (i like fun ^__^) and hustles the product (i.e. win-win) at the same time.
The best advertising doesn’t just sell the product as much as it isn’t just fun, it’s both.
I do agree with you totally in most cases but would also like to add something here.
When you write: “The challenge is not in creating the maximum number of views on YouTube. ” It actually could be a strategy.
1 million views on YouTube can get you a lot of links, subscribers, comments and more. These things can be crucial in a further strategy regarding SEO for instance.
It can be about getting your SERP better, it can be about getting your upcoming campaign on YouTube to get the push from the start it needs (A campaign and video that ALSO creates value)
/Your Search Nerd Simon
Precisely. But then fan acquisition or link generation (for instance) is part of the strategy. Then it’s not #clownvertising any more, but #clownbaiting. It’s like the difference between salt on popcorn och eating salt with a spoon.
I do get your point Walter, but…
I will never embrace a word like #clownbaiting for this! These things can be so crucial regarding Marketing, Link Baiting, Viral Marketing and everything else.
By referring it to a clown makes it a bit of a rant instead of embracing how important it can be.
Yes. Like I said, #clownbaiting (or #linkbaiting in non-walter-lingo) is a useful tool. #clownvertising however is when there is no valid strategy, and where a “fun”-positioning is shoehorned into a strategy just to give creatives an free ride on the viral train.
It ruins creative output much the same way cocaine ruins human happiness – it’s basically an easy way out.
Did you know, by the way, that Wikipedia has the following to say about shoehorns: “A shoehorn, sometimes called shoefucker…”
@Walter @Simon
Guys, you both have interesting angles on this and I would really like to read another post (or two) about examples. Not necessarily ones that you KNOW to be baiting or just clownvertising – but those that you would describe as such.
A linkbaiting creative that actually communicates the brand would be the best example of course
“Good” advertising is about telling great stories that involve your customers. It can be humorous, heartfelt, sad, scary, you name it. I agree with Adners that the most difficult part about being funny in your ads is actually being funny. However, I think advertisers and their agencies often take themselves (oursleves) way too seriously. Having a little fun with our work has always been beneficial for all involved. I wrote a post on Monday about Volkswagen’s http://thefuntheory.com/ campaign. I like it because it engages its customers in fun and entertaining ways to, “Change behaviors for the better.” I like it because it’s a nice expression of the Volkswagen brand, it involves its customers in a tangible way, and it’s viral. These are all wins in my book, and the humor is found in the cleverness of the ideas coming from the every-day person. You can read the article here: http://bit.ly/64KCJr
Please let me know what you think of their campaign and my thoughts on the subject of “Fun in advertising” by commenting on the post.
Great article, Walter, and thank you for sending me a note this morning. I was in Stockholm 7 years ago and loved it! Cheers.
@DangerousDolly I couldn’t agree more: “A linkbaiting creative that actually communicates the brand would be the best example of course
”
I will try to write a blog post about what I mean, can’t promise that it will be up this week – have some other posts that got to come out first and they are all about… Link Bait!
@Park Howell
I read your well written post with great interest, and I think this is an important discussion to take. I agree with your points on “good advertising”.
The problem that I see both in reality and in portfolios though is that “funny” is enough, and that too many shoehorn the “fun” position into the strategy just to give their creatives a free ride on the viral train. Because, let’s face it, creating “funny and irrelevant” is not that hard if you have somebody else’s (your client’s) budget to play clown with. What is hard, and what is also our purpose, is to do “valuable and relevant”, to create a win-win barter between our client and their fan base.
In my mind, having Volkswagen in the “fun” position is like saying that Justin Timberlake is the king of pop. He just isn’t, no matter how many moonwalks he tries. The “fun” position could possibly have worked for BMW, Mini Cooper or Smart, but for Volkswagen? Never. The Fun Theory is simply a free ride for the creative team and an irrelevant campaign for Volkswagen. It’s the school book example of clownvertising, and it’s also the one I’m using in my lectures to illustrate the phenomenon.
Trust me, you’ll get a lot of portfolios coming to your office pretty soon with advertising students trying to motivate the “fun” position for all kinds of different brands because it’s the easiest one to do creative on. It’s really nothing new. Before the age of “viral” we saw a lot of “the strategy is that there is no strategy”-strategies when somebody wanted to motivate a “pretty” but utterly irrelevant ad. And it’s not only in ad schools. Diesel actually tried to claim that precise non-strategy about a year ago.
So, I agree and I don’t agree – which is the situation which usually leads to interesting discussion. Thanks for taking the time to comment, and also congrats on an excellent blog!
{ 3 trackbacks }