Just imagine you are six years old and love Weet-Bix, and also bacon – not just bacon, but crispy bacon.
Now imagine putting the two things you love together …
While we all know that one plus one equals two, will following this logic of adding great with great equal amazing? Only if you’re a six-year-old who thinks crispy bacon and Weet-Bix are so great they would together make a game-changing gastronomic experience.
In advertising, just as in food, adding two great things together does not always make for an improved concoction. Two lines of messaging added together will not make a stronger ad.
As advertisers, we can expect too much from our audience. We expect them to be active observers, taking in all the subtleties of our work. However, the figures tell us that is not the case. While $4.3 billion was paid in Australian advertising last year, a whopping 89 per cent of advertisements were not even remembered.
Be single-minded
To be one of the 11 per cent of the memorable advertisements, we must be single-minded both in message and in output.
To put it in perspective, the average new car comes equipped with beeping sensors, screens with parking lines for guidance, and a handy message in the mirror alerting us that objects “appear nearer than they really are”. And don’t forget the nifty rows of warning lights. Yet with all this, it still happens … Bump, bump, bump.
This is a classic case of over-communication. If there is too much noise, we switch off and are blind to ALL of it.
Determine relevancy
The path of least resistance to achieve this is to use as few words as possible. We need to sift through everything and determine what is most relevant. We need to avoid loading in every feature and benefit, even if that is what the client wants.
We need to say our message quickly, effectively and then shut up.
Communication is not about blurting out everything you can think of and hoping something sticks. Communication isn’t just about speaking correctly. The most important thing is the need to ensure that your message is understood.
We must be single-minded by driving 100 per cent of our resources and energy into only the most important message. We must say less, yet communicate more.
In these moments it is helpful to remember the theory of displacement: if a glass is full of water, adding more will make it overflow. Sometimes by adding, you can actually take away.
Mikey Taylor is CEO of strategic creative agency Channelzero, which works with brands across Australia, the UK and the US. This article first appeared in the October edition of Inside FMCG. Subscribe now.
