In an increasingly complex world, we're all yearning for simplicity.
- We're back to simple values: religion, the comfort of friends and family, the desire to stay home and cocoon.
- We're back to simple pleasures: comfort food instead of lavish menus; a bottle of Chianti instead of an overpriced Cabernet. Much of what people bragged about two months ago now feels tasteless. Trendy hot-spots go empty, while neighborhood restaurants are packed.
We need simple messages:
In a world where people have trouble focusing, they can't be expected to decipher complicated advertising. No one wants to pay that much attention. No one has the energy. Don't expect people to work so hard—they're not going to be studying our ads.
Here are a few of the old rules that are even truer now:
- A TV spot can have only one idea, not three; one benefit, not a multi-layered offering.
- The days of the complex reason-why are over. People cannot be argued into buying your product.
- The more words you use, the more counter-productive your effort. Tell me once, or better yet, just show me.
- People are hungry for a moment of relief, a little island of pleasure, that will offer respite from the day's news. With "their worst nightmare" on their minds, we need to entertain to break through.
- Ads that entertain are like oxygen: a moment to breathe, a release from the events of the day.
- Laughter is the ultimate escape from stress. But the kind of humor that's appropriate has changed. We've already observed that snide, cynical humor no longer resonates.
- Poking fun is still fine, but disparagement is not.
- Forced humor, jokes that are stiff and artificial, always fell flat. That hasn't changed at all—they're now more inappropriate than ever.
- Stupid humor, the "dumbing down" of America, is passé. People are proving every day that they can deal with weighty issues—so humor that treats them like adolescents is condescending, unless of course they are adolescents.
- It's humor that comes from a witty observation about the little things that people do.
- It comes out of the unaffected remarks that kids make and the natural way they behave.
- It finds charm in people's little human foibles and idiosyncrasies.
- It pokes fun at classic patterns of behavior. We can identify with that. It's real, it's genuine, and it's not unkind. It makes us feel good. It lifts us.
- "Make the product the hero" is an old expression that's not right today. The product can play a role in allowing a person to be a hero, but the product itself probably isn't heroic, and it shouldn't be portrayed that way.
- Don't exaggerate. Products can't be the focus of our attention, because they're not enough to hold our attention. It's the way people interact with products, the way they behave, that makes a story engaging.
- The audience will identify with a moment of human triumph. People long for stories they can identify with, small achievements—where an obstacle is overcome or a person does something surprising.
- Make sure your brand is modest if it takes some of the credit. Don't expect people to worship your goods. People want to connect with somebody, not something.
- An over-produced piece of advertising is the antithesis of what we need now. Overproduction just overcomplicates.
- Injecting money and techniques that are supposed to make an ad more interesting only make it more expensive. That just brings conspicuous consumption to the TV screen.
- Of course simple ideas must be engaging and entertaining and well executed, but that doesn't require self-indulgence or lavishness. Watching Willie Nelson singing "America the Beautiful" can be more electrifying, and more appropriate, than a chorus of a hundred.
Steve Novick is Vice Chairman/Chief Creative Officer, Grey Global Group
Printed with the permission of Grey Matter editorial board, Grey Global Group, Inc. 777 Third Avenue NY, NY 10017
