vivid demonstration vivid metaphor
It seems simplistic but I'm consistently surprised at how often an explicit description of the actual role for the advertising is absent from first attempts at creative briefs I see.
There are principally two roles, but lack of clarity around either or both often means wholesale back to the drawing board for the author.
Stephen King set the template for these two roles while he was inventing Account Planning back in the day, and even to this day no-one has come up with a better or simpler model.
We're either creating advertising that seeks a fairly direct response or a fairly indirect response.
Or a specific cocktail of both.
At the indirect end of the scale, what King would describes as vivid metaphor, is advertising that is 'borrowing something from outside the brand itself which has personality characteristics that are similar to the ones we want our brand to have.'
Here's to the crazy ones and suchlike.
At the other more direct and less fashionable end of the spectrum these days; are the vivid demonstrations. These kind usually pick out and dramatise some specific feature of a product or brand and frame it in 'what's in it for you' manner.
The following couple of ads from Aldi seem to be an exemplary blend of the two roles.
A vivid demonstration of the principal benefit (cheapness).
And it's probably not too much of a stretch to say that the various surprising creative devices employed are a vivid metaphor for the surprise element of the actual brand experience itself.
Who among us has not headed straight for the middle aisles for a chainsaw and flippers on a sunday morning.
These are also possibly some of the best examples in recent months of the continuing triumph of meaningless distinctiveness over meaningful differentiation, and for 15seconds of hardcore retail to be so choc-full of 'idea' they are an inspiration for any of us out there with big box retail clients to serve.
Behavioural footnote:
At the core of Aldi's Strategy is a deep understanding of how we actually buy.
The mental shortcuts we use to make it easy for ourselves.
Despite what marketers might like to believe most people hold practically no brand knowledge whatsoever, even for brands we like and buy regularly.
Because the shampoo we buy is the green one. The toilet paper is the one with the purple stripe etc.
*UPDATE 14-07*
And now we love this series even more, the latest one has the classic enclothed cognition gag.
Like retail ads. Only better.
