Dull advertising. We know it, see it and have possibly been guilty of it. And there’s a million excuses why it ended up that way that aren’t your fault.
It’s easy to accept the possible incremental gains and move on. Stakeholders are appeased, all is nice and safe.
But lately, I read a report that I reckon you need to know about because it discusses dull advertising in an utterly eye-opening way. It’s called The Extraordinary Cost of Dull and it’s really important because it places hard metrics around how many dollars and how much attention is wasted due to dull, safe, boring advertising.
Here’s the main stat: dull advertising costs US businesses $189 billion and UK businesses £13.29 billion annually. So translate that to Oz, a third of the population of the UK, then rounding down for safety… It’s a few billion. Three maybe? A shit ton.
The report goes on to reveal more hard metrics you can bandy around in the C-suite: emotion-based ads deliver 23 per cent higher sales growth, they drive a 25 per cent rise in customer acquisition, increase brand differentiation by 18 per cent and lift memorability by 43 per cent. The list goes on.
It’s beginning to look like dull is the more risky option. So why so much of it?
Excuses, excuses
Here are a few….
- It’s easier. It’s safer. It makes us not look like an idiot.
- We only have a little bit of money so let’s use it to punch out all the facts.
- Our ads are supplier-funded (even partly) and we can’t be ‘flippant’ with their money.
I could go on.
Some excuses more valid others. But there’s only one thing that can save dull – frequency. Look at Bunnings. Some real dull ads but there’s so many you can’t help but remember them. But if you don’t have the deep pockets of Bunnings, you’re basically stuffed with that method.
Brands that buck the trend
Then there’s Aldi. A conscious, all-of-business decision to play the challenger to perfection. Their work is a million miles from dull and there’s no one out there who thinks less of them for it.
If all the supermarkets were at a party, Aldi would be the one you’d want to talk to – by a country mile. Seriously, where’s the risk in that?
Don’t have Aldi’s budgets either? No probs. Check out Koala, Petbarn or Drummond Golf. All of them nail a tone, understand their market and leave you feeling good.
They might not be as out-there as Aldi but it’s not always about being fun or flippant. Relevant, interesting and engaging is exactly where the sweet spot lies.
Remember, you are not your customer
Your brand, your offers and your business will never be anywhere near as interesting as you think. It’s your life, your singular obsession, it pays you well and you love it for it. But you’re not your consumer and they almost certainly think your interesting advertising is as dull as hell.
How, then, to stop being dull?
The Extraordinary Cost of Dull tells us that advertising becomes wallpaper when it’s all about rational, sales-oriented messages rather than emotional, engaging content. Ads that are obsessed with proof points and short-term goals lack the emotional kick needed to grab people’s attention and develop long-term brand loyalty.
In other words, boring leads to something worse than being disliked – being ignored. To stop dullness in its tracks, advertising must embrace emotion, drama, and storytelling. Ads need to surprise and delight by challenging assumptions and using distinctive, relatable characters or codes or whatever it takes.
But I figure you already know this.
The point is, have a crack. Figure out the compelling narrative. That risk you think might fail is a way less risky proposition than that zero-risk option that’s 98 per cent guaranteed to fail.
Your newly interesting creative won’t please everyone, nothing great ever does, but it also won’t bore everyone, which means you might stop leaving money on the table.
