For those of a nervous disposition, turn away now. I’m going to use some words that should never be seen in the pages of this magazine.
Oral B-Pulsar. Kia. Shake ‘n’ Vac. Ferrero Rocher. NorwichUnion. Direct Line. L’Oreal. Okay, you can look again.
Big consumer brand names with one thing in common: by general consensus, their ads are best-known for being annoying. But they work, over and over again, which means that even if they’re arguably bad for the brand, they’re great for sales.
My personal favourite is the current Oral B Pulsar advert. You know the one: ‘Everything in the world has a pulse, now so does a toothbrush’. Pure advertising genius! Proof if you needed it that lack of quality doesn’t always mean lack of memorability.
So why can’t the same thing be said of B2B ads? Why are our annoying ads just, well, just annoying. They stick in the craw, not the mind.
Two reasons. For a start, all the ads listed above are TV ones, and TV incorporates one feature that press and most DM can’t replicate: sound. The most annoying feature in all of them is aural: the jingle, the voice-over, the presenter’s delivery. Even if you’re not watching it, you still can’t escape its invasion of your ‘bad taste alert’ mechanism. The message gets rammed home, no matter what.
Secondly, us paupers in B2B can’t afford that sort of spend or that medium. So what can we afford? To be more relevant, inventive, creative. To generate ads with class, not crass.
I guess time will tell. Many of us are already exploring how we can utilise video and flash to deliver more high impact communications. Maybe in a few years we’ll have our own B2B Hall of Shame.
Until then, let’s devise messaging that will be music to our public’s ears.
