How to create an advertising campaign without being creative
In the early 1900s, the Oswald Advertising Agency took a chance on a young kid fresh out of school named Oliver B. Adams.
Oliver quickly worked his way up from the mailroom by providing simple and what seemed obvious solutions to make the work more efficient, soon landing a job in the copywriting department.
One day a letter came in from a manufacturer of bond paper saying that they needed help with their advertising and asked if they would send someone down to their mill and talk it over with them.
Using this as a good chance to show off his abilities, Oliver visited the mill. The mill president, Mr. Merritt, asked if the paper could be successfully advertised, but Oliver told him he wouldn’t know until he knew more about their processes and gathered all the facts.
For the next two days, he spent day and night in the mill, learning everything he could.
Author Robert Updegraff wrote, “He found that this mill’s paper was made of select white rags; that the purest filtered water was used in the making; that it was dried in a clean loft; and, most surprising of all, it was gone over sheet by sheet and inspected by hand. These things weren’t general knowledge in those days, and Adams saw great possibilities for advertising.”
Adams took these discoveries, returned to his hotel room, and put together a few advertisements with his new discoveries.
When he presented them to Mr. Merritt, he looked at them and was disappointed.
“Young man,” he said finally, “every good bond paper is made of carefully selected rags,” “every good bond paper is made with pure filtered water; every good bond paper is loft‑dried; all good papers are hand-inspected. I didn’t need to get an advertising man from New York to tell me that. What I wanted were some original ideas. Everyone knows these things about bond paper.”
But now it was time for Adams to push back. He explained to Mr. Merritt that his agency purchases thousands of dollars of bond paper every year and would bet not a single person at his agency knew any of this.
Adams bent forward and looked Mr. Merritt squarely in the eyes. “Mr. Merritt, to whom are you advertising — paper makers or paper users?”
This is an important point to remember, especially for marketers.
Too often, you see people try to be cute and clever…but not clear. They are marketing for other marketers.
Adams returned to New York with the new business, and the campaign was a huge success from day one. He was advertising what was obvious.
The world is a crowded place, and your customers are pounded with thousands of marketing messages per day. If you try to get too cute with your message, it can lead to confusion, and to quote author Donald Miller, “when you confuse, you lose.”
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