What you put in, isn’t what they get out

Now my mother is by no means normal. In fact, she’s arguably the most remarkable woman I have ever had the grace of meeting. But when thinking about how the general public will perceive your advertising, it is often helpful to gain a little perspective by imagining how your mum would look at it. So…

Imagine your mum (I know I do), now imagine her looking at an ad. What do you think she sees when she looks at it?

Does she see all the strategy that planning spent hours researching and rewriting at client HQ?

Does she see the snazzy back of the deck borderline impossible digital idea that creative used to tickle the client with digital wizardry?

Does she see the 30 page manifesto that accounts have had to present 8 times to make the chairman think “we’re starting a movement”

Does she fuck.

She see’s the ad, maybe laughs at the gag, maybe is interested in the offer, maybe has an emotive response and then either engages or moves on. That’s it. So why did we spend so much time on strategy rewrites, back of the deck bollocks and manifestos when mum doesn’t see it? Or more specifically, why are we spending more time on selling to each other, than selling to customers?

Now I know this stuff is important, fucking hell read The Power of Dreams book work from Weidens, but it is simply not as important as the work. It sounds like the most obvious thing in the world but I believe we need to start putting more time into the output and less into the process. And who knows with less meetings and less pre amble, a few of the pretenders might disappear.