Is quiet the new loud? Is a silhouette the new everyman? Is the best headline, no headline? – Some food for thought in today’s economic environment when retailers are all driving home price-point messaging, and every brand is promising more for less. Seth Stevenson might have put his finger on a compelling tactic. Perhaps we should just promise to say less, not more. I’ve often asked myself walking by one of Apple’s now iconic ipod billboards, “Is it really that easy?” All those billboards said was, “ipod.” They were certainly onto something powerful: show a pure feeling – someone dancing to a great track – and connect that feeling to a brand promise – that great tracks come out of white headphones. In my experience, it’s not easy to say less. It’s brave. Whether or not it’s effective, however, depends entirely on the little you do choose to say.

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The Spot: A man sits at the counter of a coffee shop, tapping on his laptop. Text bubbles pop on-screen as he trades instant messages with an unseen interlocutor. “Remember how we used to say ‘WHEN’ we retire, like it was a sure thing?” types the person at the other end of the chat. “I know,” types the man. “Then it became a lot of ‘WILL WE’ retire.” When the imploring response comes—”How do we get from ‘WILL WE’ back to ‘WHEN WE’?”—the man is at a loss, staring aimlessly out the window. An announcer utters the first spoken words of the spot as the scene fades: “John Hancock. The future is yours.” (Click here to watch the ad.)

In the never-ending battle for your attention, advertisers have experimented with all sorts of A/V tweaks. Generally, the goal has been amplification: boosting the volume of the announcer’s voice or flashing the product price in big, bright numbers. But I’ve noticed a recent mini-trend of ads that muffle senses instead of attacking them. The most striking example is a commercial for the asthma medication Symbicort. As our spokeswoman prances around singing Symbicort’s praises, she is almost completely obscured by shadows. We strain to make out her features even in the tight close-ups on her face. We’re left wondering whether this woman is a wanted criminal or has some sort of jarring scar the director wished to hide.

This silhouette technique has been used before—most notably in ads for DeBeers diamonds (shadow people slip on sparkling necklaces) and for the iPod (shadow people bop around to music). In each of those campaigns, though, 1) the people are pure silhouettes, not half-lit noir freaks and 2) the aim is to showcase the shiny product by fading the humans into the background. In the Symbicort spot, the product—I’m not even sure what form it takes; a pill? an inhalant?—is never seen. The only clear, well-lit image in the ad is of icky bronchial tissue. I keep waiting for the woman to emerge into sunlight at the close of the ad, symbolizing the newfound happiness Symbicort has brought her. But it never happens. And I’m left wondering: Why would asthma sufferers aspire to an underilluminated lifestyle?

Two dueling financial services firms also employ the sense-muting gambit. In Prudential’s “Retirement Red Zone” ads, people silhouetted in solid black and white discuss their retirement preparedness. The idea here seems to be that obscuring our vision will heighten our sense of hearing, forcing us to concentrate on the spot’s spoken words. John Hancock’s “Cursor” campaign similarly lets us eavesdrop on intimate money conversations. But this time the missing ingredient is aural. The John Hancock dialoguers text each other over smartphones and laptops, so we hear only the background noise of an airport gate, a coffee shop, or a city park—punctuated by clicking keystrokes and the chimes that signal a new text message has arrived.

These ads have been airing for almost two years now. They continue to be the quietest moments you’ll find anywhere on television (save for the occasional CBS Sunday Morning segment consisting solely of static wheat-field footage). “The reality is that very few people only watch TV today—they watch while they’re reading a magazine, looking at email, or answering a text,” says Jim Bacharach, vice president of brand communications for John Hancock. “What we have found, and confirmed in our tracking studies, is that the quiet of our ads makes people lift their heads and look up.”

The ads mainly run during live sports events, in part because viewers tend not to DVR live sports and in part because sports programming is the most focused way to reach John Hancock’s target market (adults over 35 with investable assets exceeding $250,000). “You’d think sports might skew heavily male,” says Bacharach, “but the programs we’re buying—like golf, college football, and the MLB playoffs—are actually closer to a 55-45 percentage split.”

I asked Bacharach if it’s more effective when the ads run during raucous college football games, where their silence offers a stark contrast, instead of during already quiet golf broadcasts. He said he felt that didn’t matter much, but that the best placement for these ads is in the middle of a pod of other commercials, where they stand out from the crowd. “Unfortunately,” he acknowledged, “we can’t guarantee they’ll be placed in the middle of a pod when we buy the airtime.”

I imagine the best placement of all would be immediately following a ShamWow or Slap Chop ad—where their soothing white noise and gentle chimes might come as welcome antidotes to the bleats of pitchman Vince.

Grade: A-. By zigging where others zag, the John Hancock ads cut through the TV clutter. We pay close attention to their text, following the characters’ conversations. And those final moments—in which the cursor blinks with implacable expectation—artfully symbolize the uncertainty that can accompany big financial decisions. Take a lesson, Symbicort. Form can mesh with function in a manner that clarifies the message instead of dumbfounding the viewer.

Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate. He is the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World.

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Friday, November 27, 2009
RawleMurdy Uses The Recent NYSAT 2 Project To Call On Advertising To Make Artful Ads

Jordan Seiler writes:

“Despite a full understanding of marketing’s interest in “trying to shape people’s perceptions of concrete things in order to sell those things.” Mr. Mathieu still seems to miss the point of the last NYSAT project. Irregardless of how “artful” an ad might be, it is still stealing from the public. By placing a monetary value on our public surfaces, we prevent those surfaces from being used for things that are good for all of us and not simply those intent on profiting from our cityscape. Honestly it really has little to do with “artfulness” or “beauty”.

The example I often use is this. A deli owner is offered $1,440.00 a year to allow an outdoor advertising company to hang advertisements on the side of his or her business. Without much thought he takes this offer and profits minimally. If that space was not allowed to be used for commercial messages, another scenario might play itself out benefiting the city and its residents. One example might be that the 3rd grade class from the local public school would ask this deli owner to paint a mural about the neighborhood on the side of his business. Unable to profit from this space, the deli owner would be inclined to allow these youngsters to make their own mark on the city surface.

The benefit of this type of use of public space is relatively simple to understand. By creating something visual, the students will leave a piece of themselves behind. What is left behind creates an attachment to that space that results in an investment that is both physical and psychological. An invested resident is just that, someone who has a reason to care for the space in which he or she lives. Better yet, this type of use of public space also benefits the viewer, creating neighborhood landmarks which create spatial relationships, alter your sense of place and offer you community in an often anonymous landscape. Juxtaposed, the advertisement creates no such investment on the part of the producer or viewer.”

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Henry Mathieu’s Original Blogpost
October 26th, 2009

A response to the NY Times article, “A Battle, on Billboards, of Ads vs. Art,” by Colin Moynihan, published on Monday October 26 — http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/nyregion/26posters.html — and copied below.

There is an interesting piece in today’s NY Times. It reports on an artist named Jordan Seiler, and a group he founded called, “The Public Ad Campaign.” — http://www.publicadcampaign.com/ – They whitewash billboards in Manhattan and allow advocates to spread anti-advertising messages, or artists to replace the ads with their own artwork work.

“ … ‘We’re bombarded by ads every day,’ [artist, Jordan Seiler] said. ‘Advertising frames the public environment as being for sale but public space is not inherently commercial.’ … Some passers-by liked the commando like cover-ups; an artist named Jane Gennaro, who was not connected to the project, approved of the men painting over an ad for the video game Grand Theft Auto, saying, “We need to get rid of all the visual noise. …”

This raises an interesting question in my mind. If ads were more ‘artistic,’ per se, would they be considered so offensive? Would beautiful ads contribute to the cacophony of ‘visual noise’ we’re ‘bombarded’ with on a daily basis?

Ads are very often considered to be obstacles that impede our ability to get the information or the entertainment we’re looking for, or distractions that clutter our everyday lives. We’ve trained ourselves to side-step or tune-out the vast majority of ads we see in nearly every context. We tune them out, that is, unless they offer up something we want. Nobody seems to object to an ad that give us a piece of information we find to be useful, or an ad that makes us laugh. Thus advertisers try to cut through the clutter with targeted media placements, and offer up engaging/relevant content. What I take from this article is that advertisers aren’t making ads that are artistic enough to be relevant and engaging to Jordan Seiler and his New York street artist friends.

While I’m sure advertisers aren’t loosing too much sleep over having lost that particular audience, I do think we should pay heed to the fact that we’re very likely loosing other audiences who aren’t aggressively protesting our communication efforts. One way to get some of those audiences back might be to beat Jordan Seiler and The Public Ad Campaign at their own game. Here’s my challenge to advertisers far and wide: make artful ads.

When I was a college student, I was an Art/English double major. In looking for that somethin’-somethin’ I wanted to do when I grew up, advertising struck me as a real world application of many of my interests. I perceived the industry to be an intriguing blend of storytelling, music, visual arts, and pop-culture all applied to shaping people’s perceptions of concrete things. What I’ve learned since (and frankly should have been obvious to begin with) was that we’re trying to shape people’s perceptions of concrete things in order to sell those things. So while I recognize today that – Advertising isn’t Art, it’s Business – I’m still unwilling let go of all that initially drew me to the industry. Granted, advertising does thrust billboards and a whole lot of other ‘visual noise’ into all of our lives. So when we create ads, I feel it’s important not to loose track of the fact that each of these billboards can be thought of as a canvas not only to sell things, but to sell them beautifully. I would like to believe that I might one day create an ad Jordan Seiler himself deems worthy of hanging in his living room.

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If you’ve read this far, I would just like to add a little P.S. which has nothing to do with Ads or Art -

“Irregardless” is not a word. Regardless is a word. Irrespective is a word. But “Irregardless” is not a word. If I were to deface a billboard and replace it with my own personal message to the world, it would be a plea to stop using the word “irregardless.”

Here in South Carolina this summer, I watched the birth of two carefully monitored loggerhead turtle nests, and it was beyond magical.  The baby turtles are attracted to the light of the moon over the ocean, and that is what draws them slowly and deliberately to the sea.  It is thought that the females leave a scent in the sand, so that even if they swim tens of thousands of miles away, they may return to the beach of their birth to lay their eggs.

So what’s all this got to do with marketing? I’m thinking about how there was this flurry of green marketing ,and then the tight economy made many well-intentioned companies reduce their interest in both going green and promoting green, concerned more – understandably – with today’s expedient transactions.  Perhaps we responsible marketers can encourage our clients to reaffirm their commitment to this cause.  Wal-Mart is certainly stepping up to the plate, as it has over these past few years.  What a turnaround in public responsibility and reputation!

As we help develop our clients’ plans and budgets for the new year , perhaps we can think of creative ways they can not only make the best use of their resources but also the resources of our fragile planet.

Bruce Murdy, president of Charleston advertising and marketing firm Rawle Murdy Associates Inc., this year struck a highly unusual bargain with a major client, the supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co, Inc. He agreed to divide his time for six months platooning between his day job and the Pig’s internal team as the locally based grocer restructured its marketing department.

Looking to lift sales and fill the void left by the departure of its marketing chief earlier this year, Piggly Wiggly asked Murdy, whose firm has handled that account for 22 years, to serve as its interim marketing director until replacement Christopher Ibsen came on board in September.

Murdy found a staff that didn’t know what people in other departments were doing. They weren’t used to sharing information between ad, research and internal communication divisions. No one had accepted responsibility for the chain’s Web site and e-mail marketing. ‘The biggest challenge I had was changing culture,’ Murdy told the trade publication Advertising Age recently.

What did he do about it? He installed a digital marketing head, moved people around, asked staff for ideas that could be implemented right away, patched communication between marketing and management and reworked the grocer’s media strategy by moving back to mass-media channels, including TV. Sales began to increase.

Piggly Wiggly CEO David Schools doesn’t recommend the ad-coach arrangement for everyone, but he said it worked because it was based on trust from many years of working together.

Wiseman, a Yale Law School graduate, quit his job as a law professor at the age of 37 and made his first documentary, “Titicut Follies.”  Since then he has made an additional 35 documentaries, each a gem in storytelling and authenticity.

Wiseman’s documentaries have no narration. The words and images of the participants tell the story. And what a story it inevitably is!  Anyone truly interested in storytelling and authenticity will enjoy and benefit from an immersion in this man’s remarkable work.  He captures the human experience in such a wide variety of contexts: from mental institution to high school to a welfare center or even a ski resort.

Watching a Wiseman film, you don’t feel manipulated (as you often do in documentaries).  Instead you feel totally present in the context he is portraying.  The judgments you make are entirely your own.  In some wonderful way, you become part of the film.  And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do with our communications?

Going to Netflix this evening, I was disappointed to see that none of the classic Wiseman films are there.  Hopefully they are in libraries or other sources.  If you have not seen one, find a way to treat yourself to the work of the master.  It will inform and inspire you for sure.