Truth, lies, and advertising : the art of account planning

333 Pages·1998·6.86 MB·English

by  Steel

TRUTH, LIES, AND
ADVERTISING
Adweek Books is designed to present interesting, insightful books for the
general business reader and for professionals in the worlds of media,
marketing, and advertising.
These are innovative, creative books that address the challenges and
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the top of their field in large multinationals. But they share a knowledge of
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We hope readers will find these books as helpful and inspiring as Adweek,
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Published
Disruption: Overturning Conventions and Shaking up the Marketplace, Jean-
Marie Dru "Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This!':. A Guide to Creating Great
Ads, Luke Sullivan
Truth, Lies, andAd vertising: The Art of Account Planning, Jon Steel
Under the Radar: Talking to Today's Cynical Consumer, Jonathan Bond &
Richard Kirshenbaum
Forthcoming
Eating the Big Fish: How "Challenger Brands" Can Compete Against Brand
Leaders, Adam Morgan
TRUTH, LIES, AND
ADVERTISING
The Art
of Account Planning
by Jon Steel

Thie book Li dedicated to Ethel Alice Morris 1904-1993
Contents
Introduction ix
Firing Blanks
1. No Room for the Mouse 1
The Failure to Involve Consumers in Advertising Communication 2. Silent
Partners 31
Account Planning and the New Consumer Alliance
3. The Blind Leading the Bland 59
Advertising Follows Research ... in the Wrong Direction 4. Peeling the Onion
103
Uncovering the Truth and Stimulating Creative Ideas through Research 5.
The Fisherman's Guide 139
The Importance of Creative Briefing
6. Ten Housewives in Des Moines 189
The Perils of Researching Rough Creative ]dead
7. Serendipity 231
"got milk?"
Acknowledgments 271
Bibliography 277
Index 281
Credits 287
About the Author 297
Introduction
Firing Blanks
Is advertising worth saving? From an economic point of view I
don't think that moat of it is. From an aesthetic point of view I'm
damn sure it'd not; it id thoughtless, boring, and there cs dimply too
much of it.
Howard Luck Gossage
More than 30 years ago, Howard Gossage, a legendary San Francisco
advertising man, gave an interview to Time magazine in which he said of
advertising, "I don't know a single first class brain in the business who has
any respect for it." Afterward, he was appalled that none of his industry
colleagues were upset by his remark and concluded that it was because they
all agreed with him but were too lazy to do anything that might bring them
some of that missing respect.
More recently, in 1992, a Gallup poll asked consumers across America to
rate 26 different professions according to the degree to which they trusted
them.
At the top of the list, with 65 percent of respondents giving them a "very
high" or "high" ethical rating, were pharmacists, closely followed by the
clergy, college teachers, medical doctors, and policemen. Farther down the
list, journalists lay in eleventh place with an ethical rating of 26 percent,
senators and lawyers were sixteenth and seventeenth respectively, and real
estate agents and congressmen placed nineteenth and twentieth. Languishing
in twenty-fifth place, with only an 8 percent ethical rating, just behind
insurance salesmen, were advertising practitioners. Only one profession
received a lower ethical rating, and I would thus like to suggest that all