Excuse me, your brief is showing !

What can the clients do to get the advertising that works? They must understand their own customers well & share this knowledge with their agency. They also must resist the temptation to try to do the agency's job.  

What can clients do to get better and more effective advertising from their ad agency? They must give their ad agency an advantage of their own area of expertise by giving a proper brief in the first place. Then they must insist that the agency builds on this brief by using its own area of expertise. Simple and obvious.

• Clients should be experts in the area of knowing the market and their business. They should know and share with their agency - who their customers are, what these customers desire, and what needs to be done - and said - to attract the customers.
• Clients should then leave the agency to use its own areas of expertise - knowing how to communicate to various types of customers and through what media.

In reality this simple and obvious thing is not practiced because each party loves to get into the other’s turf. The clients tell the agency how to advertise and the agency loves to tell the client how they should conduct their business. Today I want to talk mainly about the client briefing.

I remember Glaxo releasing an ad, several years ago, in the Sunday supplement of The Times Of India Mumbai. The headline was “Too tired to lift even lift a finger? It could be diabetes.” I dare say this ad did not take into account two imporant factors. First, the people who are potentially interested in diabetes, like me, are likely to be above 40 and the copy of the ad was set in such a small typeface that they would surely lose interest before reaching the final “action line” inviting people to ask for a free booklet on diabetes. Secondly, it overlooked that on a Sunday morning, a typical target customer may prefer to talk to someone on the phone than reaching for a pen to ask for a booklet. Are these minor aspects you say ? I do not think so. These two insights about the customers, if shared and applied, would have resulted in more impact and more demand for the booklet. All that was needed was an increase in the font size, and putting in a phone number. And, of course, someone to be there to take down the names and addresses of the callers on a Sunday morning.

It is a myth that only the ad agency is responsible for good advertising. The client also makes a major contribution through his own area of expertise - his superior knowledge about his own customers and how his business revolves around these customers. A client’s deep knowledge about his customers’ frame of mind, lifestyle, behavior etc enables him to get better advertising. Although many clients say they advertise to increase sales, very few can actually brief their agencies about their model of how their advertising is supposed to work on the mind of the customer and how it is likely to lead to more sales.

For example, for an FMCG product like a Cadbury’s chocolate, which I handled once upon a time as Product Manager, it is possible for a sale to be “completed” through an ad - the customer can choose the product he wants to buy based on an advertising exposure. For such a low-ticket product, the customer behavior is impulsive and all that remains to convert the awareness into sale is visiting a retailer. On the other hand, for a high-ticket durable like an Onida TV, where I was heading marketing, sales and service functions, the product sale could not be “completed” in a similar fashion. Francis Kanoi Research showed that a person visits retailers at least 3.2 times before final purchase happens. In such a case the role of advertising is not to sell the product itself but to sell the idea of visiting the showroom and it is the dealer who would consummate the sale after demonstration and question answer session.

It is due to these fundamentally different behaviors of the customers in different markets that the role of advertising is different for different companies and industries. Ever wondered why FMCG firms are into product branding whereas durable firms are into corporate branding? The answer is that FMCG firms aim to sell the product whereas the durable firms aim to pull the customer to their showroom. The showrooms are always under corporate name.

The root of successful advertising is really into the customer psychology in each market. A long time ago I remember going through the market survey findings of Anacin; to discover a remarkable feature. For such products where people seek “relief” from an unpleasant situation , the customers’ expectations are expressed in very brief and simplistic language. The customers cannot generally talk more than 2-3 sentences about “what they expect from an ideal product”; and that too grudgingly. On the other hand, for “shopping” products - say Alan Solly shirt - they would happily and spontaneously talk for several minutes.

Such observations from the client give a sound navigation for the agency to follow. The advertising for Anacin has to be quick, should have less copy, but will need more frequency to reach such a “reluctant” audience. On the other hand, the shirt advertising needs to be an indulgent showcase. People need to savor the good looks, interesting texture; at a leisurely pace. This insight automatically suggests that shirt advertising should have press ads, color, good pictures and interesting copy. Instead of incorporating such fundamental insights in their briefs, the clients’ normally second-guess the agency and tell them how to do their job : creation of advertising.

In my 34 years of industry life, I have seen many briefing situations where the client assembles product samples, a list created by R&D of various product features, articles that appeared in new papers and industry magazines to support his point of view, a tome about the magic ingredient XYZ. And, without fail, loads of ideas on the which model, storyboard plots, clever lines etc that the client has conjured himself and would love to see in his advertising.

A long time ago I was a witness to a two hour briefing session in Delhi for a company making a milk additive powder for children's nutrition. Except for the first few minutes spent in looking at the products and related facts; the entire time was spent by the client animatedly briefing about various headlines, shots, angles, models etc. Finally, the agency asked " who the advertising was aimed at" and the client was shocked. His product manager had clearly included one line: “Target audience : all women having school going children”. Wasn’t that sufficient?

The agency persisted that such boiler-plate description was insufficient and they wanted in-depth appreciation of what kind of a frame of mind the customer was in. Finally, the client seemed to understand and said "we will send it later". Next day an office peon came to the agency carrying a large suitcase of startegy files, tour reports, market research reports, ORG reports, guard-books, clippings, annual target sheet and also a file on consumer complaints. The covering note said “Kindly do the needful". This happened twenty years ago and over the years I have noticed that the brand kept declining and is not even seen these days. However, during this slow death, three agencies were judged by the client as incapable and terminated.

When the chief strategist himself does not know who his customer is, I wonder how he can ever recognize a good ad from a bad one? In spite of the 1001 rules about what makes good advertising, there is only one that has withstood the test of time. Just as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, the power of the ad is in the eyes of its target customer!

So, what do you think? Comments, applause, brickbats, viewpoints are welcome.