Simple Sells Simple

This series of print ads speak for themselves. Literally.

And since the campaign was just awarded Grand Prize from the Magazine Publishers Association (less exciting) for efficacy in driving awareness (more impressive), it seems the deliberately simple approach didn't lose anything despite its nakedness.

When a product runs on a platform of simplicity, it's often a bad idea to crowd or over complicate the communication that seeks to peddle it. As consumers, our reaction to advertising just as any stimuli, is largely visceral.

Like the product, the insight here seems pretty simple too. Ice cream is an indulgent food and people feel guilty eating it for two reasons: a) the fattening monster lives within and b) the trying-to-be-healthy ice creams tend to replace sugar and cream with artificial this and thats, which negates its attempt to be healthy in the first place, plus it tastes bad.

In Haagen Dazs' case, there are 5 simple ingredients. Sure they come with the burden of fat and calories, but when you see what 5 real ingredients they actually are, it makes the thought of putting them in your body seem a little less harsh. Demystification at its best.

The photography here is gorgeous. And when you're selling food, appetite appeal is everything (more on that in future posts).

This one's ON STRATEGY, winning awards and probably selling ice cream.

Intent

To blog...

I was a late adopter of Facebook.
I've got a Twitter page I never use.
I'm an early Foursquare advocate, albeit still a bit of a skeptic.
And I'm determined to realize the value of building a cautiously robust LinkedIn Network.

As a member of the marketing community, dedicated to building brand awesomeness, I view all this social media connectedness as a professional responsibility. 20% fun; 80% job.

So, onward to blogging and a bloggER I will be...at least for now, until some 18 year old tech cadet invents something much better, faster, cheaper, +/or cooler and renders this useless.

First, to establish a purpose for this blog. (Because that's what I do.)

I'm dedicating my blog to a discussion of marketing efforts and ad like objects that just plain feel off strategy as well as those that appear to be spot on strategy. In fairness to the creators of the "off strategy" set, I offer this caveat - there may well be a perfectly acceptable strategy or juicy, well-baked insight that I've simply missed because I'm not the intended target. Perhaps.

As a planner and self proclaimed strategic stickler, I can't help but evaluate advertising through this lens. It begs the question (or, I do), if advertising is intended to build equity and sell product, is a relevant strategic insight an imperative or is it ok to let the former become a casualty in the process if you end up with a really cool looking or cool sounding or cool doing ad (or the crap a client just paid you dearly to create)?

I realize there's all sorts of good reasons WHY advertising gets strategically derailed, not the least of which is that C word that pays our salaries and keeps agencies in business.

So don't take it personally. It's just a blog. Now off we go..