One Insight Can Beat Up all Your Ideas

EVEN THOUGH YOU HATE TO ADMIT IT, YOU KNOW...

Much radio advertising is inadequate. It’s blather. So much of it is built on the theory that if one has a clever idea and fills 60 seconds with words, one has a commercial. This is a reality anyone who loves radio is forced to admit.

When I’ve created a spot that blows the doors off response rate, I’d always assumed it was simply because somehow, my ideas were better.

Turns out, mere ideas are not at the core of big advertising success. I was unaware of this. I required enlightenment.

That enlightenment came from between the pages of Phil Dusenberry’s book, One Great Insight Is Worth a Thousand Good Ideas: An Advertising Hall-of-Famer Reveals the Most Powerful Secret in Business. (Originally published as, Then We Set His Hair On Fire.)


LEGENDARY ADVERTISING

If you don’t know Dusenberry, he worked his way up from the bottom (starting in radio) to become Chairman of BBDO. If you don’t know BBDO, you might want to get out of the radio station more often. Founded in 1928 and now recognized as the Most Awarded Advertising Agency Network in the World, BBDO has 17,200 employees in 287 offices in 77 countries. BBDO gave us the Pepsi Challenge, GE’s “We Bring Good Things To Light,” and Fed Ex “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight,” to name just a speck atop the tip of the iceberg of BBDO’s iconic and wildly successful output.

What is so intriguing about Dusenberry’s book (terrific anecdotes about the likes of Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson and Don Johnson aside) is his assertion about the overwhelming importance of insight-the power of it, and how it differs from mere advertising ideas.


GOOD IDEAS ARE USEFUL, FOR SURE--BUT INSIGHT CHANGES THE GAME

Our experience with a recent Slow Burn Marketing client illustrates the difference between idea and insight. The client is a Lasik surgeon. Our idea was to execute a series of five commercials culled from casual interviews: three patient testimonials and two doctor-voiced spots.

As we began travelling through this process, a little light went on. This person was no mere Lasik surgeon. This surgeon was truly different. These patients loved their doctor. The doctor loved the patients, and knew things about them personally.

Our original idea was, “These are patients happy with the experience. Let’s do three happy patient testimonials and two doctor-voiced spots.”

The insight was, “Holy cow-what a surgeon! No ego overdrive. This surgeon is humble and practices medicine from a standpoint of servitude.”

We threw out the original idea.

Instead, we acted on the insight inspired by really listening to all these people. In each commercial, the patient describes his vision challenge, and how much he was thrilled by the Lasik experience. These sound bites are intercut with the surgeon discussing the patient’s personal challenge, and how much she enjoyed working with him.


THE RESULTS ARE QUIETLY EXPLOSIVE

More than one person has heard these commercials and cried. (No joke. Real tears.)

We’re just a little bit astonished at the rabbit that we pulled out of the hat.

And all this was possible because, instead of being enamored of our original, pet idea, we allowed room for the reality of the client difference to infect us and push us toward something greater.

Here now, the irony: this same doctor has since had the opportunity for some station-created spots. The station-produced material is bogged down in clichés and executional ideas about how a radio commercial should sound, without exhibiting any honest insight into the patient experience or the client uniqueness.

This so vividly illustrates the challenge presented almost every time someone asks me, “Why isn’t this commercial working?” Nine times out of 10, the spot we hear is a product of ideas about how to advertise and entertain-rather than the being result of insight into the advertiser’s product or service. For instance:

A message about a sensitive medical problem is laden with bad, insensitive comedy about the problem. It demonstrates no insight into the advertiser’s truly enormous difference, or the prospect’s emotions about this sensitive issue.

A commercial for high-end replacement windows gives a condescending lecture to homeowners about all the things they’re likely to do wrong when buying new windows. It demonstrates no insight into either the advertiser’s difference or the psyche and ego of the upper-middle class prospect.

A mortgage message (yes, another one) uses idiotic, banal and insipid slice-of-life dialogue about no-fees re-fi. It demonstrates zero insight into either the advertiser’s difference or the prospect’s feelings about the single biggest financial investment of his life.

These are just three of the myriad ineffective concepts that have crossed my desk in an attempt to find out why the advertising isn’t working.


THE PROBLEM IS IDEA-ITIS

These commercials are bogged down in the swamp of clever ideas, often ego-driven, with no genuine insights.

Don’t get me wrong: ideas are important. Without ideas, Motel 6 wouldn’t have 20-plus years of Tom Bodett leaving the light on for us. But the ideas that propel possibly the biggest juggernaut in the history of radio advertising are inextricably linked to key insights about what Motel 6 is and what matters to the prospect. (Just for instance: when first approached about being in the commercials, Tom Bodett asked why they wanted him. The answer: “Because you sound like a guy who would stay at Motel 6.” The First Commandment of Advertising: Know thine customer.)

It seems that one of the challenges of radio advertising is that it’s often executed by people who love radio without necessarily having a love for advertising. And the more budgets are slashed and people who don’t Get It are put in charge of it, the worse it’ll get.


MY EXPECTATIONS ARE TOO HIGH--HOW ABOUT YOURS?

This is going to be expecting too much, perhaps. But anyone who wants their clients to thrive on radio must get past mere ideas. There must be an endless quest for insight.

One way to start this quest is to study effective advertising and the insights behind it-not just radio spots, but any genuine, US Grade A Fancy, historically proven advertising, from “Everyone laughed when I sat down at the piano,” to “Think small” to “Think different” to “Just Do It” to “AFLAC!”

The resources are there. Many are free. One of my personal favorites (which is not free, but often affordable even though it’s out of print) is a 1984 retrospective of the golden age of Madison Avenue. It also has a somewhat prophetic title: When Advertising Tried Harder. If radio as we know it and love it is to survive, radio advertising needs to try harder. The only way we will thrive is if our advertisers thrive. We have to get better. And that’s an insight we can all count on.

An advertising Creative Director in Los Angeles for over a decade, Blaine Parker is a principal in Slow Burn Marketing LLC, a small and feisty marketing agency perched on a mountaintop outside Park City, UT.