'They laughed when I sat down at the piano'.
Bernbach remarked "What if this ad had been written in a different language? Would it have been as effective? What if it had said, 'they admired my piano playing'. Would that have been enough? Or was it the talented, imaginative expression of the thought that did the job? That wonderful feeling of revenge.
Suppose" Bernbach continued, "Winston Churchill had said 'we owe a lot to the RAF' instead of 'never was so much owed by so many to so few', do you think the impact would have been the same?" He also said "logic and over-analysis can immobilise and sterilize and idea. It's like love. The more you analyse it, the more it disappears." And I think the reason for that in Watzlawick's language is that you cannot translate analogue communication into digital.
Let me leave you with seven propositions. And I believe that if you put these into practice you would achieve more effective brand building advertising and avoid a great deal of the agony that is often involved in producing it.
- Define the advertising goal as building saleability.
- Stop talking. Mostly about messages.
- Start talking about associations and about relationships.
- Recognise the power of analogue communication.
- Shift your focus away from the abstract message or idea to the advertisement as a whole.
- Resist the urge to over-analyse and over control.
- And if all that fails, just concentrate on being a 'charming guest'.
This is important.