What Is Advertising? Do You Know?
Plus: Joy reminds me of my favorite Eicoff quote
In the early 1900s, a young executive named Albert Lasker was working at a Chicago ad agency called Lord & Thomas when he stumbled upon the most important lesson in all of advertising. It started when the big boss, Daniel Lord, received a cryptic telegram from a man named Kennedy. Lord chose to ignore it, but Lasker couldn’t resist. Here’s what the message said:
Intrigued, Lasker went downstairs to meet Kennedy and have that drink. Smart move! During the engagement, Kennedy shared a profound piece of wisdom that would help Lasker become one of the biggest successes of his time. He eventually took over Lord & Thomas and earned a spot in the advertising hall of fame.
So: What’s the answer? What is advertising? Do you know?
DR Dynamite!🧨
Welcome again to my new feature where I share high-impact advertising principles and techniques from the ‘Masters of DR’ — vital knowledge that has been mostly lost to time. Last week, we went back exactly 100 years and heard from Claude Hopkins, the man who inspired me and also the name of my consulting company (and this newsletter). Today, we’re going back even further to hear from the man who inspired the man (Lasker) who eventually hired Hopkins: John E. Kennedy. (The “E” is important. We’re not talking about the president here.)
“There were maybe four or five men in the U.S. who were able themselves to do advertising because they inherently felt it within themselves — but none of them knew how to teach and define it. Kennedy was the one man who did.”
Albert Lasker, The Lasker Story
Kennedy defined advertising in just three words: “Salesmanship in print.” Since we’re far beyond print as the dominant advertising medium, we can shorten that even further to “salesmanship.” Advertising is salesmanship. That is, advertising is about selling.
Like all great words of wisdom, this truth seems simple and obvious until you contemplate it for a while. It invites us to ask: If advertising is about selling, then what is it not about? Well, it’s not about amusing or entertaining.
The famous ad man David Ogilvy (from whom we will definitely be hearing more), put it this way:
Ogilvy got that saying from a sign on the wall at an ad agency (Benton & Bowles). Well, it seems that sign fell off the wall long ago. I fear few advertisers today could answer Kennedy’s question correctly.
Among those few: Direct marketers. Whether it’s DRTV or D2C, we still create advertising that is truly creative because we have immediate feedback on how our products or services are selling.
Chart Watch 🆓
Clean Boss
Pitch: “The most powerful botanical disinfectant, cleaner and odor-eliminator in the world”
Starring: Joy Mangano
This one has been kicking around on the charts for a while, but I thought it was worth discussing this week because it’s Joy and also because she is employing an old-school technique where you repeat the brand name over and over again in a repetitious and redundant way.1
When I first started in the business, I remember reading an article that claimed infomercial producers followed a hard-and-fast rule in this regard: Every new sentence uttered must begin with the brand name. No pronouns allowed. It was mostly BS, of course, but the general principle was valid. Repeat your brand name a lot, and it will stick better.
Then came the 2006 campaign for HeadOn, and we learned there is definitely a limit to this technique.
And that reminds me of something the great Al Eicoff wrote in his autobiography:
There have been numerous occasions when a client has come to our agency and said he was not interested in a ‘motivating’ commercial but rather one that would achieve a high level of recall or product recognition.
Those those clients, I've always responded: ‘I will guarantee you the highest level of recall you’ve ever seen or I will pay for your entire campaign.’ The clients, of course, all stare at me with dumbfounded expressions and ask how I can make such an offer.
To which I've always replied: ‘I will make a sixty-second commercial with an Indian pounding a tom-tom and repeating the name of the product every three beats. At the end of the sixty seconds people watching the commercial will have switched stations, thrown an ashtray at the TV, or called the station to protest this incredibly obnoxious commercial.’
‘But no one who sees the commercial will ever forget it.’
🤣🤣🤣
Speaking of shopping-channel stars…
Promising Products🔒
When the inventor of Scrub Daddy did a deal with Lori Greiner on Shark Tank in 2012, there was cause for skepticism. Although very successful on QVC, Greiner hadn’t shown she could sell a broader audience. (This was before Simply Fit). Meanwhile, previous attempts by proven ‘As Seen on TV’ marketers to interest consumers in new sponges had failed. Then, a product similar to Scrub Daddy tested on DRTV (Hog Wash) and was never heard from again. It seemed the concept might be a dud.
Today, everyone knows how wrong that was. Heck, even my kids are asking me for those “smiley-face sponges”! So when one of our scouts found a new kind of sponge that might have similar potential, I took notice.