100 Days of Leo Burnett, the Midwestern Master of Mascots DAY 79
Here’s today’s Leo:
“A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain’t got nothin’.” — Leo Burnett
I’ve read advertising books going back to 1923, and at some point they all make the same point — it’s a cluttered environment and you need to figure out a way to stand out. Moreover, it seems to be the conceit of every age that they are the generation *most* saturated in advertising. And each time the volume of advertising increases (which is every year), the newest generation will say “Now, we’re really drowning in it!” IMO we’re not even *close* to the volume of selling messages our grandchildren will be exposed to … they’ll look back at the early 21st century as a time of idyllic ad-free splendor. I’ll bet you on it.
The challenge of Leo’s quote above is that it’s often misinterpreted to be “different at any cost,” but as Claude Hopkins once famously said: “People don’t buy from clowns.”
I thought Bill Bernbach put this really well (thanks to the really cool blog “A View From An AdGuy:” Link):
A picture of a man standing on his head would get attention, but the reader would feel tricked by the gimmick — unless, of course, we were trying to sell a gadget to keep change in his pocket.
Here’s a good example of how to stand out AND be relevant:
And — for completeness — here’s a good example of how to stand out and NOT be relevant:
#madmen #advertising @LeoBurnett #LeoBurnett
