Telenot Commercial

Telenor’s overall marketing concept this season is that they want to help and support you. Hardly an USB position,  but fair enough. Telenor is trying to trick you into one of their stores where the staff can act as gods/guides to the complicated world of telecommunication. How to set up Facebook on your mobile phone, for instance? Fair enough even here, and I am sure that this is a relevant message for some.

But why make a simple message like this more complicated than it really it? I consider their last commercial on the Danish market as an expensive, confusing and artistically blown out example of how you muddle a basically good idea. My 2P. It hardly moves anything. Least of all market shares.

I might do a proper  CET (Communication Efficiency Test) on this commercial. Yes, I think I will.

Please take my wording here as a result of first impressions. That might change after a test.

Read more about Telenor Danmark.

Just Married

Just Married. Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

A picture tells a thousand words.

I haven’t got time for that many words right now, so you need to go for it, and I’ll be with you shortly. Try deconstructing this image. Go for the connotations in it, then add gestalt factors to your analysis and maybe the CET-test for looking at impact.

I am sure that you will find this photograph interesting, and a suitable case for analytic treatment. Good luck.

Eazyinternet – Master or Disaster.

No reason to make a short story painfully long.

It’s Sunday and I have just finished paging through the Sunday paper finding a 12 pages colourful insert from mobile operator 3. “It’s good to be 3″, they say.

Hey, I am in the marked for this product, whatever it is, so I better read the insert. Interest increasing as there is a picture of my almost new laptop on the front page: a silver shining and attractive MacBook. Or so I thought.

Reading the visual at the insert’s front page, there is a picture of the MacBook, and in the left, low corner a product shot of the mobile router that the insert is all about. Three downsized men in science fiction uniforms are placed  on the MacBook’s keyboard and watching a house take off into the air.

Main visual element is the MacBook, and the hand carrying it on its  fingertips. This hand is wearing a black glove, and you see that the person is wearing a black jacket. Gloves connote “lack of intimacy”. Black gloves connote, or is often a symbol for, “stealing” or “burglary”. Things that are not meant to be shown in the open. 

The black gloves are the carrying visual element in the rest of the insert, and that is what confuses me. What is the product involved here: an easy way to the internet, or is it an insert for a security firm having introduced a mobile security device preventing burglars to get away with my MacBook? Or the stuff on it. The most negative pictures are shown at pages 2 and 3 of the insert, where two pair of black gloves work on two Mac keyboards, strongly connoting that they are trespassing to forbidden information on the computers. 

For a time I really didn’t know what was the message was since the visuals were so confusing. The intention of the promotion seemed to be one, and the visual execution of that intent quite another. I had to read through the whole insert to find out about the product. The promotion have nothing to do with security. It is a promotion for an easy way to the internet using the 3 mobile router. 

Well, these guys could have fooled me.

I could run this insert thought the CET test to see how this promotion falls out, but I will not. It is not necessary, since the visual execution should  not have left the drawing table at the ad agency in the first place. You will only get bits and pieces of a proper CET analysis. The promotion fails on at least three checkpoints. Here they are.

1. One Unified Impression.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The is no unified impression in this promotion. It falls apart though a conflict between ease of mobile internet, and connotation of the black gloves.

I rate -3.

3. Visual and Verbal.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The text says one thing, and the visual quite another. No consistence between visuals and verbals.

I rate  -3.

4. The Simple Truth.

 Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

Is this is a simple, easy to understand promotion? No, it is not. First and overall impression is that this piece of communication could have be done much better by being less complicated. and with fewer conflicting connotations.

I rate -2.

Since the idea is that if only one of the checkpoint in the CET checklist is rated below zero, the advertising/promotion in question is up for revision. Back to the drawing table or to the brainstorming room. This promotion from mobile internet from 3, you might even have to take a step further back.

Conclusion:

Not good, not good at all.

The 3 company has probably one of the best products for mobile internet on the market(s). Certainly their market penetration is an indication of that. They have even won several prizes for their technological solution. You really have to work hard to destroy these advantages. Promotion for their, seemingly excellent product, is from this position, no rocket science. No need to do this more complicated, and less straight forward, than it ought to be.

In the promotion, the 12 pages insert in a Danish newspaper, the company certainly do their best to camouflage their advantages. There is a severe clash between intended message, and executed message. Or more academically phrases: connotations conflicts, gestalt closure are obscure and might  be conflicting as well. Expected intentionalities are not met.

You know what? Take a closer look at the front page of the insert, if you get a chance to it. I am sure that it exist in several languages on several markets. The guys on the MacBook keyboard wear gloves. White gloves.

Let me finally excuse, on this visual blog, that I am not able to show you any pictures of the insert. If I could find who the agency was, I would have asked them for permission to use an illustration. This Sunday morning. But I have no idea. Probably a larger international agency.  The insert bears all the marks of an adaption.

In a proper handshake, anyway, I would never wear gloves. And the MacBook on the insert front page is not the new model. Might even be a MacBookPro. Old version.

Is this “Quite Simply The Best Commercial Ever Made”?

Screen shot from Danish commercial. Reproduced with permission.

I made a promise, earlier this year, that one of the ambitions for 2009 was the be more specific in my analysis of real life communication. In other words, not so  much “acadamia”, but more concrete, specific analysis of what I called real life communication.

This was not only my ambition. It seems to me that the barebones of communication, over the last year, had been skinned enough to start redressing them with softer tissue. The are, in other words,  enough resource information on the blog to start putting it to critical use.

What will be the object of this first proper analysis? Some of your have noticed that there was a post on a certain commercial from Danish retailer, Fleggaard, who used partly undressed women to advertise for their retail outlets just on the other side of the border to Germany. That post hit pretty well on the blog  and has been the top post ever since. Seems there are a lot of people internationally that are interester in Danish/German border shopping . So I will use this commercial for the specific analysis. Seem like a good idea, right?

So before we start on this mission, here is what I would like you do to:

a) see the commercial a couple of times. Familiarise yourself not only with what you see, but with the way the commercial is put together, structured. For purpose of analysis, it is a good idea to split the commercial into sections and shots. You’ll find the commercial on Fleggaard’s web site. You need to mouse over the screen on the wall to activate the movie. Or you could go directly to the movie.

b) go to the CET-Checklist , or pick it up below. Follow the links and get an understanding of the checklist. Read thought the different checkpoint and get them under your skin.

You need to spend some time on both, and while you do that I will start finalising this post. The post will be continued … you need to come back to this post.

The CET checklist:

1. One Unified Impression.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

What is the impression given in this movie? And how is it given? It is on, it is two, is it even more, maybe even conflicting impressions?

In my opini0n, this movie does rather good. The overall impression is that these people are very dedicated towards their end, which is to spell out the the name of the product and the product price in the sky. On the ground they move firmly, up the stairs they move sternly and in the plane, in the plane they act dedicated, and when they jump from the plain is is with the same decisiveness as when they enter.

There is a tail to it when a single girl falls into the swimming pool, but that is added for the humour of it. Attention from the people on the ground is drawn towards the sky divers, and nice wraps up the urgency of what is going on in the sky.

I rate this +3.

2. Dominant Mood.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

Dominant mood. Got the be image or product. There is not much product in this move. It is all image. Besides the name Siemens and the price tag, that is.

I rate +3.

3. Visual and Verbal.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

There isn’t much text/speech in this commercial, so there is nothing really  to get in the way of the visuals. Could this have been done in another way or even better with a speech over? Hardly.

I rate high even here: +3.

4. The Simple Truth.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The structure should be as simple as possible, and the structure in this commercial is indeed very simple. Camera follows the girls from moving rapidly on the ground till they are floating in the air. One could ask if the last scene with the girl in the swimming pool distracts, or is necessary, for bringing the message through. Maybe not, but as long as it is perceives as as add on to the “main story” is does not harm any.

I rate this +3.

5. Product of Consumer.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

I am not sure that this point fits very well here. If anything, it takes the consumers point of view. Anyway there are not much product display in the commercial, so that is out.  I am a bit cautious here.

I rate 0.

6. The Right Consumer.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

The target consumer are males between 20 and 50. There are about 700.000 of them in the area (this is stated by the advertiser Fleggaard in a mail to me. I would say that the commercial does a good job in targeting male consumer.

I rate high: +3.

7. Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

It is even my opinion that the casting, the clothing, the lack of clothing, the simple story told, and the whole drive of this commercial do a very good, and entertaining job.

I rate +3.

8. Connotations.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

Connotations are in full bloom here. The connotations are clearly sexual, and appropriate to the male segment in question here. I might add that there are, IMHO, nothing shameful in this.

Rating +3.

9. Gestalt factors.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

How well are gestalt factor used? If at all? The commercial is held together by, amongst other things, proximity, similarity, direction, and you might even say the factor of the good curve: Movement.

Rating +3.

Overall results:

.. soon to be stated .

CET Checklist for Advertisers.

Follow the links to read more about the individual checkpoints.

Is this checklist useful at all? As any other checklist it is, but you need to be aware of the fact that the results coming out of the checklist will never be better than the evaluations put into it. So, if you don’t know much of communication in general, and advertising in special, you may want to start here

1. One Unified Impression.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

2. Dominant Mood.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

3. Visual and Verbal.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

4. The Simple Truth.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

5. Product of Consumer.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

6. The Right Consumer.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

7. Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

8. Connotations.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

9. Gestalt factors.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

Good luck with it. If you need a more extensive explanation, please go here.

Introducing the Communication Efficiency Test (CET)

I am sure that 10 is a good number, but in this context the number 9 is even better.

I am going to anticipate what is going to come when I have written the last couple of posts on advertising fundamentals set forth by Horace S. Schwerin and Henry H. Newell in their book Persuasion in Marketing. As I have stated plenty of times I urge you to get this book and pick up this research information directly from the source. The fundamentals are the result of extensive testing based on more than 50.000 ads and commercial. I am not saying that this is the whole story there is, certainly not, but is a good basics if you want to avoid big blunders in advertising.

You need, of course, to add a dash of campaign strategy, lots of creativity and originality to get things working for you. And you will better off if you bring a couple of bare bones to the party as well. So that is just what I am going to suggest to you in setting up a basic check list for your future expertise as an advertiser. Or as an advertising consultant. You will be surprised how well this is going to work for you.

You may ask, is this really necessary. Do I need a check list for this. Well, I leave the answer to you, but before you speak it out, take a local tour in the magazines, in the newspapers, on the commercial television canals, that you have access to. Look briefly, or less briefly, over the ads and commercials that demands your attention. I have done that, and what I see produced from even highly estimated ad agencies, does not impress me. Not all of the time anyway.

Using the CET checklist will secure you against possible pitfalls. Expensive ones, even. Particularly if you are the one paying for the game.

So here is what I am going to do: I am going to let myself be inspired from the arguments from Schwerin and Newell, and I am going a couple of barebones to the list, which will bring me to the number of 9 (nine). These is going to be 9 separate checkpoint in the CET checklist, then. Right?

The CET check list:

1. One Unified Impression.

2. Dominant Mood.

3. Visual and Verbal.

4. The Simple Truth.

5. Product of Consumer.

6. The Right Consumer.

7. Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

8. Connotations.

9. Gestalt factors.

How to use?

How do you use this check list? Basically anyway you want, but my suggesting is you give each checkpoint a stretch from minus 3 to plus 3 so you have some room to mark your evaluations.

Could look like this:

1. One Unified Impression.

Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3

You will do that for each of the checkpoint in the CET checklist I just introduced. I will have the full checklist made ready for you in later post, but there is enough for you already here to get you down to work.

Crash Criteria:

As you see the evaluation scale have a red area and a green area. The span from -3 to 0 is the crash area (left) , and the span from 0 to +3 is the non crash area (right). Just like the traffic light: red you stop and green you walk.

Here is how I suggest you use it. If, to the best of your ability, you find that a certain checkpoint not fulfilled in the add or the commercial, you rate it on the red side of the scale (minus something). If you find the criteria fulfilled you rate on the plus side of the scale.

Crash criteria are: If even one of the 9 checkpoints are evaluated to the red area you crash it, you dump it, you don’t pay out.

Pretty tough?

You may argue that this is a pretty tough test. Only one checkpoint in the red and then you dump the whole thing? Could we say, mayby, two or three in stead? No we could not. It is not possible to half or even partially pregnant.

The argument for this toughness is that the 9 checkpoint are weaved together. You will find, that if you down an ad or a commercial on “One Unified Expression” you will probably experience that it fall apart on many other checkpoint, as well.

Seventh Advertising Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining

I am updating blog logistics. This post will be written soon.

Other posts

You’ll find the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts have been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need for have a little patience.

First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.

Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.

Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.

Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.

Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

For an overview of the whole section please go here.

If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. You’ll get the full information here as well:  Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.

Sixth Advertising Fundamental: The Right Consumer

I am updating blog logistics. This post will be written soon. You’ll need to come back for this post.

Other posts

You’ll find the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts have been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need for have a little patience.

First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.

Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.

Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.

Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.

Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

For an overview of the whole section please go here.

If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. You’ll get the full information here as well:  Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.

Fifth Advertising Fundamental: Product or Consumer

Basically, I was never a Mac fan. This obscure little company, Apple, run by Steve Jobs that seemed to go in and out of business for so many years. The gear might be good for designer and other hippies, but not for more regular people using their desktops or portables for normal business. Windows was good enough. More than good enough. So where the boxes it came in.

But that was last year. My company came with an offer for an employee lease/buy that, for the first time, included some Mac options. Three packages based on PC’s, and three packages of Mac’s as well: the IMac, the Macbook, and the Macbook Pro. Six different solutions to chose from, and six set of expectations to be met.

It did not take me long to decide and I basically did so on aesthetic criteria. The new IMac is a beauty. In fact, there are lots of barebones connotations over it. And it work, and that is a good thing. It has been with me since November last year.

Since then I am the regular visitor on the Apple Site. And I was there October 14th this year (2008) for the Apple Special Event and Steve Jobs introducing another round of groundbreaking software and hardware. You need to go see his keynote speech, because it is a good introduction to what I am going to target in this barebones post: product or consumer.

Sales numbers displayed at the keynote meeting are impressive, and so are briefs into the Apple production technology. Normally you would not, from a selling point of view, want to dwell to long a time on production techniques because lots of user would not take an interest. My reaction was quite the opposite since the idea of carving out the frame structure of the new MacBooks from one single bloc of aluminium is good thinking. It’s brilliant. Unibody Apple calls it.

(This post is to be continued, so you need to come back later).

Other posts in this section.

You’ll find the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts has been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need for have a little patience.

First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.

Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.

Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.

Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.

Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

For an overview of the whole section please go here.

If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. You’ll get the full information here as well:  Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.

Fourth Advertising Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

You may not connect “truth” to the world of advertising at all. And maybe you should not. It has always been accepted by conventions that advertisers, and advertisements therefore, are allow to bend the truth a little. To be interesting, to be persuasive, to be competitive. To catch and hold attention.

However, there is one truth that you don’t want to bend: the simple truth. Meaning “the structure and order of a persuasive message should be a simple as possible. As far as structure is concerned, this means leaving out all extraneous elements”. (page 165).

Simple as that. Cut the crap and leave out the fat.

Again the example is from the world of commercials. This time not for toothpaste or cars, but for a cold tablet, a medical. You know, a tablet you take for not getting cold (it that possible?).

Schwerin and Newell tells the story about two different commercials trying to tell the story.

The first execution contained only three scenes: a) a man walking in the rain passing a billboard for the product in question; b) he enters a store, sniffling a bit, and is advised to buy an item of the brand; c) he is then seen well and happy again. End of story.

The second version is much longer, consisting of 7 different scenes. A much more complicated structure and argument.  

The measured difference between the two in terms of preference change was clear. The simple version of the cold tablet commercial worked twice as good.  

Not only simplicity of the structure is important. So is the order of things. Schwerin and Newell, in their book, refers to a test done with different order formats. One of the most popular formats is “before and after”. Here is the way they describe it: ” X is at a disadvantage because he does not use the product. X uses the product. X is better off”. This is called the normal order format.

Other formats are: reverse order, extended normal order and simultaneous. I am sure you can guess where this is leading; the more simple structure, and the more simple order, normally gives the more persuasive message.

If you need to go in details with these studies, please consult the book and its references. All you need as a reader of this blog, however, is to remember that simple makes better, and you handle simplicity through message structure and the order of things.

It is very easy to remember. Try training it the next time you see or read an advertisement, or a commercial that attracts your attention.

Other posts

You’ll find the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts have been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need for have a little patience.

First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.

Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.

Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.

Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.

Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

For an overview of the whole section please go here.

If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. You’ll get the full information here as well:  Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.