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 
Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3
Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3
Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3
Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3
Evaluation Scale: -3***-2***-1***0***+1***+2***+3
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:
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:
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.
Third Advertising Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.
The third fundamental to deal with is visual and verbal.
And again: It should not come as a surprise to anyone, that this third fundamental links closely to the other fundamentals. It is not a third fundamental in terms of something entirely different from the the first two. It’s another side of the same coin. An added aspect.
In a commercial, a good idea is to check if it contains the same message sound turned off. Simply block the sound and describe the message. Then turn up the sound and describe the message once more. If you, roughly, don’t get the same result, you may have some revising to do.
Visual and verbal need to be coherent and stick together? In what way?
Don’t tell, show!
First of all, research seems to stress that it very important that support your message actively: don’t tell, show.
Schwerin and Newell mentions two different commercials they did for a shockproof wristwatch. The first commercial “was a straight stand-up pitch by an announcer, interspersed with occasional static shots of the the watch and superimposed legends”. That commercial did a very poor selling job, says the two authors.
And they continue: “The second commercial showed the product on the wrist of a sculptor who was violently hammering away at a block of marble with mallet and chisel”.
And guess what: In terms of selling the second commercial did much better than the first commercial by far. Measured by Schwerin and Newell it did SEVEN TIMES better.
Not at odds
Is does little good if the visual is at odds with the verbal, says the authors. SCR tested two commercials for a toothpaste. The message being that the toothpaste leaves a clean and fresh taste in the user’s mouth. The first version showed a white row of sparkling teeth, and a speaker told the story. The second version showed the same set of shining teeth, but this time the commercial included” a misty balloon effect surrounding the words CLEAN BREATH”.
The latter commercial worked better, and in terms of recall of the message it worked twice as good as the first one.
Not at the same time
Again, don’t try do to too many things at the same time. I will not work. Trying to get someone to respond to more than one message at the same time seems to destroy impact. Schwerin and Newell refers to a case where a car commercial flashes the words “fasten your seat belts” at the same moment as a speaker asks the audience to see the local dealer. It did not work. ” …. the consumer becomes emotionally paralyzed because he can respond to only one stimulus at a time and he is being confused by two simultaneous alternatives”.
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 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 to 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.
First Advertising Fundamental: One Unified Impression.
Once again time to move on. Let me point a few posts back on the blog. Back to this post about fundamentals in persuasive advertising. You should really start by reading, or re-reading, that post.
The next about 10 posts on this blog will refer to that initial post, and more generally to the book Persuasion in Marketing written many years ago by Horace S. Schwerin and Henry H. Newell. Don’t for one moment think that this is outdated information even if the book was written in 1981, and nowadays only can be had as used and well read copies.
I have to say though, that in spite of the actuality of these fundamentals many of them seems to have been forgotten, even by people in the advertising business. I say this being the reader of newspapers and magazines. And the viewer of television. It is amazing what people, and ad agencies, get away with in terms of bad communication in advertising.
So let this post then, and the ones to come, be a reminder to the some advertising people that things can be improved. And a reminder to those paying for it, that much, much money could be invested much, much better by (among other things) observing some very simple, but well proven fundamentals.
One unified impression. What does it mean and how should it be understood? And how can you use it as an operative tool to improve your message? Please note that these fundamentals do not only have bearing on advertising, but on communication in general, if impact is what you are after.
Schwerin and Newell: “The successful advertisement leaves the reader or viewer with a single unified impression. This does not mean that several related concepts cannot be fused together to make a harmonious whole. It does mean that presenting a series of unconnected ideas should be avoided”.
It is not more problematic than that. Let me illustrate this with yet another photograph.
Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven. All rights reserved.
This photographic message is by no means a simple or uncomplicated one. Look alone at the number of different elements that goes into it. Let me mention the most obvious; three people of different race and colour, a large mask, balloons, decorative items of different shape and content. Many reasons to possibly get confused here, but you don’t do you?
I say, that in terms of one unified impression this image does the job. And it does it pretty well The reason is that none of the elements in it contradict or disturb each other. There are no elements in this pictures that takes you off track, initiates your mind to wanders off in a direction not wanted. Hopefully you agree with me in this. If not, please let me hear from you in a comment to the post and we’ll take the discussion there.
Even if the picture mainly is here to illustrate one unified impression, can other things be said about it? Things that have a bearing on communication in general? I think so. Notice the denotations and connotations that comes with it. Some of the denotative elements have already been mentioned, three people, mask, balloons, different decorative objects to wear on your body.
What about connotations? How would you describe them? Is Roland Barthes at work here as well with one, or more, of this connotation procedures? I think so. I would say that what Barthes says about pose fits this picture well. See this post. You judge it. I could go one. Take a look at how gestalt factors work in this picture: proximity, similarity (or lack of it), closure, good curve, et cetera.
Here are some of the connotations that the image brings with it: happiness, movement, excitement, movement, joy. There are many, many more. The point is that they all forward the same unified message. The same unified impression.
Normally you have text in advertising, as well. Not only pictures. What then about the text? How should the text then work to enhance the message? The art of the copywriter is to fall in, or to direct, the one unified impression. Schwerin and Newell: “Once you have settled on the promise, every idea in the message should reinforce and amplify it”.
Just to make this even clearer: We are talking about ONE single impression here, not one and a half, not two, not three. I am sorry to say, that this amount is what the average human brain seems to be able to handle simultaneously.
For those who read Danish, or even Scandinavian, there are more on advertising fundamentals in these articles and this book. Or even, and much better, try to get a copy of the book in question.
The main tag of this thread on advertising fundamentals is rules of persuasion so you can always come back to it by hitting that tag in the tag cloud.
Other posts
You’ll find direct links to 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 to 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.
If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. And 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.
All for now. Stay tuned. A post on the second fundamental will emerge on this blog real soon.
The “Rules” of Persuasion
I have been waiting for this. Or rather waiting for this book. I had it once, but it seem to have been lost. So I had to order a new copy. Used copy arrived to day from a book store in Canada. I had some difficulties tracking down a copy, but I managed by the help of Amazon. Thanks.
The name of the book is simply Persuasion in Marketing. Written by Horace S. Schwerin and Henry H. Nowell. Published by John Wiley & Sons in 1981. And if you belong to one of those (and there are many) that means that anything written more then 6 months back are either outdated or out of fashion, you should think again. If you are one of those simple minds, you are probably reading the wrong blog
The reasons I anticipated this book (apart from the fact that I have misled my original copy) are many. First of all I have written a series of articles based on it; secondly I have written a book partly based on it; thirdly it is extremely good reading for anyone who have the ambition of doing efficient, economical (and I don’t even mean money) communication. Commercial or not. The validity goes way beyond the area of marketing if you deal with the core message in the book. And again, I am surprises, that when I added this book to Library Thing less than 30 minutes ago, I am the only one to have this book in a personal library there.
The chapter that works particularly well from an operative point of view starts at page 157, and is titled The “Rules” of Persuasion. The section Seven Fundamentals is where we want to dig in. “Over the span of more than two decades SRC tested, in the United States and several other countries, some 50.000 commercials and other advertising messages. We could not help observing that certain fundamentals recurrently characterized the successful campaigns of our clients and were much less often to be found in weaker efforts. These fundamentals, it should be added, were not our brilliant personal discovery; all have been stated in similar form at one time or another by astute practitioners of advertising both before and since.”
Here are the seven fundamentals. Take good care of them, because they might turn out extremely valuable for you as well. And that might particularly be if you are in the advertising business and are in the habit of making huge sums of money doing expertise work in communication for products, people , ideas, causes or whatever the reason may be.
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.
Well, is does not seem of much, does it? I knew that I would hear that argument, because for many these fundamantal are merely trivial. You might think so, but I am not at all sure that you are at all right. Unless you want to lower that standard of persuasive communication.
From I have seen lately, and not so lately, very few people are able to live up to these “trivial” fundamentals when doing communication. If you are in the advertising business you may have a particular hard time meeting the standard here, since the audience sometimes are diffuse, the media scattered and the competition for mere attention to your message is hard to get.
I will not, of course leave it at this Hopefully you did not think so. I will, in future posts, elaborate on each fundamental. So just stay tuned, and get ready for some interesting stuff here as well. The first thing you should do is, however, getting a copy of Schwerin and Newell’s book. If is is still out there.
If you are into the Scandinavian languages, and are able to read the letters of The Royal Kingdom of Denmark you might in fact do very well and maybe a little bit better with this book. That is, if you can get it. Hmmm …. I might even have a word with the publisher.
Give it a thought on communication: Be serious in answering this question: How many pieces of advertising have you seen lately that really engage thought worth entertaining? And sent me a list of campaign so I can get entertained, as well
If you have read this post, your should also read this analysis of a famous Danish commercial.
barebones’ Venn diagram
Picturing The Communication Process
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