#datafail

It has hit another major snag. Its latest set of ads, promoting the new structure of the deal, has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority as containing misleading claims. This is normally the territory of payday lenders and budget airlines not flagship government policies. In claiming that the investment in renewables or energy saving a household can easily cover its cost through cost savings and that such an investment will increase the value of the property the DECC came a cropper.

Back in the days when selling off the family silver was in vogue I ran some notable Government privatisation campaigns. The massed ranks of lawyers, bankers and advisors would never have allowed us, a mere advertising agency, to have made any claims that could not be completely supported. How is it that now an important Government campaign can flout the rules so flagrantly… or is it mere ignorance?

My belief is that those constructing the campaign have not immersed themselves in the available data. For it is here that the compelling stories lie. Not in its regurgitation but in its insight and interpretation, using it to demonstrate benefits through drama, wit and style – three things the Green Deal campaign has lacked.

My greatest example of this is from my old chairman, the legendary adman Robin Wight. Many of the most celebrated ads for long time client BMW were created after an interrogation of BMW’s engineers in Munich. For example when we asked them to demonstrate the value of a 6 cylinder engine over a 4 cylinder, one resourceful technician simply placed a beaker of water on the engine block and revved it to 3000rpm. The meniscus of the water barely stirred. He said that compared to a 4 cylinder engine the beaker would be shaken up quite violently. And so the classic ad “shaken. not stirred” for the BMW 3 series was created.
 
Even though today’s media mix is vast and ads do not necessarily work in the same way, some rules haven’t changed. For instance the importance of verifying the details of supporting evidence for advertising claims and the requirement to turn this information into compelling stories not just factual regurgitation.

In the world of sustainability we are overtaken by numbers and data and these are reported in voluminous sustainability reports. What we often seem to fail to do is recognise that the process should not end here but be translated into stories with a compelling idea at their heart in order to touch the hearts and minds of our audience – even when that audience might have a high level of technical knowledge. Scientists, engineers and financiers are after all mere humans, like the rest of us.

As DECC have found out it is crucial to check and understand your data, but it is also crucial to translate it so it will have meaning for your audience. And only by doing both will your messages really hit home and mere information become differentiating inspiration.

See more at via the Vivian Partnership site and browse more from Dan in our Clubhouse.

(Feature image courtesy of Blake Patterson.)