We need more case histories of brand failures, says Rory Sutherland
You know those women who occasionally hang around outside the Old Bailey waiting for the Group 4 van to arrive with some child molester on board? As the van makes the turn into the underground car-park, these modern-day tricoteuses run towards it as a crowd, banging on its sides and shouting “f***ing scum, at the defendant inside.
If you know any of those people, it would be really handy if you could pass me their contact details. You see it might be good to hire them for a forthcoming awards event I am planning.
The idea came to me when standing outside a building in New York sharing a cheeky cigarette with a couple of Dutch software designers.
What was I doing there? Well, whenever I can, I like to attend events on software design, web design and ‘user experience’ in general. This is partly out of fascination but also from a desire for self-preservation. You see, I think that, in ten years’ time, any flourishing advertising and communications agency will spend perhaps half its time on this kind of thing.
One of the Dutchmen was, as such people often are, an enthusiastic adopter of behavioural economics. (You cannot really help being interested in behavioural thinking if you are an interface designer or usability specialist, since in these fields you very quickly realise how relatively small changes in the design of an interface have immense effects on the behaviours of the people using them.)
‘I feel really sorry for you people,’ he remarked. ‘You see you spend all your time trying to sell things to clients on the basis of optimism and hope. It’s dreadfully difficult.’
The typical advertising pitch, he explained, was made on the basis that: ‘If you do X, then wonderful things will happen.’ In computing, he explained, you would only ever adopt such a sales tactic in moments of desperation. No, ‘fear of loss is twice as powerful a driver of behaviour than the hope of improvement,’ he explained. So, in IT, wherever you possibly can, you make the sale on the basis of the dire consequences that will result if you do not buy what is being offered. The fear of hell is a much bigger force in selling Christianity than the promise of heaven. And IT has some wonderful, Bruegelish visions of hell to sell – your systems will collapse, your best customers will desert you, invoices will go unissued, your website will crash. This is what really prompts people to act.
The sunny, optimistic temperament of advertising people is their worst enemy. What we need is the ability to paint a picture of gloom. Of the once-flourishing brands which have sunk slowly into obscurity. Or of businesses which became so enamoured of their particular model they failed to notice that their customers were moving elsewhere.
Earlier in this issue I have written sceptically about the idea of ‘accountability’ (see p40) as the highest goal of marketing activity. Here is another problem with accountability: it focuses you on the returns gained from marketing expenditure. What you also need to include in the equation is the dire effects that might have resulted from doing nothing.
And that’s when it struck me. What we need is rather fewer case studies of marketing successes – and a few more studies of non-marketing failure. Stories of businesses that have failed to promote themselves adequately, or failed to adapt to changing consumer behaviour – and have suffered dire consequences as a result. We need to spend far less time talking about Apple, Nike, Harley-Davidson and Dove and far more time discussing the brands and businesses that failed. As well as promoting the IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards, we need a biennial event called the ‘Nonadvertising Ineffectiveness Awards’.
As you arrive for these awards in your chauffeurdriven Ford Edsel, you will be met in the foyer by a particularly depressing exhibition of brand failures. Still holding your complimentary glass of Sunny Delight, you will then make your way to the ballroom, where the evening will open with a celebration of apathy and confusion – celebrating those brands that have become slowly irrelevant through a gradual decline in promotional support – or that have lost any clarity of meaning through excessive tinkering. There will also be a special category of awards for missed opportunities and lack of innovation.
To counter any dangerous feelings of optimism that an awards event may engender, no alcohol will be served. Dress for all will be orange overalls. And a fleet of prison vans will collect the winners from the venue (a former TrustHouse hotel on the outskirts of Slough), complete with screaming people banging on the outside shouting ‘scum’.
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of OgilvyOne London and Ogilvy Group UK.