speaking in clicks

[August 25, 2009]

So far, my survey had left me fairly reassured. I had seen brilliance and mediocrity in the proportions I’d come to expect. When I arrived at Pepsi, however, I found the first concrete basis for concern.

Keeping in mind that Copy decisions are usually made in concert with a diverse committee of Strategists, Account Executives, Art Directors, Brand Managers and Marketing Directors, a Web site like this is the surest sign that Copy, as a distinct area of expertise, may be dying after all.

For starters, the most prominent line on the home page was “False Rumor Alert,” set in knock-out type at the lower left. The home page marquee, on the other hand, offered no message that could compete with it for audience attention.

Instead, I found a random array of screenshots from 21 different satellite sites, each of which was a desperate stab at relevance to “Youth.” You can sense that same desperation in the screenshot captions. Here’s a representative sample:

•Do Something Learn what you can do to do something great for
your world.
•Pepsi Music Hear today’s coolest tracks from your favorite artists.
•Refresh Sports A refreshing spin on the sports you love.

In their quest for universal appeal, these lines cease to function as Copy and degenerate into mere words:

•“Do Something,” is emotionless and extremely vague. Syntactically,      “Learn what you can doto do…” is a nightmare of redundancy that
undermines the program’s credibility: Do what?

•“Pepsi Music” gives consumers no reason to believe it offers a unique
experience. Why Pepsi Music instead of iTunes or a thousand other
digital music outlets? 

•“Refresh Sports” ties back to Pepsi’s “Refresh Everything” campaign,
but doesn’t say what its “refreshing spin on sports” actually is. Without
qualification, the word “refreshing” is an empty promise, based solely
on a mechanical tie-in to a promotional theme.

Here, ultimately, is a major brand squandering it’s brand identity on an expensive, all-you-can-eat buffet of promotional junk food. In the absence of a clear messaging strategy, what emerged was Pepsi’s unintended message:

We’re not sure who you are, but here’s a lot of stuff for you. You’ll like it: It’s youth-oriented—and we’re pretty sure you’re young. Do you like Facebook and Twitter? Some of the young people on our staff like them, too. Anyway, we hope you find something you like, because we want you to keep “chilling” with us.

In my next and last segment on this topic I’ll share what I found in the Fashion category, as well as some general conclusions.

[August 22, 2009]

As I continue my survey of the state of Copy, I should acknowledge that I’m only addressing the state of Copy in the United States. While a large part of US marketing has a global reach, that hardly covers everything that’s going on in the field in other parts of the world.

I next arrived at the U.S. version of the Coca-Cola home page, a slideshow of graphic-links to each of 9 satellite sites. Here, the umbrella theme “Open Happiness,” was reasonably effective: The implied parallel between “open” and “click” made sense as an invitation to open the links.

Now, one could easily write a book about Coca-Cola’s elaborate marketing practice, but I’ll just stick to a few points that caught my eye. For example, at the sight of “My Coke” and “My Coke Rewards,” I almost called in the CDC.

Here are two instances of the “My-opia” pandemic, a peculiar failure of marketing vision, which continues to sweep the nation. While I understand the appeal of this approach, I believe it’s fundamentally flawed.

My-opia misuses a powerful subtext (“We’re the brand just for you”) by bringing it up to the surface, where it dies from over exposure. If we agree that differentiation is a key goal of branding, then My-opia is a terrible scourge—because it makes every product or program sound the same. See how many victims My-opia has claimed:

• MySpace
• My iTunes
• MyAmerican Heart
• MyYahoo
• My9tv

…and that’s just the beginning. As I see it, the disease stems from a misguided quest for simplicity. While my-themed names are easy to remember, they say nothing about the value of the program or product. They are the final triumph of Marketing Anxiety, in their literal attempt to jumpstart consumer identification.

In contrast, the recently revived Diet Coke tagline: “Just for the Taste of It” works precisely because text and subtext are kept in their proper relationship. This enables the line to sum up a long list of brand attributes in one everyday phrase. That’s simplicity.

More importantly, the line positions Diet Coke as a separate experience from Coke proper, something you can enjoy for its own sake, whether or not it actually makes you skinny. That’s why this campaign from the 80s still resonates today, even without help from pop stars like Paula Abdul/Elton John or Whitney Houston. It addresses the basic human need for simple pleasures.

I’ll have more to say about the beverage brand Web sites I visited, in my next post.

[August 19, 2009]

A couple of weeks ago, an advertising creative I respect asked me: “Is Copy dying?” At the time, I responded with platitudes about cyclic trends but, days later, the question was still bugging me. Did he have a point, after all?

Now, I love a good think. So to satisfy my curiosity, I looked at branded Web sites in three major product categories: Cars, Beverages and Fashion. That seemed like a logical way to measure the current state of Copy—standing, as we are, smack in the middle of a digital revolution.

I started with cars. I assumed that car companies, having spent billions cultivating brand awareness, ought to have a carefully worked out messaging strategy for reaching consumers online. In light of that, I went first to Volkswagen, whose advertising from the 60s has achieved legendary status, at least in some circles.

What I found on the home page was a pale echo of VW’s recent broadcast campaign, “Autobahn for All.” While the tagline’s presence helps integrate VW’s online and offline advertising, it does so mechanically. This robs the Web site of its ability to connect to consumers. Here’s why:

Stripped of its original context, “Autobahn for All” is just about meaningless. Even if we believe that people watched the original TV spots with the sound on, these gently humorous ads are unlikely to stay in a consumer’s mind, once the TV is off.

So on its own, the line “Autobahn for All” does very little to connect consumers to the inherent value of the VW brand. If the prevailing theory is correct, and VW has only seconds to make that connection, it’s hard to see this as an effective digital messaging strategy.

I next visited Ford, expecting to find a distinctive, American voice. On the “vehicles” page, I found the Ford logo parked next to the tagline “Drive One.”

Even if I assume the phrase is meant to be short for “Drive One and You’ll See,” I have to ask: Is there any car company that couldn’t use this exact same tagline?

We could even apply this generic approach to products in different categories. Imagine “Dunkin’ Donuts: Eat One,” for example, or “Steve Madden: Wear a Pair.” Does “Drive One” say anything more about Ford except that its cars are drivable?

Considering the current crisis in the auto industry, I was surprised to find such lackluster messaging from two major brands.

You need only visit Toyota online, to see a pattern taking shape. Here again, the site merely echoes one aspect of Toyota’s offline messaging strategy. My next stop in this informal survey was the beverage category. I’ll share what I discovered in my next post.