HWW #34 – Phil Collins is a Big Hairy Ape

Just got back from Ken McCarthy’s System Intensive in Vancouver,
Canada. Really it was just an excuse to get up North for the
weekend . . . and for my friend Katie to have her car broken into
by some wiley Canucks. Beautiful city, though, check it out if you
get the chance.

In this issue:

* How to take your solo business from struggle to six figures in
six months or less.
* Phil Collins is a Big Hairy Ape

=========================
How To Take Your Solo Business From Struggle To Six Figures In Six
Months Or Less
=========================

Beth Yockey-Jones and I are on a mission to help indie pros and
solo small business folks crack the six figure mark and join the
ranks of the upper lower middle sideways class.

But to do it right, we need your help. If you’re a solo pro (no
teeming offices full of pouty-faced employees) do me a favor and
pop over to . . .

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=N69PCmnuewj2N0Is_2bEBqGg_3d_3d

. . . and fill out our handy dandy survey. I don’t have anything
to bribe you with, but if you help us you can feast on the
satisfaction of a job well done.

========================
Phil Collins Is A Big Hairy (Expensive And Ineffective) Monkey
========================

I love Phil Collins.

Love him.

I mean, I know it’s not cool to say . . . but ever since I first
saw Genesis’ “Land Of Confusion” video back in 1986, I’ve been an
un-ironic fan.

Something about a Ronald Reagan puppet slamming the “Big Red
Button” and triggering nuclear annihilation on a global scale just
warmed the cockles of my then nine-year-old heart . . . and sent me
bounding around the house like a dangerous ADD-addled cyclone.

(To this day, all I have to do is hum a few bars of that cold war
anthem to make my poor mom shiver, twitch and curl up in the fetal
position to cry.)

So when I was sitting in a Vancouver movie theatre on Friday and
heard the first couple lines of Phil’s “In The Air Tonight”, my
ears perked up.

What followed over the next two minutes was one of the coolest
little bits of viral video I’ve ever seen. . . and a *really,
really, really bad ad.*

You see, on Friday that whole roomful of pantsless Canadians and I
(as far as I can tell, Canadians always wear t-shirts and shorts,
even when it’s bitterly, bitterly cold) watched in rapt attention
as a thick-fingered ape pounded out the beat to Collins’ 1981
classic.

It was a heck of a piece of filmmaking. The camera focused in close
on the monkey’s flared nostrils. It glided up his cheek to see the
intensity in his eyes. And then it pulled back just in time for the
big “DU-BBA . . .DU-BBA . . .DU-BBA” bit that kicks off the song
proper.

Me and the whole crowd? Just quiet and shocked. Watching that
weirdly real-looking ape work the high hat, pound on the skins and
keep time better than most modern rock drummers was literally
*dumbfounding.*

But as an ad? It *sucked.*

Why? Because that big ape with the drum sticks has been stuck in my
brain for *days* now . . . but 20 seconds after the ad flickered
off the screen I couldn’t remember what the hell it was supposed to
be selling.

Because *It Wasn’t Selling Anything At All.*

Now, I can imagine the pitch meeting where some cool-glasses
wearing creative type laid out the “strategy” behind this thing
(“Well, you see, the Ape is experiencing Joy and our tag line is
that Cadbury creates Joy.”) . . . and I bet the suits at Cadbury
(theoretically this ad is supposed to be selling Cadbury . . .um. .
.pudding? I’ve seen the ad three times and I’m still not quite
sure.) are *ecstatic* at the reception they’re getting from their
golf buddies. I mean, heck, people have seen the ad! People are
talking about their monkey!

*But in ground level marketing reality this is a tremendous flop
and a phenomenal waste of money.*

In direct marketing, there’s a really simple ad-writing formula
called “AIDA.” It stands for “Attention, Interest, Desire and
Action” and is a basic map most copywriters and real marketing
folks use when trying to close a sale. You get attention, develop
interest, create desire and then ask for action. It’s simple and
effective and has been used to sell *billions* of dollars of
information and stuff over the years.

Just for fun, let’s apply the AIDA test to our drumming ape.

Now, for me at least (and most of the Canadian crowd at the movies
on Friday) this thing did a *great job* of getting my attention. I
mean, heck, it’s an ape drumming along to Phil Collins. What more
do you need.

And for it’s full 2 minutes, the ad kept my interest.

But desire? Action? Uh uh. The only *desire* I had after watching
this thing was to listen to some old Genesis records . .. and the
only action I took was to store the experience away in my brain to
rant about on Monday morning.

Now, I can hear the ad weasels on my list grumbling and
complaining, saying that this wasn’t a direct response ad and was
just meant to “Build the Cadbury brand.”

But even by that weak, weak argument (in my opinion *all* ads
should be designed with a set response in mind) this thing is an
utter failure. Why? Because a drumming monkey doesn’t have a damn
thing to do with chocolate and never will.

=============================
OK, Haddad, You Don’t Like The Ad, But What’s The Lesson Here?
=============================

Just this: There’s a big lie put out there that you can *entertain*
people into buying your stuff. And there’s a sliver (just a sliver)
of truth to that. If you’re entertaining enough people *might*
stick around to hear what you say. But that doesn’t give you a pass
to ignore *basic* salesmanship. The fact of the matter is that
Cadbury has spent *millions* producing this ad and buying space to
show it off . . . and that they probably aren’t going to make a
single additional sale of their stuff ( . .um. . . what the hell
were they selling again?) because of it.

You can check out the drumming monkey (in all his dumbfounding,
ineffective glory) at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0-aIms6oKY&watch_response

And if you want to see a company that really *gets* how to use
entertaining video to sell its stuff, head on over to
http://www.willitblend.com/

Blender + iPhone + Good Kitschy Production values = a blender
selling powerhouse.

And that’s it folks. You can find more on the Hard Working Words
Blog at http://www.haddadink.com/blog

Happy Thanksgiving.

c

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