My article

Marketing Magazine. August 28/September 4, 2006. p. 25.

Imagine, again

Advertising needs to reconnect with a consumer's
imagination to compel them to buy what you're selling

By STEFANIE WILSON

Advertising has lost its imagination. And by imagination, I do not mean creativity. I mean the ability to place ourselves in the audience. To see the work from the perspective of the target market.

We probably all agree that advertising is a tool that helps create relationships between companies and consumers. This is true whether we specialize in retail, business to business, direct mail, web or any other niche that has been carved out for us. To build these relationships, we have to do more than simply tell people what is being offered. If a relationship is going to last, consumers have to be inspired to feel proud about it. They have to want to associate with it. It has to fit into their circle of friends.

This is where advertising needs the help of imagination. Advertising has to inspire a visual story in which the consumer feels good about associating with the brand. And it has to encourage them to imagine positive results from purchasing the product.

Fans of John Ralston Saul will already be familiar with the idea that imagination is not about daydreaming. It's about taking all the facts, figures, research, insight and perspective you can gather and allowing them to guide you to discovery. It's about opening your mind to possibility. It's about following implausibility into progress. And it's about envisioning reactions, consequences and back-up plans before the idea has even hit the paper.

What this all boils down to (at least from one copywriter's perspective), is that talking about product features, no matter how creatively you package them, does not engage the imagination of the customer. Communication that addresses the company instead of the consumer is meaningless. Think about it. Are you interested in conversations where the other person only wants to talk about themselves?

No wonder people are tuning out. Advertising has become the voice you choose to avoid instead of the one you seek out. We stop building relationships when we stop imagining the customer.

This can be illustrated by newspaper advertising. I'm restating the opinion of many great copywriters when I espouse the strengths of longer copy. But the facts are undeniably true. To begin with, people buy newspapers. They buy newspapers to read them. They are searching for information. They enjoy reading. They are looking for stories that help them explain and define the world around them. And, tragically, newspaper advertising gives them the exact opposite of what they are looking for.

Pick up that newspaper on your desk. Turn to the first ad. What's different about it? Big picture. Little copy. Granted, the creative might be effective at catching your attention but can it retain your attention? And though it was probably quite easy to find the ad, it would also be easy to avoid it.

Why do we assume that a picture of a car will make as much of an impression as a narrative about owning that car? Where are the stories? Where are the conversations? This, especially when the ad is in a medium that the audience has chosen to read.

Of course, it's not just newspaper advertising. "Limited time offer!" "It's never been a better time to buy!" "The sale won't last long!" These messages scream at us from every form of media. And while they may get our attention, how do they build relationships? To imagine seeing the ad from the customer's perspective would result in very different advertising. For one, it would be effective.

I know that you know this. We all know this. I'm only trying to remind you.

And now that you remember, you have to remind your clients. Bring it up at the next meeting. Because advertising that engages the imaginations of the target audience compels them to buy. If the customer can imagine the product fitting into the idea of who they are, they may not rush to the store tomorrow, but they will buy from you when they need what you sell. And they'll tell their friends because they're proud of the choice they've made. And they'll tell people they're just getting to know because it helps define who they are.

Then lean back in your chair and assure your clients that this is a proven idea. One that stretches back to the first storytellers, who engaged the imagination in order to pass on values, morals and information. And it must have been effective–because we still tell those stories today.