Advertising Rain Forest

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Advertising agencies are called creatives, but seldom are. One ad sets the trend and the herd follows. Very few original ideas. Remember Hollywood and Bollywood? Let's call ads, Ado-llywood. 

The internet is like the rain forest. It is big and has many species besides trees. There are other things we cannot see with the naked eye. It also has booby traps. That’s why advertisers should avoid using the internet as the primary creative focus, when selling soap, sugar, candles, cars, deodorants, grocery stores or beer.

That is what led to the demise of the Bud Light beer commercial. Advertisers forgot who drinks beer, and concentrated on a man’s followers, prompted by self-perception. He calls himself a trans woman, a man who wears make-up, wigs, women’s clothes and mannerisms he thinks are typical to women.

That is not the issue for today. It is the composition of the rain forest. Its vastness is a disadvantage, so is the internet. We don’t know the species that live in the rain forest and rules in place that ensure peaceful co-existence. Same with advertising. The internet promises numbers, millions of followers. It defeats the purpose of advertising, which is selling deodorant to one species. The internet is very tempting, the belief that all two million followers of a particular YouTuber will abandon their brand of deodorant and start buying hers.

The internet doesn’t change the fact that advertising targets just one buyer. That’s why one brand of under garments worn by our grandfathers, fathers and uncles decided to make a SHE version. There’s deodorant which used to be for women only, now it has a FOR MEN version. It’s because of the advertising creed of one buyer at a time. Advantages are enormous because of the multiplier effect. That committed buyer has parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, co-workers, you name it.

Advertisers lose that buyer if they attempt to take the whole rain forest. Yes, the internet is wide. It is lush, but it is full of booby traps. The traditional family is gone, replaced by micro-families with different ideas, beliefs, likes and dislikes. That is the description of the internet rain forest. It is suicidal for advertisers to pluck one idea and sell it to buyers who don’t see eye to eye on what beer to drink, deodorant to use and men who wear women’s clothes.

Advertisers must treat softly. Failure to do so will alienate committed buyers.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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