By John Durante
In striving to separate themselves from the pack, many businesses have made claims and offers that were dubious. But the embedded narrative of such messages almost always included the time-honored American business traditions of transact, purchase and consume.
That’s why a new crop of national advertising campaigns across multiple industries has stood out to me. They have, at least temporarily, ignored this “normative narrative” of ad storytelling and are trying to create brand distinction by skewering the traditional marketing rhythm. Two make an impact worth mentioning.
On the heels of countless Wall Street and Bernie Madoff-like controversies that have staggered the financial services industry more than a Manny Pacquiao punch; Charles Schwab shifted the discussion of individual financial planning from dream-like aspirations to practical dollars and cents. Reminding viewers that the need is high for “adult” investment advice, Schwab’s ads openly mock an industry that fancies itself financial alchemists who make the poor man rich and the rich man king. Competitors who imply shrewd investing allows for vineyard ownership or nailing a specific dollar target are on the receiving end of these delicious skewers .The actor dialogue in these ads is refreshing and if not wholly authentic (remember, it is still advertising), it invites a line of thinking that is chained to the practical fiscal realities of retirement planning in 2010, not 1980.
Acura takes a similar step by reminding us in our holiday season of consumptive overindulgence that their premium automobiles have become refreshingly affordable. While offering indulgence examples that seem to carry more than a grain of truth, the aptly named “Season of Reason” sales event implies that when done playing with the entire holiday mess do something practical, sound and newly affordable: buy our car.
Both campaigns showcase authentic communication (although in Acura’s case still with tongue-in-cheek humor) meant to make logical and practical appeals. The idea of sales messages built to hit only the ethereal vapor of emotions is secondary. This is good — and rare — using the ad medium to raise the bar of pragmatic dialogue.
It is also dangerous or potentially foreshadowing to a looming change in American marketing. The lifestyle and ambition fantasies from Leave It to Beaver Land have long been a rock-solid cornerstone of the broader marketing narrative: get ahead, get going, get dreaming. But these new ad narratives, with nuanced subtlety, stir this ideology. They return to the never ending question about America’s culture of consumption and the implications for living like World War II victors in a 21st century in which we are more debtors than victors.
It’s rare for advertising to promote such heavy thinking, but to the trained eye at least, these ads pull it off. It is also appropriate that in such an active time of American social and cultural ferment, the revisiting of how we “sell” one another is seen by some to have commercial and business appeal. What does this all mean? Only a debtor nation, with big dreams and smaller wallets, can answer that question in its response to the “new” advertising approach these campaigns represent.
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John Durante is a senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications
