John Kuraoka, freelance advertising copywriter

www.kuraoka.com
(619) 465-6100
Ad Blog: news and views about advertising, branding, marketing, and copywriting
July 2013

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July 31 2013
The 60s-style nuclear family gathered around a TV in the living room is actually coming back, thanks to mobile technology. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

It’s interesting that the proliferation of internet-connected mobile devices, which some said would splinter families, may actually be bringing them together, along with a new way to be together. More of the TV “viewers” are in fact second-screening, clustering around a central TV but simultaneously (and often primarily) focusing on other tasks, including integrating other social circles into the family circle via the internet.

It’s also interesting that, even as TV prices fall, TVs are finding their way into fewer and fewer teen bedrooms. Kids today don’t need them; they have their smartphones and tablets and laptops, and are comfortable viewing and engaging on those rather than settling for the relatively limited interactivity of TV.

Taking my own family as an example, we have only one rather modestly sized TV set in the house. But I counted over a dozen internet-enabled devices from which most of our TV-style entertainment is streamed. Actual viewing/media consumption can take place almost anywhere, but the central TV provides the most-convenient and comfortable viewing. Plus, the ability to keep doing something else on those other devices.

For the record, though, as a tablet-owning parent, I’ve never used my tablet to entertain the kids. That’s what their Kindles are for.
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July 29 2013
Facial recognition has come to on-screen POP advertising. But as it becomes more common, what does it mean for consumer privacy? Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

This is, thankfully, rudimentary facial recognition for mass marketing use. The technology isn’t geared for identifying an individual – yet – but instead is aimed at providing a broad overview of people, say, standing in a checkout line or sitting in a waiting room. The system can differentiate male from female, a child from an adult, and even provide breakdowns of whether someone is “young,” “adult,” or “senior.” Armed with that data, the system chooses what messages to show based on its audience's demographics.

The argument for such technology is that people will be shown advertising that is more relevant to their needs. The argument against, is that it is a significant slide down a slippery slope toward personal identification strictly in pursuit of more corporate lucre.

What I found fascinating – and I paused the video at 3:47 to take notes – was the “attention distribution chart” representing how long people looked at the display. The same chart shows up elsewhere with the same numbers, so it may be mock data. Actually, the fact that the percentages add up to 97% indicates to me rounding errors that might happen with a relatively small sample size, indicating in turn a mock or newly reset feed and, therefore, unstable data. But I’m no number-cruncher.

No, the exciting thing is that this kind of viewership data can be collected at all, possibly combined with eye-tracking metrics. Now you can really do A/B creative tests virtually on-the-fly and track if and when someone connects or tunes out. Cool!
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July 26 2013
This is cool! The Engagements, a new novel by J. Courtney Sullivan, includes the true story of how advertising copywriter Frances Gerety created the iconic slogan “A Diamond is Forever.” Here’s the story, from Here & Now and NPR station WBUR (Boston MA), via my hometown KPBS:
Advertising copywriter blog link

It’s worth listening to the audio program, an interview with the author, as it dispenses with the novel excerpt to include details not in the article.

The novel is centered around a deeply researched examination of ad agency N.W. Ayer and its client DeBeers. Mary Frances Gerety was real – she died in 1999, having written DeBeers ads from 1946 through 1970. N.W. Ayer’s “propaganda” for DeBeers was real, and the early ad campaigns are recalled with journalistic faithfulness right down to actual company memos.

Moreover, Gerety’s slogan was real and the story of how she happened to write it – at the last minute, right before dropping off to sleep – is real. At the time, it was rather blandly approved by her agency superiors and the client. If it hadn’t been almost an afterthought in the brief and underplayed in the advertising, it might not have survived. Instead, it would have been subject to enough discussion and dissection and committee-think to eviscerate it.

The tagline’s power, as with many great lines, became obvious to the world only in retrospect.
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July 25 2013
Just a quickie to point out this article, in my hometown San Diego Union-Tribune (CA), about embattled for-profit educational institution Bridgepoint having its telemarketing call recordings demanded as part of a state Attorney General’s Office investigation on false advertising:
Advertising copywriter blog link

Wow. I’ve written hundreds of telemarketing scripts and I can’t imagine what a professional copywriter would write that could be construed as anything even close to misleading advertising, unless it was out-and-out lies. The fact is, deception just doesn’t fit into the structure of an effective telemarketing script.

I guess perhaps if telemarketing scripts were used to close deals instead of to generate qualified leads, then maybe a Glengarry Glen Ross situation could arise.

But I think it’s most likely that the investigation isn’t so much about the telemarketing scripts as it is about subsequent – and unscripted – conversations with sales reps, who, to put it mildly, may not be thinking of the brand.

One of these days, I have to get my article about writing effective telemarketing scripts finished and posted.
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July 24 2013
China is a massive consumer market with even more-massive growth potential. Here’'s a look at the top 20 foreign brands in China according to Millward Brown, and how those brands successfully broke into the vast but culturally distinct Chinese market, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

A little patriotism here: out of the top 20 most-powerful foreign brands in the Chinese market, 13 were American including 8 of the top 10. Go USA!

For the record, the top brands were: KFC, Pampers, Colgate, Olay, Crest, Apple, McDonald’s, Omo (a line of laundry products from Unilever), Coca-Cola, and Carrefour (one of the world’s largest retailers, based in France). And, as long as we’re crunching stats, fully six of the top 20 and three of the top 10 were P&G brands.

I think it’s notable that most of the top brands are things you use every day or every week, such as diapers, toothpaste, and cosmetics. And much of the rest are things you eat. We tend to forget that some of the best branding practices can be found in packaged goods and fast food.

Other than that, though, there’s nothing new here. The keys to building a brand in China proved to be the same as building a brand anywhere: get in early, understand the market, be bold, build where the growth is and tailor the approach to the market, and leverage local expertise.

No, the big eye-opener to me, was that #1 most-powerful foreign brand in China. Not Apple (#6). Not Nike (#17). Not Google, GM, or Ford (not even in the top 20). But KFC. Wow.
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July 23 2013
Dated tomorrow because it already is Down Under, comes this terrific look at some YouTube pre-roll ads that integrate the “Skip Ad” button into the creative. Here’s the story, from B&T (Australia):
Advertising copywriter blog link

I’ve long been frustrated with pre-roll ads that act like TV spots, with leisurely set-ups based on the premise of intrigue. But YouTube ain’t TV. Among other differences, the web streaming viewer is in complete control of when and where to watch. In contrast, although it’s changing, TV viewers are still for the most part conditioned to watch programming according to someone else’s schedule.

So, viewers will stick with TV commercials out of mild curiosity and good old inertia, and if the payoff is good then it was worth it. But a YouTube video, they want to watch right now. So pre-roll advertising is subject to a different, more merciless, set of viewer behaviors.

It’s good to see smart marketers turning those behaviors to their advantage.
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July 22 2013
I have two related stories today, both about the PR/advertising crossover/mashup. The first, from Forbes, discusses the competition between advertising agencies and PR agencies in creating and executing native advertising. The second, from Business 2 Community, examines the role of PR in building brands:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link

I think it’s a mistake to separate advertising from marketing from PR just as it’s a mistake to separate media from planning from creative. It’s all the same thing; we just each specialize in a particular part of the thing that we (we hope) happen to do exceptionally well.

Creating and executing advertising must be collaborative. Even the very end result is one of collaboration between the entire team and the customer who ultimately buys the product.

The problem occurs when one set of specialists starts casting another set of specialists as something not to be respected. You know, the whole creatives vs. AEs, advertising vs. PR attitude. And that sets up an adversarial model where a collaborative model would yield better results, more-consistently.

There’s a Zen parable in which a snake’s body suddenly decides it’s tired of being led around all day by the head. The body insists on leading the way, and refuses to move until it gets what it wants. So the head gives in. And the snake promptly backs over the edge of a cliff and plunges to its death, body, head, and all.

That doesn’t mean everyone on the team need be connected all the time, or that each individual should work only within his or her narrow specialty. Frankly, alone is sometimes how I do my best collaborative work; when I have the mental space to integrate and add-to. And I’ve said it before: many of my best headlines were written by art directors.

But it all comes back to that final collaboration with the customer – isn’t that what really matters?
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July 19 2013
For the second time this week I have two stories. The first is a quickie, a continuation of the story a couple days ago about KFC phasing out the Colonel Sanders iconography. Here’s an article from NBC News about the general decline of mascots for fast food brands:
Advertising copywriter blog link

What it comes down to, is a maturity/idiocy convergence: both media and fast food have grown up, while our relationship with advertising has dumbed down, possibly because of that increased media power even as the saturation level rises. It’s kind of a pity, because those old mascots were a lot of fun. The same thing can’t be said about a lot of advertising these days.

Next up is a new app that pays mobile phone users for placing ads on their phones’ lock screens. Here’s the story, from Good Morning America via Yahoo! News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

It’s funny, isn’t it? Even as consumers clamor for increased privacy and easier ways to opt out of advertising, here’s living proof that there remains the opportunity to deliver not fewer ads, but more. And the reward for accepting this intrusion of marketing into everyday life? A penny every time the user unlocks his or her phone, up to three pennies per hour. Over the course of an 18-hour day, that’s a maximum of 54 cents. That may be the price of the American consumer. A penny a look.

Amazon may have started this monetization of lock screens with its Kindle Special Offers. I actually had this feature on my Kindle e-reader, and paid to have it removed for an ad-free experience. Not because the ads were distracting. But because, in several months of having them in heavy rotation, none of the offers were even remotely interesting to me. That surprised me, given Amazon’s probable vast pool of data about me as a customer, including real-time purchase behavior, reading material, favorite movies and TV shows, physical location, and probably quite a bit more. I ponied up not to avoid the ads, but to avoid continued professional disappointment in their relevance.

And relevance is the key. In any medium, if the ads are relevant they’ll be positively – or at least not negatively – received. If the ads are irrelevant, they’ll be ignored. An ad can be many things, but it must never be ignored.
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July 18 2013
Mega-retailer Amazon was blocked from using its brand as a top-level domain thanks to the efforts of Latin American governments and organizations intent on protecting the actual Amazon River region, or at least the brand thereof. Here’s the story, from the New York Times:
Advertising copywriter blog link

It should be noted that outdoor clothing maker Patagonia withdrew its top-level domain application shortly before ICANN considered Amazon’s application, but the result would likely have been rejection on the same grounds, and with the same opponents.

This could be an argument for nonsensical brand names. After all, it’s unlikely Kodak, eBay, or Hulu would encounter much resistance based on geopolitical sovereignty. So, not only are nonsensical URLs more likely to be available, so too are TLDs.
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July 17 2013
I have two interesting articles to talk about today. The first is something of a quickie. It’s a look at the creative economy, from The Guardian (UK):
Advertising copywriter blog link

I find a couple things notable here. First is a real threat within the growth of the creative economy: the concept of taxing services. In the UK, this has long been known as a Value-Added Tax, in which a tax is charged at every step of the production process. I don’t like it (see March 10 2003 and May 13 2003 – scroll down to get to the entries), but I’ve come to believe that taxing creative services such as copywriting may be inevitable.

Today’s first-world economy is service-based; we simply don’t manufacture many actual products any more. Which leaves a sales tax revenue gap for funding infrastructure that, somehow, needs to be made up. And a likely target, given the average voter’s dismal view of advertising, is charging and collecting sales taxes on creating that advertising.

I’m not looking forward to the day it happens, but I rather suspect that it will.

The second thing I find notable (and to end on an upbeat note), is that the preferred tool for creative work is the tablet of the paper variety. I find that encouraging. Laptops and tablets are terrific production tools, but real creativity exceeds the scope of what can be keystroked or digitized. I’m not old-school; I’m doing what works.

Next up, KFC, formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken before it rebranded, may be poised to dump its long-time brand persona, restaurant founder Colonel Sanders. Here’s the story, from NBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

I don’t think this will make a huge difference. In fact, most fast food brands have moved away from brand avatars. McDonald’s used neither an actual McDonald nor Kroc, and lately is shrinking Ronald McDonald’s role in its marketing. In days of yore, Carl’s Jr. and Wendy’s ads often featured company founders Carl Karcher and Dave Thomas, respectively, but didn’t try to turn them into icons after they died. The family that founded In-N-Out Burger is notoriously private. And, it may come as a surprise to many that Taco Bell was founded and run by Glen Bell until Pepsi bought it in the late 1970s.

Fictionalized brand characters, though, have fared better. The King of Burger King made a temporary bizarre comeback, as did an animated version of Colonel Sanders. And Jack of Jack in the Box remains popular in an ongoing spoof of the traditional company founder/spokesperson.

The problem with KFC may not the Colonel. It may be a built-in menu limitation to a single main ingredient. That’s not a problem other QSRs have; it’s easy for a McDonald’s or a Wendy’s to add a chicken offering. But for KFC to add a burger or salad is fundamentally off-brand. Part of this issue was addressed in the rebranding as KFC, a shift that, at the time, was made primarily to move away from the word “fried.”

I think there’s room for KFC to become the primary alternative to burger-based fast food, and I think that’s where the marketing opportunity lies. Moving upscale is fraught with competition and dangers unforeseen by even the best fast food brand managers.
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July 15 2013
The big news in pop lit today is that debut crime author Robert Galbraith, whose first book The Cuckoo’s Calling garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews, is in fact established mega-author J.K. Rowling. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

The key takeaway, for advertising and marketing people, isn’t that her publisher kept her identity a secret, or even that that secret was leaked.

The key takeaway is that a very good, possibly even excellent, product, within a relatively small but robust market niche, which garnered plaudits from well-respected reviewers and consumers, and with distribution through well-established retail channels including Amazon, sold all of 500 copies. Then, as soon as the author’s true identity was revealed, sales soared.

The difference, from 500 sales during the entire first quarter to thousands overnight, can be attributed entirely to one thing: a brand name. Those people currently pushing the book to the #1 spot on Amazon aren’t avid fans of crime fiction; if they were, they’d already have heard about the book and made a purchase decision (of which most, it seems, initially chose to not purchase despite the glowing reviews and positive buzz). So the bulk of the buyers aren’t even in the target market. They’re just people who have heard of J.K. Rowling, and who have $20 or so to plunk down on a hardcover edition. That's a fairly modest investment for what the brand promises could be a very good summer read.

Look at this episode as a warning to all entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. You can make a great niche product, distribute it through major retail channels, and attract glowing reviews. And still sell unprofitably modest quantities. But should a major brand enter your market category, chances are it’s all over. So you have to become the major brand in the marketplace.

These days, there’s no time to execute a branding strategy separate from a sales strategy: the two must move forward simultaneously.
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July 12 2013
New federal rules will allow small businesses and start-ups to solicit investment capital directly from investors through advertising. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

So now modestly wealthy folks can buy their investments like they buy toothpaste, without all those pesky financial rules, regulations, and reporting in the way. The problem is, most consumers buy toothpaste many, many times more than they buy individual corporate stocks. A bad toothpaste choice is rapidly rectified, and the brand loses. But a bad investment choice is not so easily unwound, and the loser is always the consumer.

The crowdfunding parallel falls apart because crowdfunding typically seeks small amounts of money from large numbers of people, so the size of each individual risk is fairly small.

On the flip side, I think this is also a bad deal for the advertisers themselves. Think about the brief for a moment. What can you promise? Nothing, unless you want your ad claims to come back and bite you. What can your ad say? Nothing, because there's no back-up to be had.

All that’s left is image advertising and weasel-y ad copy backed by a data deluge of business plans, prospectuses, and research reports of which 95% will go unread and 99% will be misunderstood. And that’s what I think will happen, followed by the transfer of much money because, say what you will about advertising copywriters, we know how to sell stuff.
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July 9 2013
Here’s a well-meaning, award-winning advertising exhibit that completely misses the point. And here’s the story, from Ad Age:
Advertising copywriter blog link

In the exhibit, ads were stripped of their logos and exhibited as art to attract students into the field of advertising. The problem is, if an ad becomes unrecognizable as an ad for a product and degrades into mere art just by removing the logo, what does that say about the state of our industry when it comes to persuasion? What persuasion took place if the ads were functionally interchangeable apart for their logos? Ayup. None.

Also, ads should have a branded look and feel. Imagine, for example, removing the logo from any of the revered Helmut Krone-designed ads for Volkswagen. They’re art, yes, but they’re also instantly recognizable as ads for VW. No logo needed. That’s branding for you.

And who will this exhibit bring into the ad business? Ayup, more people who think advertising creative is all about implementing their own artistic vision. And advertising will become less and less relevant because at that point it deserves to be ignored.

Here, for the umpteenth time, is my personal definition of advertising: Performance art, with ROI. Note: performance art. Not static, sit-there-and-look-cool art, but art that reaches out into people’s lives and resonates with them in meaningful, relevant ways. Good advertising in any medium is and always has been fundamentally interactive.

That’s what's exciting and cool about the advertising business. Not that we make art. But that we freakin’ make brands, connections, and sales.
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July 8 2013
Here’s a great little piece about the importance of planning in creating great ads, from Forbes:
Advertising copywriter blog link

The author proposes that the account planner is a key member of the creative team as the keeper of the insights. I agree wholeheartedly, and furthermore agree on the critical importance of the creative brief. But, I’d take it a step further.

I think the more layers between consumers and creatives, the more diluted the creative opportunity. So, ideally, creatives should do their own research, or at least be part of the research team.

Pre-digested insights are often just that: all the good stuff has been leeched out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read reports that essentially cleaved to the mean, while the raw data, buried in the appendices, revealed lateral opportunities perhaps beyond the reach of more-ordered minds.

But, once a report is written and distributed, it’s all but impossible to fight for additional research and insights to follow up promising lines of inquiry. That’s why it’s essential for copywriters and art directors to embrace research as an early part of the creative process.

Great creativity is rooted in discovery. And if you’re not part of the discovery process, then you’re relying on second-hand insights for guidance. That’s not the best way to create.
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July 5 2013
This is sort of akin to the “talking train window” media channel from July 3. A sports network has started digitally superimposing advertising directly onto the baseball playing field. Here’s the story, filled with indignation, from Business Insider:
Advertising copywriter blog link

I think this is, again, a missed opportunity. Digital superimposition can be a very useful communication tool. But to use it to show static logos to television viewers in a way that replicates the fake reality of a videogame, well, that’s just a waste of technology and ad dollars.

And I can’t help thinking how much cooler it could be, if it only had a concept.
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July 4 2013
Here’s an Independence Day quickie. What radio in India needs, according to this op-ed piece, is more creative radio commercials. Here it is, from RadioandMusic.com:
Advertising copywriter blog link

Radio advertising may be something that old-school creatives simply do better than newcomers. We remember radio dominance. We know how to create massively memorable campaign images in “the theater of the mind.” And we know how to use radio to build brands, shift perceptions, and make sales, because we’ve done it.

So hey, if you’re advertising in India, on the radio, perhaps what’s needed – for your business and for the good of radio in general – is to outsource the concepting phase. Let someone (such as, oh, me, for instance) develop a visually iconic concept for your radio ad campaign that can then be turned over to native-language copywriters.

It’s worth a thought. Because if a medium is creatively underutilized, there’s an opportunity waiting to be seized. And if there’s just one missing piece, why not fill it with a freelancer?
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July 3 2013
A German firm has developed a way to transmit advertising messages to weary commuters resting their heads against train windows via bone conduction. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link

Just because the technology has been developed doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to monetize it right away as an advertising channel. I think the cost the cost to implement and maintain are high, and the cost to resist is low – just rest your head against your coat. Plus, commentary is already leaning toward the negative.

At the same time, I think there’s potential to develop train-window transmission into an advertising channel. But there needs to be relevant content first. I think a stream of audio programming that includes wake-up music in the morning and cool-down music in the evening, quick news briefs a la Tagesshau, and next-stop announcements could set the stage for some nicely targeted, highly localized advertising opportunities.

See, online isn’t the only medium where content is king.
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July 2 2013
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s report that showed, in part, that new media techniques aren’t as effective as old-school multi-media campaigns, mass media, and breakthrough creative, comes this story in my hometown San Diego Union-Tribune (CA) about three companies that are doing just fine building profitable businesses with social media:
Advertising copywriter blog link

Welcome to Marketing, the Real Life Edition: Or, for every case study there’s an equal and opposite case study. However, I’d like to point out a few key factors that the reporter, being neither a marketer nor a marketing researcher, missed.

First is the luck factor, such as just happening to be mentioned by a prominent blogger. Hundreds of thousands of businesses toil in obscurity with their social media efforts. When one catches fire, it becomes newsworthy and reportable precisely because it’s actually a very rare event.

The second is what I call the pre-existing condition factor, such as already having a following or a high search engine ranking from another endeavor. It’s easy to overlook years of work establishing a reputation, online or offline, when a fresh identity takes off using the tactic du jour.

The third factor is time. Many businesses that became successful using social media dove in a few years ago, when social media was relatively untapped and few, if any, competitive businesses were actively building their networks. Now social media is filled with the clamor of, well, everyone, while early adopters have the luxury of defending their turf with both media clout and consumer inertia on their side.

I am hardly a social media naysayer, having benefited from all three of these factors online for more years than most. I’m just saying that these specific success stories, like many others, may resist replication due to strategic factors that too many marketing people overlook.
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July 1 2013
A recent comprehensive study of big data has validated once again the value of creativity in making ads more-effective. Here’s the story, from AdNews (Australia):
Advertising copywriter blog link

This is, of course, mere confirmation of what old-school advertising creatives have known all along: that no matter what your metric, if people ignore you, you won’t move it. So, job #1 is to stand out. Attract. Then intrigue. Then persuade.

Web and social media traffic may be less effective at generating long-term growth and profitability because they tend to submerge the marketing message in an endless stream of so-called content. There’s little attracting beyond capturing the initial buy-in, the attempts to intrigue are commendably ongoing albeit diluted, but in most cases there's almost no persuasion happening. All too often, corporate social media strategy relies on the repetition of creative developed for other media and promotion-based tactics such as discounting.

And as for tight targeting, that used to be the El Dorado of marketers. But now, it’s become its own trap: advertisers become so efficient at reaching the people who already know them that they utterly fail to reach anyone who doesn’t. Growth stagnates, while they talk to an increasingly inbred pool of existing customers. Today’s cock; tomorrow’s feather duster.

The study also validated the correlation between good creative and resistance to price sensitivity. Yes, superior ad creative prevents product commoditization.

However, I think it’s debatable whether any of this success is due to the actual creative, or the creative process, which ferrets out differentiating details and develops ways to communicate them in attention-getting, memorable ways. I think it’s the strategic process itself that makes the creative work; otherwise, good creative may be nothing more than more noise in the ecosystem.

The last line of the article is worth quoting: “Creativity is the link between the data and the customer.” Ayup.
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Backwards in time to June 2013

My experience as a copywriter.

Email me.

Call or fax me.

Phone and fax: (619) 465-6100

Write me.

John Kuraoka, freelance advertising copywriter
6877 Barker Way
San Diego, California
92119-1301

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John Kuraoka, freelance advertising copywriter

www.kuraoka.com (619) 465-6100 Ad Blog: news and views about advertising, branding, marketing, and copywriting July 2013

My experience as a copywriter.

Answers to frequently asked questions.

Advertising & marketing advice.

Me, me, me.

Email me.

Call or fax me.

Write me.

www.kuraoka.com
(619) 465-6100
Ad Blog: news and views about advertising, branding, marketing, and copywriting
July 2013