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Advertising Legends
BY Ninart Lui
BY Ninart Lui
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Shelly Lazarus
TAXI >>During the inaugural World Effie Festival, you immediately sought to distinguish “effectiveness” from “creativity for creativity’s sake” – which is harder to achieve, in your opinion (bearing in mind some effective campaigns aren’t creative, and some campaigns which win awards don’t sell), and why?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think what’s hard to achieve is both. It’s easy doing great creativity if you don’t have to worry about whether anybody is going to buy anything at the end of the day, and I think you can just deliver a message in a very straightforward way if you don’t care at all about the art of communications. But I think what’s really hard is finding a message that charms and delights people, and at the same time, either makes them more aware of something or changes their preference or builds up the assessment of brands for them. I think that balance is really hard to achieve, but I would always say that unless you asked the question did anything happen as a result of this advertising, you’re never going to get to whether the answer is creativity or effectiveness.
I think we’re making a mistake when someone talks about measurement, because you’re pulling all the pieces apart and they try to get an exact quantitative measure of viral marketing, etc.. To me it’s just one big cocktail where you put all the pieces together. People consume information about a brand from a hundred places, but the only question you really have to ask is if, at the end of the day, did it change their mind or change their behavior, and to me the only real measure is sales. You don’t have to break it apart and measure each piece, you just have to sit back and ask after you have been running a program for a while with all its pieces, "Did sales increase?" Because that, to me, is the only measure you really should worry about.
TAXI >>“We Sell, Or Else” – this is the Ogilvy mantra that you are well familiar with. How do you feel about the growing number of entries submitted by advertising agencies featuring pro-bono campaigns, of which the agencies are willing to absorb the costs in order to win awards? Is there any value in this at all, or is this purely an exercise in creativity “for creativity’s sake”?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think they do because they are using communications for a very legitimate and worthy ends. If advertising makes people get tested for disease, or wear helmets when they go out on motor scooters, or whatever the pro bono goal is, that’s a very good thing, and that can also be measured by the way people’s behavior change. Not sales, but sales is a commercial measure. I think what you really want communications to do is to either change people’s minds or change their behavior, because eventually one of those two things are going to result in a transaction one way or another.
TAXI >>“Great brands are almost impossible to kill” – however, so many brands these days are forgettable. What distinguishs a truly great brand? Is it purely emotional differentiation?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think it’s a measure of the attachment and loyalty that someone has to a brand. The classic way to measure loyalty is if, this brand were not available in the store, would you leave the store and go to another store. If I want a Coca-Cola and I go to a store and they only have a Pepsi, do I take the Pepsi? Or do I leave the store and go to another store. I think it’s emotional and rational, I think those people would tell you they prefer the taste of Coca-Cola. I think the strongest brands have elements of both emotion and rational attachments.
We’re talking about a relationship that consumers have with brands. I don’t think consumers can have a relationship without emotion attached to it, I think you can’t have a strong brand without having some kind of emotional attachment to it, one way or another.
TAXI >>The Dove Evolution campaign is controversial, yet has swept more advertising awards than any other campaign. In building a brand, Dove had created a community. However isn’t there a danger of people actually identifying with the community of self empowerment more than they do the brand of products itself, and is this sufficient to generate sales especially in a campaign that doesn’t even feature its products?
Shelly Lazarus>>First of all it did generate sales, so we know that but I’m not surprised by it. This goes back to question of how you build a brand and how you think about the emotional elements vs the rational ones, and I said both have to be present. What happened with Dove is that deepens the relationship, because it adopted the point of view about real beauty. I think it made the brand much more important to women, it made them relate to it much more strongly, and so when they were in the store and were going to buy a shampoo or a deodorant or cleansing bar, it was just so much more likely that they would reach out and buy Dove. In the best of possible worlds you have emotional attachment, at the same time you have a product that performs brilliantly. So when you have both the rational and emotional elements, that’s when you really have magic.
TAXI >>Social media is set to grow but with the least amount of information and experience, yet consumers spend a great amount of time on it – what is the one thing you would advise your clients based on this phenomena, and why?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think what we have to do is continue to explore how we can use social media as advertising vehicle because it’s not obvious. I don’t think the old solutions of banner ads are going to work with social media, there’s got to be a whole different way to engage and what I would advise people is to keep experimenting because we don’t yet know what the answer is.
TAXI >>With novel mediums such as new media and mobile marketing being all the rage right now, is traditional media on its way out?
Shelly Lazarus>>We’ve never had any instance where any form of new media has displaced the media that came before it. People just add to their repertoire, so they just consuming media in different places, and it’s becoming more fragmented, but I don’t think it means that people would stop watching television or reading magazines. The way they spend the amount of time doing it will change, but I don’t think the old media will go away.
TAXI >>You have adopted a “pessimistic view” about consumer generated content, viewing it as generally not good. However, as society becomes increasingly technologically savvy, won’t the general output generated rise to match consumption, as befits a gradually maturing market?
Shelly Lazarus>>– I think it’s a novelty now and there are certain people who are going to do amazing things on the Internet that people are going to seek out and want to watch, but the majority of consumer-generated content is really not very good, or very interesting. And once the novelty wears off, that we can create things and watch each other’s films and performances and all that, I just think that there will be people who will be discovered on the internet, who can show the world what they are capable of creating, but for the most part this rush to have everything consumer generated is going to fade out .
There are people who are better at some things, people who are just innately talented in creating stories and films and music, and they tend to be people who are working in these fields. As I said, we will certainly discover people here and there, but for the most part the people who are still going to create things that will make the rest of us catch our breath, are still going to be professional people who are already working in these areas.
I’ve worked in advertising for over 30 years, I can’t create headlining visuals or commercials the way very talented people who do this every day can. I can’t come close to it and I accept that, so I don’t try even though I can now. I can create things on the internet but I leave that to the people who are innately talented in these things.
TAXI >>How do you feel the relationship between advertisers and designers has changed over the years, and how has advertising evolved to accommodate design, apart from just introducing it as a category in major advertising award ceremonies?
Shelly Lazarus>>– I think the whole thing has become much more intertwined and collaborative, because most of us have the recognition that the real business that we’re in is the business of building brands, and that design plays a crucial role in the building of brands, in the strengthening of brands. I think at least at Ogilvy from the start of every project where we’re thinking about building a brand or transforming a brand, designers are present from the start of the conversation. We’ve just done some work for a rather long-lived beverage product and we started the presentation with a new visual language and a whole new approach to packaging. No one talked about advertising for the first 45 mins of the presentation, it was just all about design, how do you bring to life the brand just through the design elements that you have, it was just a wonderful brand conversation.
What would Apple be without design? It’s all about design, just intertwined in what the product’s all about. We’ve done work for years for Thinkpads, it’s all about design, it starts there and everything comes from that We just have to integrate everything we do together if the goal is in fact help a client get to a stronger brand.
TAXI >>What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Shelly Lazarus>> Everything we do is about Brand Transformation. Well first of all, the word is always there, trying things, experiment. Within Ogilvy, for example, David Ogilvy used to always talk about Divine Discontent, which is never good enough - can you push it further, can you do more, can you try it a different way. To me it’s always a word that’s in front of my mind when I’m thinking about work.
(When told Steve Hayden's "WORD" was Cybernetics) I never understand what Steve says, I’ve got no idea what he meant by that!
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Jerry Della Femina
Jerry Della Femina>>I won’t be remembered, and that’s good.
TAXI >>"I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on" – what comes next after advertising?
Jerry Della Femina>>Death.
TAXI >>You once said "Make every ad work – don't lean on your campaign". Many ad campaigns today focus on a holistic experience for the consumer, interlinking interactive and innovative media to provide peepholes of information into an entire community built for the sole purpose of the campaign. No one element of the campaign stands alone. How do you feel about this shift in paradigm?
Jerry Della Femina>>It’s progress, it’s the future, I’m totally in favor of it.
TAXI >>Being at the center of so much controversy in your years of advertising, how do you deal with negative attention, or is all attention a good thing?
Jerry Della Femina>>Any attention is wonderful. I don’t mind being hated.
TAXI >>Your particular brand of advertising is typified by aggressive and sometimes confrontational humour. Given the culturally fragmented landscape of the global environment today, what has been the biggest difficulty in adapting your campaigns for the global market, where many factors might become lost in translation?
Jerry Della Femina>>People like to laugh in any language.
rong>TAXI >>Having broken into the advertising industry with neither a proper resume nor a "traditional" background and become such a runaway success, how important are paper qualifications to you in your hiring process?
Jerry Della Femina>>Absolutely not important at all. I don’t care where they went to school or who their parents are – I’m only interested in talent.
TAXI >>What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Jerry Della Femina>>Creativity.
..........................................................................................................
Read OTHER INTERVIEWS on DESIGN LEADERS
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© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Interview with Shelly Lazarus
 | TAXI >>Hello Shelly. Being a “runner”, what keeps you from getting bored with what you do?
Shelly Lazarus>>The nature of our business right now, is it's all changing so rapidly. I think we’re truly pioneers with new media, and we don’t know what the answers are. Every day we’re trying new things and it’s hard to get bored when everything’s changing everyday. I think the other thing is that, one of the great things about what I do, is that I work with so many different clients. I’ve got so many different companies with so many different missions and objectives that if I find myself starting to get a little bored with one set of questions that I have to deal with for a client, I just move on to the next and come back to the first set of questions the next day. There are probably 35 clients that I deal directly with and every day they have new questions – I find that very challenging, it’s impossible to get bored. |
TAXI >>During the inaugural World Effie Festival, you immediately sought to distinguish “effectiveness” from “creativity for creativity’s sake” – which is harder to achieve, in your opinion (bearing in mind some effective campaigns aren’t creative, and some campaigns which win awards don’t sell), and why?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think what’s hard to achieve is both. It’s easy doing great creativity if you don’t have to worry about whether anybody is going to buy anything at the end of the day, and I think you can just deliver a message in a very straightforward way if you don’t care at all about the art of communications. But I think what’s really hard is finding a message that charms and delights people, and at the same time, either makes them more aware of something or changes their preference or builds up the assessment of brands for them. I think that balance is really hard to achieve, but I would always say that unless you asked the question did anything happen as a result of this advertising, you’re never going to get to whether the answer is creativity or effectiveness.
I think we’re making a mistake when someone talks about measurement, because you’re pulling all the pieces apart and they try to get an exact quantitative measure of viral marketing, etc.. To me it’s just one big cocktail where you put all the pieces together. People consume information about a brand from a hundred places, but the only question you really have to ask is if, at the end of the day, did it change their mind or change their behavior, and to me the only real measure is sales. You don’t have to break it apart and measure each piece, you just have to sit back and ask after you have been running a program for a while with all its pieces, "Did sales increase?" Because that, to me, is the only measure you really should worry about.
TAXI >>“We Sell, Or Else” – this is the Ogilvy mantra that you are well familiar with. How do you feel about the growing number of entries submitted by advertising agencies featuring pro-bono campaigns, of which the agencies are willing to absorb the costs in order to win awards? Is there any value in this at all, or is this purely an exercise in creativity “for creativity’s sake”?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think they do because they are using communications for a very legitimate and worthy ends. If advertising makes people get tested for disease, or wear helmets when they go out on motor scooters, or whatever the pro bono goal is, that’s a very good thing, and that can also be measured by the way people’s behavior change. Not sales, but sales is a commercial measure. I think what you really want communications to do is to either change people’s minds or change their behavior, because eventually one of those two things are going to result in a transaction one way or another.
TAXI >>“Great brands are almost impossible to kill” – however, so many brands these days are forgettable. What distinguishs a truly great brand? Is it purely emotional differentiation?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think it’s a measure of the attachment and loyalty that someone has to a brand. The classic way to measure loyalty is if, this brand were not available in the store, would you leave the store and go to another store. If I want a Coca-Cola and I go to a store and they only have a Pepsi, do I take the Pepsi? Or do I leave the store and go to another store. I think it’s emotional and rational, I think those people would tell you they prefer the taste of Coca-Cola. I think the strongest brands have elements of both emotion and rational attachments.
We’re talking about a relationship that consumers have with brands. I don’t think consumers can have a relationship without emotion attached to it, I think you can’t have a strong brand without having some kind of emotional attachment to it, one way or another.
TAXI >>The Dove Evolution campaign is controversial, yet has swept more advertising awards than any other campaign. In building a brand, Dove had created a community. However isn’t there a danger of people actually identifying with the community of self empowerment more than they do the brand of products itself, and is this sufficient to generate sales especially in a campaign that doesn’t even feature its products?
Shelly Lazarus>>First of all it did generate sales, so we know that but I’m not surprised by it. This goes back to question of how you build a brand and how you think about the emotional elements vs the rational ones, and I said both have to be present. What happened with Dove is that deepens the relationship, because it adopted the point of view about real beauty. I think it made the brand much more important to women, it made them relate to it much more strongly, and so when they were in the store and were going to buy a shampoo or a deodorant or cleansing bar, it was just so much more likely that they would reach out and buy Dove. In the best of possible worlds you have emotional attachment, at the same time you have a product that performs brilliantly. So when you have both the rational and emotional elements, that’s when you really have magic.
TAXI >>Social media is set to grow but with the least amount of information and experience, yet consumers spend a great amount of time on it – what is the one thing you would advise your clients based on this phenomena, and why?
Shelly Lazarus>>I think what we have to do is continue to explore how we can use social media as advertising vehicle because it’s not obvious. I don’t think the old solutions of banner ads are going to work with social media, there’s got to be a whole different way to engage and what I would advise people is to keep experimenting because we don’t yet know what the answer is.
TAXI >>With novel mediums such as new media and mobile marketing being all the rage right now, is traditional media on its way out?
Shelly Lazarus>>We’ve never had any instance where any form of new media has displaced the media that came before it. People just add to their repertoire, so they just consuming media in different places, and it’s becoming more fragmented, but I don’t think it means that people would stop watching television or reading magazines. The way they spend the amount of time doing it will change, but I don’t think the old media will go away.
TAXI >>You have adopted a “pessimistic view” about consumer generated content, viewing it as generally not good. However, as society becomes increasingly technologically savvy, won’t the general output generated rise to match consumption, as befits a gradually maturing market?
Shelly Lazarus>>– I think it’s a novelty now and there are certain people who are going to do amazing things on the Internet that people are going to seek out and want to watch, but the majority of consumer-generated content is really not very good, or very interesting. And once the novelty wears off, that we can create things and watch each other’s films and performances and all that, I just think that there will be people who will be discovered on the internet, who can show the world what they are capable of creating, but for the most part this rush to have everything consumer generated is going to fade out .
There are people who are better at some things, people who are just innately talented in creating stories and films and music, and they tend to be people who are working in these fields. As I said, we will certainly discover people here and there, but for the most part the people who are still going to create things that will make the rest of us catch our breath, are still going to be professional people who are already working in these areas.
I’ve worked in advertising for over 30 years, I can’t create headlining visuals or commercials the way very talented people who do this every day can. I can’t come close to it and I accept that, so I don’t try even though I can now. I can create things on the internet but I leave that to the people who are innately talented in these things.
TAXI >>How do you feel the relationship between advertisers and designers has changed over the years, and how has advertising evolved to accommodate design, apart from just introducing it as a category in major advertising award ceremonies?
Shelly Lazarus>>– I think the whole thing has become much more intertwined and collaborative, because most of us have the recognition that the real business that we’re in is the business of building brands, and that design plays a crucial role in the building of brands, in the strengthening of brands. I think at least at Ogilvy from the start of every project where we’re thinking about building a brand or transforming a brand, designers are present from the start of the conversation. We’ve just done some work for a rather long-lived beverage product and we started the presentation with a new visual language and a whole new approach to packaging. No one talked about advertising for the first 45 mins of the presentation, it was just all about design, how do you bring to life the brand just through the design elements that you have, it was just a wonderful brand conversation.
What would Apple be without design? It’s all about design, just intertwined in what the product’s all about. We’ve done work for years for Thinkpads, it’s all about design, it starts there and everything comes from that We just have to integrate everything we do together if the goal is in fact help a client get to a stronger brand.
TAXI >>What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Shelly Lazarus>> Everything we do is about Brand Transformation. Well first of all, the word is always there, trying things, experiment. Within Ogilvy, for example, David Ogilvy used to always talk about Divine Discontent, which is never good enough - can you push it further, can you do more, can you try it a different way. To me it’s always a word that’s in front of my mind when I’m thinking about work.
(When told Steve Hayden's "WORD" was Cybernetics) I never understand what Steve says, I’ve got no idea what he meant by that!
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Jerry Della Femina
 | TAXI >>Hello Jerry. Congratulations on your induction into the One Club Hall of Fame, as it first solo recipient. Irreverence in advertising has been one of your distinctive trademarks throughout the span of your career. How does one draw the line between irreverence, and irrelevance?
Jerry Della Femina>>Irreverence makes at least one person mad. TAXI >>Being one of the prime movers and shakers of the Latin American advertising scene, what would you say is the biggest hurdle involved in getting the rest of the world to recognize the amount of talent found there? Jerry Della Femina>>I won’t be remembered, and that’s good. TAXI >>Having garnered numerous awards under your belt and named one of the "100 most influential advertising people of the century" by Advertising Age, what is the one thing this "street kid from Brooklyn" wants to be remembered for? |
Jerry Della Femina>>I won’t be remembered, and that’s good.
TAXI >>"I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on" – what comes next after advertising?
Jerry Della Femina>>Death.
TAXI >>You once said "Make every ad work – don't lean on your campaign". Many ad campaigns today focus on a holistic experience for the consumer, interlinking interactive and innovative media to provide peepholes of information into an entire community built for the sole purpose of the campaign. No one element of the campaign stands alone. How do you feel about this shift in paradigm?
Jerry Della Femina>>It’s progress, it’s the future, I’m totally in favor of it.
TAXI >>Being at the center of so much controversy in your years of advertising, how do you deal with negative attention, or is all attention a good thing?
Jerry Della Femina>>Any attention is wonderful. I don’t mind being hated.
TAXI >>Your particular brand of advertising is typified by aggressive and sometimes confrontational humour. Given the culturally fragmented landscape of the global environment today, what has been the biggest difficulty in adapting your campaigns for the global market, where many factors might become lost in translation?
Jerry Della Femina>>People like to laugh in any language.
rong>TAXI >>Having broken into the advertising industry with neither a proper resume nor a "traditional" background and become such a runaway success, how important are paper qualifications to you in your hiring process?
Jerry Della Femina>>Absolutely not important at all. I don’t care where they went to school or who their parents are – I’m only interested in talent.
TAXI >>What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Jerry Della Femina>>Creativity.
..........................................................................................................
Read OTHER INTERVIEWS on DESIGN LEADERS
..........................................................................................................
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
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