Eardley Factor Articles: Home: A Strategy Markedly
Improving the Probability of TV Marketing Success
The Eardley
Factor and You
Marketing
Success
Do Your Ads
Match The Eardley Factor Standard of Excellence?
EardleyFactor
Confidently Predicts Bush Victory
Teresa Heinz-Kerry's
Democratic Disconnect
Why John
Kerry Lost
Fox
News 100 Ads Eardley Factor Evaluation
Sublime,
Subliminal, Secrets and Shambles
CNN 100 Ads Eardley
Factor Evaluation
MSNBC 100 Ads
Eardley Factor Evaluation
ABC 100 Ads Eardley
Factor Evaluation
Fox News
37 Ads Eardley Factor Evaluation
Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Our Next President
Eardley Factor Gives Mrs. Snowball the "Cold
Shoulder"
Predicting
Election 2008 Through the Lens of Eardley Factor Analysis
The
Race to the White House
Obama
on the Slide
`Walking
the Plank' or `Jumping Ship?'
McCain
Back from the Brink
Neuromarketing
the Next Big Idea?
Market
Research the Poor Relation
'Head
On' Proves the Point
Dollar
Woes Spell Doom
Smell:
The Sense We Neglect
Bits and
Pieces
Primary
Dyspepsia
Don't
be afraid of the 'Holy Grail'
Mother's
Milk Can Turn Women On!
For Love
or Money
When
Life was Brutish and Short
Is
Bob Prechter Right?
Torture?
What Torture!
Dollar
Weakness Now Critical
Telling
it like it is
Eardley Factor Gives Mrs. Snowball the "Cold Shoulder"
The interview section of The Independent's Media Weekly 17th July, 2006 invites us to take note of Abbot, Mead and Vickers new Chairman - none other than a Staffordshire lass with the unlikely but genuine name of Cilla Snowball. Ian Burrell recognizes her as the most powerful woman in British Advertising. Eardley Factor was curious. Mrs. Snowball has in the past been associated with Unilever, Rountree, and Ogilvy and Mathers. Her C.V. is impressive.
Burrell invites us to review her most recent creation, intriguingly entitled "noitulovE" - which, we are informed is evolution spelled backwards. The "ad" purports to display elements of wry humour, storytelling, and to be at one and the same time a metaphor for life in general. We note five images - starting with a fiendish "Neanderthal" figure screaming into the abyss which evolves in the succeeding four "stages" into a sophisticated "homo-sapiens", taking pleasure in the Celtic nectar.
Mrs. Snowball's offering was recently awarded "The Grand PRIX" in Cannes. Howerver, the Eardley Factor rates this as a disastrous "three". How does the Eardley Factor conclude that the judges have it so wrong? Read the explanation.
It has become increasingly clear to the Eardley Factor analysts that the advertising industry has little or no understanding of the manner in which human "wants" and "needs" can be modified and manipulated. Their major weakness is the marketeers insatiable lust for recognition. Marketing is usually associated with creativity. Everyone wishes to be "creative", to have that special gift - poet like - God given, even - to light up the world. The truth is that successful advertising is neither wholly creative nor entirely scientific. It is a combination of the two. The Eardley Factor is unique, in that it is the only process or system which recognizes these truths and implements them in our analyses.
Mrs. Snowball may have had her past successes - and we are quick to recognize these - but make no mistake "NoitulovE", the current offering will not be one of them. Winning prizes awarded by judges whose criteria may well be diverse and somewhat compromised by politics is not the same as producing work which results directly in a significant spike in sales. This is our sole criterion of success. In our analysis the desired results always work in tandem. Clever ads are not the same as successful ads. The recent short lived TV ad by "Ford Bold" by CEO Ford to attract younger drivers was a case in point. "NoitulovE" is a negative ad because it causes negative thoughts. Ask any objective observer what one recalls after a cursory glance at this production. It is the Neanderthal, of course. Homo-Sapiens (forgive the pun) is much lower down the perception scale. The residual effect is to associate Guinness as a beverage for ape like creatures. Yes, we appreciate that rationally, that is not what the ad is telling us. However, unfortunately for A.M.V. and hosts of other agencies, that is what the mind believes that it has been told.
Negativity so often slips into advertising without the creative team being aware. It often passes for humour or smartness, rather like the punchline of a joke. We believe that humour and punchlines are extremely destructive and should not be attempted until and unless the "creator" fully appreciates their forward impact.
"Advertising Age" the Marketeers Bible, makes fascinating reading. Our interest at Eardley Factor is currently focused on the large number of companies who switch agencies. We have to conclude that the "creative" teams are singularly unable to recreate their successes. They are unable to recreate success due to their inability to understand precisely how sensory input in combination or as a single entity will be interpreted by a cultural group which has been exposed to a broadly similar agglomeration of "life events".
Unless and until Marketeers come to appreciate these truths - success in advertising will arrive more by good luck than by good judgment.
Robert Jack Eardley, M.D.
Robert Francis Eardley, Cert. Ed., B.A.
3366 Commodore Drive
e-mail: robertfrancis@eardley.org
Lexington, Kentucky 40502-3602
(859) 229-7714
For those interested e-mail
inquiry@eardleyfactor.com
or
robertjack@eardley.org