Ordinary Advertising

It probably seems like an ad must perforce be eye-catching, witty, intelligent, amusing and all the other things one normally associates with a great blind date before I’ll call it extraordinary. And there’s some truth to that.

However, it also needs to be grounded in a solid observation or insight. Otherwise, it’s liable to end up entertaining people without doing beans for the advertiser’s business. And it needs to break the mold in some way, shape or form. Which calls to mind this article I read in The Wall Street Journal the other day.

Twenty-five years ago, Procter & Gamble was on the verge of throwing in the towel on its laundry detergent, Gain, when someone noticed that the brand’s strong fragrance seemed to have a special appeal to one particular segment: the Hispanic market. And realizing this segment was growing, although not necessarily at a rate that would someday have Lou Dobbs frothing at the mouth, P&G decided to position the brand based on its scent instead of its cleaning prowess, a very marked departure from accepted practice at the time.

Sure enough, business went crazy. To the point where today Gain is the #2 brand, doing about $660MM a year and playing no small role in driving rivals Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive clean out of the category.

Now, if what you see here is typical, this is hardly advertising to write casa about. At least not to me. On the other hand, I’m not a huge buyer of laundry detergent. And despite the last name, my taste leans more to La Boheme than Babaloo. So what do I know?

Two things, actually: First, even ordinary advertising can yield exceptional results if it’s rooted in a solid observation and someone’s willing to stick his or her neck out and do something differently–like promoting a laundry detergent for its scent instead of its stain-removing abilities.

And second, it’s still all about sticking your neck out.