Brands: The Honeymoon's Over

We've all heard how "advertising's dead," right?

How come I have this strange feeling that it's just about to start getting real?

Business Week's round-up of 2006's most memorable ads provides clues (subscription required). Here, the opening lines:

Phew! Communications in 2006 was not a total disaster. Far from it. If I had to sum it all up in one simple statement, I would say this was The Year of at Least Trying.

Trying to get away from the clichés, the dogma, the focus groups, the bad precedents, and the bad addy-ads; of trying to experiment with format, with media, and with brand "elasticity." Finally, there were signs of consumers being credited with intelligence.

Almost a decade post-Cluetrain, the relationships between brands and their customers are beginning to show signs of maturity. Focus-groups, those vestigial exercises in groupthink, are giving way to real attempts to understand people's lives, and the place of products, services and experiences within them. Early attempts at actual two-way communication are popping up. Oh, and people are talking to one another behind brands' backs. (As they'd say about Kenny's demise on South Park: "You Bastards!")

One thing that will definitely have to happen is that brands (well, brand managers, actually) will have to get used to hearing the truth. They'll have to get used to hearing that nobody really thinks their shampoo is anything special; that their beer tastes like, well, nothing; that their car looks like it was designed by an 8 year old; that it feels goofy wearing their sexy lingerie on a Thursday afternoon.

This is an important moment in the history of a relationship. Let's call it: entering the "post-honeymoon" phase. You know the signs: your beloved no longer swoons when you enter the room; your casually-strewn garments no longer poignant reminders of your bohemian spirit; your bon mots now oddly jejune.

But, as most of us have come to realize in the best of our real-life relationships, this is the moment of true liberation. Now, we can finally let our hair down, put our feet up, breathe deeply and relax.

(S)he loves me, faults and all.

What's the equivalent in the brand world? Maybe it's humility. We've seen teeny examples of it before: Avis, We're #2;  Motel6, We'll Leave The Light On For You; Dove, For Women With Curves.

Now, those of us who've been in long-term relationships know that this moment does not signal the end of passion. What it does signal is the beginning of appreciation. Appreciation of the relationship's reliability, resilience and subtlety. Appreciation of the small—sometimes tiny—ways that the other delights us: the way the tab on a new box of Wheaties opens smoothly, and cleanly, time after time; the way OS X always recovers from a crash; the way the lardons in the frisee aux lardons at Les Halles magically crunch just right.

But with appreciation comes reality. And, as in real-life relationships, brands that can't accept reality are in for a rough time. As the Business Week piece put it:

The worst thing you can do in this era of ubiquity is edit your consumers' ideas about you.

Kind of like telling your friends at a dinner party that your wife doesn't mind if you stay out all night playing poker; she's cool. Trust me. Your wife will let your friends (and you!) know that she's not that cool.

Just as your customers will let one another know that your car's not that comfortable; that your washing machine doesn't get clothes that clean; that your operating system sucks.

Hey, brand managers: the honeymoon's over. Now it's time to start, you'll pardon the phrase, working on the relationship.

Comments

[Tom Guarriello]

Testing