http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/
1. What does Marshall McLuhan mean by calling radio a “hot medium”?
2. What economic importance do awards have?
3. What did Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, invent?
4. Who created the world’s shortest radio ad?
5. Who gives the award agencies their power?
6. What does O’Reilly see as the virtues of ad awards?
7. What are some of the reasons that “award-winning ads are hot commodities”?
8. What does Terry O’Reilly see as “unique” about ad competitions? How are ad awards distinguished in this regard from other award bodies, such as the Oscars?
9. Explain what O’Reilly means when he says that the advertising industry “lives in a culture of ‘No’”. How do ad awards affect this situation?
10. What, in Terry O’Reilly’s view, makes the ad about “bull’s testicles” effective and worthy of awards?
11. Why does O’Reilly say that awards are a poor way to measure greatness?
1.
What is retro-branding?
2.
What problem did Juicy Fruit gum have in reviving its brand? How did they
“re-brand” themselves?
3.
What is the difference between a product and a brand?
4.
What is “comparison advertising”?
5.
Why is calling something “new” a common strategy among advertisers?
6.
Explain the law of the advertising jungle that “No brand can survive long by
standing still.”
7.
How did Kellogg’s Special K remarket or re-brand itself effectively?
8.
Explain the role of self-deprecation in re-branding.
9.
From what problem did Cadillac suffer? How did Cadillac attempt to overcome
this difficulty?
10.
What is “brand mortality” and why is it a problem for advertisers?
1.
What is a bellwether? Explain the comparison that Terry O’Reilly makes between
advertising and a bellwether.
2.
Explain the importance of understanding “prevailing tastes and tolerances” for
effective advertising.
3. Give an example of a kind of advertising message that would not have been accepted fifty years ago. By contrast, give an example of a kind of advertising message that was accepted fifty years ago, but would not be accepted today.
4.
What does Terry O’Reilly mean by “Yesterday’s joys are today’s poisons”?
5.
Explain how advertising reflects current societal attitudes about women and
sexuality.
6.
What do “watchdog groups” do? Why must advertisers be careful?
7.
Explain the meaning of the statement: “Social frontiers and boundaries aren’t
written; they’re assumed. And we only tend to notice them when they’re broken.”
8.
Explain Terry O’Reilly’s statements that “Advertising is a reflection of
society,” but also that “Advertising isn’t allowed to reflect society too
accurately.”
9.
Explain what is meant by the phrase “Advertising reflects society as it wants
to see itself.”
10.
Clarify why Terry O’Reilly suggests, “The fault lies not in our ads, but in
ourselves.”
1.
What is “guerrilla marketing”?
2.
What did the Spanish term “guerrilla” mean at its origins?
3.
What is the key to guerrilla marketing?
4.
Why is guerrilla marketing often preferable to more traditional forms of
advertising?
5.
What does Terry O’Reilly claim are the early forerunners of today’s guerrilla
marketing tactics?
6.
How do guerrilla marketing stunts such as dog-vertising and bra-vertising
benefit “the little guy” against the advertising giants?
7.
Explain Jay Conrad Levinson’s statement: “It’s about achieving conventional
goals such as profits and joy with unconventional methods such as investing
energy instead of money.”
8.
How was guerrilla marketing used to good effect in New Mexico to send anti
drinking and driving messages?
9.
What is “ad clutter”? Why does guerrilla marketing sometimes raise public concern
about “ad clutter”?
10.
What is R.O.I.? Why is it important to advertisers?
11.
Why does Terry O’Reilly disagree with the statement by some that “any publicity
is good publicity”?
12.
Explain the allure of the YouTube “Bridezilla” viral messaging/guerrilla ad.
Why was it so effective?
13.
“Commercials as you know them aren’t dead, but they are evolving.” What does
Terry O’Reilly mean by this claim?
14.
What is the downside of guerrilla advertising, according to Terry O’Reilly?
1.
What does the paper grading experiment suggest about names? How does this
lesson work in advertising?
2. Why did some companies with long names reduce them to acronyms? Why might this be effective advertising or branding?
3.
What particular advertising strategy does Digital Domain offer its clients who
have established solid brand names? What can be the pitfall of this strategy?
4.
What is the meaning of the term “Kleenex-itus”?
5.
Explain why the branding of Häagen-Dazs was so effective.
6. How does the internet create new problems for the
development of memorable brand names?
7. Explain how Leif Erikson’s name for Greenland is an early
form of brand name advertising.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cbc_ageofpersuasion
1. What is a
manifesto?
2. Read through
Bob Levinson’s “Do this or die” print ad (reproduced below). What is its
primary insight?
|
DO THIS OR DIE Is this ad some kind of trick? No. But it could have been. And at exactly that point rests a do or die decision for American business. We in advertising, together with our clients, have all the power and skill to trick people. Or so we think. But we're wrong. We can't fool any of the people any of the time. There is indeed a twelve-year-old mentality in this country; every six-year-old has one. We are a nation of smart people. And most smart people ignore most advertising because most advertising ignores smart people. Instead we talk to each other. We debate endlessly about the medium and the message. Nonsense. In advertising, the message itself is the message. A blank page and a blank television screen are one and the same. And above all, the messages we put on those pages and on those television screens must be the truth. For if we play tricks with the truth, we die. Now. The other side of the coin. Telling the
truth about a product demands a product that's worth telling the truth about.
Sadly, so many products aren't. So many products don't do anything better. Or
anything different. So many don't work quite right. Or don't last. Or simply
don't matter. If we also play this trick, we also die. Because advertising
only helps a bad product fail faster. No donkey chases the carrot forever. He
catches on. And quits. That's the lesson to remember. Unless we do, we die.
Unless we change, the tidal wave of consumer indifference will wallop into
the mountain of advertising and manufacturing drivel. That day we die. We'll
die in our marketplace. On our shelves. In our gleaming packages of empty
promises. Not with a bang. Not with a whimper. But by our own skilled hands. |
3. Explain David
Ogilvie’s axiom of advertising that, “The consumer isn’t a moron; she’s your
wife.”
4. Why does Terry
O’Reilly contend that “good advertising must be at least as smart as the
consumer it reaches”?
5. Explain what
Terry O’Reilly means by calling “price loyalty” an oxymoron, and a weak method
of advertising that undermines itself.
6. What is clever
about the Volvo ad?
7. Why is the
development of a “core value” in a brand important? What makes it difficult,
such that advertisers often shy away from it?
8. What is a focus
group? Why is Terry O’Reilly critical of focus groups in advertising?
9. Explain what
Terry O’Reilly means by saying that “in the age of persuasion, comfort is a
dangerous narcotic”?
1. With what
purpose in mind does Terry O’Reilly discuss the example of Orson Wells’ War
of the Worlds radio hoax?
2. What is Ronald
Knox’s claim to fame? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/the_riot_that_never_was.shtml)
3. What does Terry
O’Reilly mean when he says: “Slowly our society graduated from scepticism to
cynicism”?
4. What is
suggested by calling someone a “snake oil” salesman? Explain the origins of the
term “snake oil” in advertising.
5. What is
“subliminal advertising”? What were its claims? What is the real truth about
it?
6. Explain the
significance of the Beatles’ “Sexy Sadie” to Terry O’Reilly’s thesis concerning
cynicism.
7. What is the
lesson behind the Campbell’s soup advertising debacle?
8. Next to “ad
clutter,” what is the other greatest problem or challenge for creating an
effective advertising message?
1. How did YouTube
revolutionize marketing, according to Terry O’Reilly?
2. How has YouTube
changed the way that audiences relate to current events or watch television?
3. Explain what
lesson NBC’s decision to partner strategically with YouTube over the “video
sharing” of “Lazy Sunday” suggests, according to Terry O’Reilly.
4. Why is
“dialogue” with the consumer important for the most effective advertising?
5. What new
approach did Chevrolet take in advertising the Tahoe to facilitate such
“dialogue”? What were its unintended consequences?
6. What does Terry
O’Reilly mean when he says that YouTube has introduced the “adversarial system”
to advertising?
7. What
advertising lesson does Ogilvy Toronto’s short video for Dove called
“Evolution” communicate, according to Terry O’Reilly?
8. What new risks
(as well as pay-offs) are there for advertisers in consumer parodies of their
products that appear on YouTube?
1. What was the
Highway Beautifications Act”?
2. Why is it
suggested, “Billboards violate a contract”? What is the substance of this
contract?
3. Who was Albert
Lasker? What is his great achievement in advertising?
4. How did “brand
sponsors” build on Lasker’s innovation in advertising?
5. What makes
billboards an “interesting” and “unique” form of advertising?
6. How does
telemarketing violate Lasker’s contract?
7. Explain how the
cinema advertising example by CanTel AT&T masterfully upholds the contract,
in Terry O’Reilly’s opinion.
8. How have new
technologies that enable viewers to skip ads affected the way that advertisers
go about their job?
9. What does great
ad creative do, according to Terry O’Reilly?
1. What is
“synesthesia”? What use does it have in advertising?
2. Explain the
“hook and reveal” structure in advertising.
3. What
innovations did Singapore Airlines introduce into its own in-flight ad
branding?
4. What is the
“sixth sense” of brand advertising?
5. Explain what is
meant by saying that “a brand is an experience.”
6. What are
“retail fragrances,” and why are they used by retailers?
7. What marketing
technique has Rolls Royce adopted since modernizing its vehicle designs? Why?
8. Mercedez Benz
developed an entire department of marketing to oversee what particular element
of their vehicle? Why?
9. What does
Coca-Cola fail to understand about its own branding, according to Terry
O’Reilly?
10. Explain how
sensory branding using all five (and even six) senses is the most effective.
1. What does
Canada do very poorly, according to Terry O’Reilly? What does this mean?
2. Why does Terry
O’Reilly call the Beatles a “remarkable brand”?
3. What must a
successful brand continually do if it is to remain relevant, according to Terry
O’Reilly?
4. Why does Terry
O’Reilly laud the Coca-Cola polar bear as a “remarkable brand”?
5. What makes
Oprah Winfrey’s branding so successful?
6. Why does the
Las Vegas brand distinguish itself for Terry O’Reilly?
7. What three
important things happened that allowed Vegas to arise in its current brand
format?
8. What three
things does the Vegas brand represent?
9. What is one of
the most difficult feats for a brand to achieve, according to Terry O’Reilly?
10. What does
Terry O’Reilly mean when he says that Lego is “universal”?
11. How does Lego
renew itself as a brand across the generations?
12. Of what two
components is Mohammed Ali’s brand composed?
13. What
“fascinates” about Ali’s brand, according to Terry O’Reilly?
14. Explain Terry
O’Reilly’s claim that “remarkable brands give us a fascinating insight into
ourselves.”
1. What lesson
about advertising does the example of background actors and central casting
teach?
2. What is the
difference between lead brands, secondary brands, and niche brands?
3. Why is niche
marketing becoming so popular while mainstream “one-size-fits-all” brands are
becoming scarce?
4. What relation
do specialty channels have to the increase in niche advertising?
5. What was TV
marketing like before the advent of speciality channels and niche marketing?
6. Why do car
companies find niche marketing particularly effective?
7. What does the
term “brand extension” mean?
8. How does niche
marketing divide up consumers themselves into unique groups?